Why I ignored your social proof

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I remember an email once in which marketer Ben Settle wrote,

“Ignore social proof when buying.”

I reckon that was a sweetly pointless message, since in his very next email, Ben sent a testimonial to convince people to buy his offer.

Yesterday, I sent out an email with a job posting for a content writer. I got lots of responses, and witnessed lots of selling strategies and offers.

As I read through these applications, I floated up and above my own body, and observed my own reactions. Here’s one surprising revelation from that out-of-body experience:

A few people sent me testimonials for themselves or their work, or fancier still, they included a link to testimonials on their site.

I just frowned at this. “What good are testimonials to me?” I said. “I know exactly what I’m looking for, and either I see it here in the application, or I don’t.”

I thought about this afterwards.

It’s a rare situation when we know exactly what we want.

Most of the time, we are vague on what we want, how that should look, and even why we want it. So we ping the environment for clues. That’s why social proof is so good in so many situations.

Yes, like my job listing yesterday shows, there are situations when it makes no sense to provide social proof, and where it might even work against you. But such situations are vanishingly rare.

​​It probably doesn’t make much sense to worry about it, not unless you’re applying for a job where the customer or client hyper-clearly spells out what he is looking for.

So my only advice today is to flip the above story inside out, and to repeat what Ben Settle said:

Ignore social proof when buying.

​​Instead, make up your own mind.

And if you do ever read a testimonial or endorsement, treat it for what it is — somebody leaning over to you at the roulette table and whispering in your ear, “I suggest betting on red. It worked for me last week and I won a bunch o’ boodle.”

​​It might be sound advice… but only if you’re playing with money you can afford to lose.

That’s my public service announcement for today. Tomorrow, like Ben did a while back, I’ll probably send you a testimonial, one to sell my Copy Riddles course.

But that’s tomorrow. Today, I’ll just point out that there are lots of very clear and very good reasons you might want to join Copy Riddles even if this were the first time I were offering this training, even if it had zero social proof, and in fact even if you knew little to nothing about me personally.

All those reasons are spelled out on the first two and a half pages of the Copy Riddles sales letter. If you’d like to read that so you can make up your own mind, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Hiring a content writer who can write a fascinating investigative article

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I’m looking for a writer, somebody who can write a long-form article that will go on the website of my health newsletter.

The topic is, “How Big Tobacco started addicting food companies.”

The starting point for this article is an academic paper that came out last month on exactly this topic.

Your job, should you convince me you’re the right person for it, will be to take ideas from that academic paper… do additional research you might want to do… dramatize… make it all sticky… tell a story… draw out some surprising conclusions… and produce a piece of writing that’s new and fascinating for a real, live, intelligent human being to read and that makes such a human want to share the article with others.

I’m not looking for SEO fluff, but something written for actual people.

​​I’m fine if you want to use any AI tools to research or write this.

​​I don’t have a specific number of words in mind — I’m imagining something around 1k-2k words, though I’m not in any way set on that.

If you are interested in doing this job:

1. Hit reply
​
2. Tell me that you can write a fascinating article on the topic above

​3. Give me proof for statement 2 above. Tell me, or better yet, show me, whatever you think is relevant to persuade me that you are able to do this work and do it well

​4. Tell me what you want to charge for this work (Hint: saying you will do it for free is not a winning strategy)

For now, I am just advertising this to my list. I am willing to go on Upwork in a day or two and advertise there as well. However, I’m hoping to find the perfect person via my list, and quickly.

​​That’s to say, if you are interested in this job, don’t put off writing me — I hope to hear from you soon.

Pride as proof element

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I was on a call with one of my coaching students recently. He had added some new features to his subscription offer. He was excited and enthusiastic about it, and so he wrote up one of his daily emails to announce it.

I thought this was great, and I told him so.

Not necessarily for the feature or even what it would do for his customers, though that was solid. But the real thing that was great was my student’s excitement and enthusiasm around the whole thing.

My very first big direct response copywriting client was Josh Dunlop. Josh hired me via Upwork in early 2016, some 6 months after I decided to work as freelance copywriter. Back then, Josh had a 7-figure site selling photography courses. I’m guessing it’s even bigger now.

I remember talking to Josh at some point and hearing him say he’s particularly proud of one of his courses. That stuck with me. I put it into an email that sold that course, and it did well. I guess it resonated with his readers too. I’ve been using it ever since.

In his book How to Write a Good Advertisement, Vic Schwab lists 17 types of proof. As far as I can see, “pride in your work” is not among them. But it should be.

People normally cannot judge the quality of your offer before they buy it. They might not be able to judge it even after. But they sure can judge your emotions around what you sell.

​​So if you are proud of what you sell, highlight that, so people know it, and so they have an easier time making up their own minds. Speaking of:

As I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, I’m proud of my Copy Riddles course.

​​I’m proud of the initial concept for the course… I’m proud of the way I managed to carry it out and the learning experience I provided for people who get it… I’m proud of the feedback I’ve gotten, including from people whose jobs and careers have been positively impacted by this training.

Of course, pride is not the only proof element I have to show you that Copy Riddles is a worthwhile investment. For the full presentation, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Business opportunity: Coat of Arms email address

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This morning, as all mornings, I got up, opened the balcony doors, sat down on the couch, and started looking at new subscribers to my health newsletter. That’s an ugly addiction I formed in the first few months of my new newsletter, thanks to an early success.

I was doing the same back when I had only a couple hundred subscribers, when one morning, I saw that the CEO of the Oura Ring company had signed up to my newsletter.

Like a crypto fiend, I’ve been checking my new subscribers ever since, hoping for that same fix.

But while my subscriber list keeps growing, I’ve never found another new subscriber of the same caliber. Still, I make a point every day to look up anyone with a custom domain name.

Today, I got a signup from, let’s say, bill@shackleford.com. The “bill” part is not real, but the domain is. I checked it out so you don’t have to. Here’s what I found:

===

Find your @shackleford.com email address

Swap out your generic email address for a professional and clear your firstname@shackleford.com email. Grab yours now.

===

The price for this professional and clear service? $35/month.

What a great business idea.

I mean, stamping out another email account if you already have website hosting is free. These guys charge $35/month for it!

But is this still an opportunity? Won’t all these family name domains be taken?

I think the opportunity might still be there. I did the lightest bit of detective work and looked up grinell.com, which according to a census site is a last name of comparable frequency to Shackleford.

The domain is for sale. I don’t know for how much. But I can imagine that, across the entire universe of mildly common last names, you could find at least a few dozen or a few hundred .com domains that you could acquire for a reasonable price.

“Great,” you might say, “and then I have a stupid grinell.com domain. How would I possibly persuade any Grinells to actually use my custom email address?”

That’s the beauty of my plan. Because that entire marketing funnel has already been done for you, some 60 years ago.

I’m talking about Gary Halbert’s Coat of Arms letter. You could even use the original product — a framed report about the history of the Grinell family name — as a kind of loss leader to get people onto your email address subscription.

(Incidentally, if any Bejakovics are reading this right now who would like to get their very own firstname@bejakovic.com email address, write to me. It’s just $35/month, and I will tell you all I know about the illustrious and warlike Bejakovic clan, going two generations back.)

Maybe your greed glands have been set a-workin’ by my Coat of Arms plan.

But maybe you’re wondering what I’m on about.

So let me say that the bigger point of my email today is that key appeals, ones that worked 60 or 160 years ago, are most likely still around.

The specific products, the ways to satisfy those appeals might change.

But people’s desire for locking down and celebrating their family heritage… for free money from the government… for getting rich in real estate… for manifesting their thoughts into reality… all those worked a century ago, and they will still work today.

Don’t like any of those appeals?

Then let me tell you about another appeal that worked a century ago, which still works today.

That’s the appeal of new, money-making skills. For a specific way to get yourself a particularly lucrative set of such skills, more quickly than you might ever believe, I’ll refer you to the page below. It’s also courtesy of Gary Halbert:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

The best argument against money-back guarantees on the Internet

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I was just listening to an interview with Vic Conant, the president of Nightingale-Conant.

As you might know, Nightingale-Conant is a big info publishing company. For decades, they dominated the self-help and sales audiotape market, with lots of big-name gurus on their roster. Their original guru was Earl Nightingale, who influenced Dan Kennedy and everyone on down.

One question posed to Conant was about the most profitable idea he’s used to market his products online or offline. Here’s what Conant replied:

===

It’s been this ‘open accounts’ idea. When we advertise, we typically say, “Try this product for 30 days on ‘open account,’ or at our risk for free, basically. We’ll send it out to you, you try it, and we have the risk on our side.”

My dad came up with that idea back in about 1978. We were asking at that time for people to send in $50 and we’d send them the product. And that just wasn’t working to a great degree. We tried this and it worked very well and because of that our business exploded.

===

The interviewer, Michael Senoff, asked a clarifying question:

“When someone orders, do they put a credit card down, but it’s not charged until 30 days later?”

Conant shook his head. “No. Typically it’s nothing. Just strictly bill-me-later.”

I thought this was very interesting. Because I don’t offer money-back guarantees on my expensive courses, like Copy Riddles.

​​I certainly don’t give them away for free for 30 days and then work to collect my money.

So should I start? For that… let’s go on with the interview.

Michael Senoff asked the obvious followup question. “They responded well, but how is it on the side of your collections? What percentage have you found you have to go chase money?”

Vic Conant replied:

===

We have a very sophisticated collection effort, but it’s basically using guilt. And we’re very sophisticated in picking lists.

In direct marketing, in mail, you pick a list and you test that list. And if you test a list that returns all the products or doesn’t pay, then you don’t use that list any more.

So we tend to use very strong lists like Business Week subscribers, or people that don’t have time to screw around.

===

So there you go. That’s the best argument I’ve heard against money-back guarantees on the Internet, at least the way business is typically done.

On the Internet, you’re not testing in slowly to very strong lists of buyers.

Instead, most businesses, including mine, have an open-door policy. Pretty much anybody can find my website, join my list, have the opportunity to buy. There’s no way to know if that’s a serious business owner with no time to screw around… or an unserious opportunity seeker with all the time in the world for screwing both me and himself around.

But still.

If you’re anything like me, your ears perked up at that original question, “most profitable idea,” and Conant’s reply “open account.”

I thought for a bit. Is there any way to do something like that on the Internet?

I realized I already am doing it.

Really, that’s the point of free daily emails such as these.

​​My courses such as Copy Riddles are very expensive.

​​The point of my free daily emails is to demonstrate — expertise, trustworthiness, valuable or interesting ideas. That’s the open account. And then, once you feel comfortable, you have the opportunity to buy into the next level.

I realize that might take a while, maybe much longer than 30 days. That’s okay. I have time, and I have additional arguments and email ideas. Here’s one I will close with today, from automotive copywriter Kevin Cochrane, who bought into Copy Riddles a while back:

===

Copy Riddles was a measuring stick for me as a copywriter. John charted a course through the persuasion pathways that separate the pros from the posers. The structure is clear. The examples tie direct response history to present applications. The exercises offered a practical way to test and implement the lessons.
​
I write for the automotive retail space, which is watered down by legal teams, compliance guidelines, and plenty of regulation. The course has helped me plunk the guts of what makes a solid bullet into more and more of my work.​​

If you’re hemming and hawing about whether to join, read a week’s worth of John’s daily newsletter as a trial run. You’ll know what to do after. (Hint: the paid stuff in Copy Riddles is even better somehow.) This is the kind of course you’ll refer back to again and again.

===

For when you’re ready:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

7 ways to grow your Twitter following from somone who has never done it

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Along with this daily marketing newsletter, I also have a weekly health newsletter, which I started in January.

Then around April, I started a Twitter account, under a pseudonym, to go along with the health newsletter.

I’ve been posting daily on Twitter for maybe 4 months now. It’s been absolutely worthless in terms of any organic traffic to my health newsletter, or even any engagement on Twitter itself.

I could blame the Twitter algorithm, or simply tell myself to be patient. But it’s not either of those. Instead, the fault lies with the content I put on Twitter — earnest, factual, “should” info, as in, “you should care about this… but you really don’t.”

I have no interest in investing any time to grow my Twitter following, or in changing my approach. What I’m currently doing on Twitter is useful to me as a kind of notepad. Plus I have other ways to grow my newsletter.

But yesterday, I did make a list of 7 types of content I believe would do much better on Twitter, and could get me a growing, engaged audience, perhaps quickly.

I’m sharing this list below because, frankly, it’s also a good lineup of content to put into your daily emails. So here goes, along with a quick “daily email” illustration of what I mean by each category:

1. Inspiration. “There has never been and will never be a better day than today to start an email newsletter.”

2. Tiny tips and tweaks that feel meaningful. “Listicles should either have 7 or 10 items.”

3. Sensational news, or news framed in a sensationalist way. “Breaking! Rob Marsh of The Copywriter Club wrote me directly last night to ask if I want to go on their podcast.”

4. Human stories. “Being slightly inhuman, I’m drawing a blank here.”

5. Personal opinions, particularly if they are dumb. “If you send fewer emails, people will value each of them more.”

6. Predictions, particularly if they are overconfident. “We will see a billion dollar newsletter company in the next year. 100%.”

7. Hobnobbing — referencing, resharing, commenting, agreeing or disagreeing with positions of people who have bigger follower counts than you. “Yesterday and today, Justin Goff sent out two emails about doers vs. spectators. I’m telling you about that because…”

… as I once wrote, I was lucky to read a specific issue of the Gary Halbert Letter, very early in my marketing education. That issue was titled, “The difference between winners and losers.”

In that issue, Gary said with much more vigor what Justin said in his two emails yesterday and today, which is that spectators can never really know what it is to be a player.

Like I said, that influenced me greatly, very early on, in very positive ways. It’s probably the reason why I managed to survive and even succeed as a copywriter and marketer.

It’s also why I profited so much from another Gary Halbert Letter issue, the second-most valuable Gary Halbert issue in my personal experience, which laid out a recipe to develop a specific money-making skill.

In case you’re curious about that money-making skill, or which Gary Halbert Letter issue I have in mind, or in case you yourself want to survive and succeed as a copywriter or marketer, then read the full story here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Djokovic propaganda cliches

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Last night, tennis player Novak Djokovic won the US Open, one of the four major tournaments of the year.

It’s Djokovic’s third win at a major this year and the 24th in his career. This ties him with Margaret Court for most majors won (men or women), and moves him two ahead of his rival Rafael Nadal (22 majors) and four ahead of former rival Roger Federer (20 majors).

I didn’t watch Djokovic win last night. But I read a New York Times article about it this morning. The article said this:

“The nearly 24,000 spectators welcomed him with a massive roar, then showered him with the biggest one when Medvedev dumped a shot into the net to give Djokovic the title…”

That’s new. The last time I wrote about Djokovic was January 2022, when he was detained and then deported from Australia, among general controversy and much hate and contempt world-wide.

I had an entire email back then on why Djokovic was hated so much over the years. He was called a malingerer early in his career… a new-age kook in the mid 2010s… and a dangerous anti-vaxxer over the past few years.

And yet, like the New York Times says, now he’s loved. He’s routinely called a “mental giant” and “undisputed GOAT.”

But I come here not to praise Djoko, nor to bury him.

I simply thought the reaction of the US Open crowd was a great illustration of something interesting that I read in a 100-year old book last night, about the psychology of masses, as opposed to the psychology of individuals:

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The group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits, and emotions. [When the group mind does have to think for itself,] it does so by means of cliches, pat words or images, which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences.

===

That 100-year-old book is Propaganda, by Edward Bernays.

You might have heard of Bernays as the father of public relations.

The entire point of his book, as far as I can see, is that PR is important… that you can’t leave it to chance… and that there are strategies and tactics that allow you to take PR (or propaganda, if you choose) into your own hands.

One such tactic is tacking on a cliche, a simplified and simplistic tag, onto yourself, or even better, onto the alternatives your audience might have to you.

But on to business.

If you haven’t yet checked out my Copy Riddles course, consider doing so.

Copy Riddles is nothing like the many “water off a duck’s back” copywriting courses out there, which tell you stuff that goes in one ear and out the other.

Instead, Copy Riddles gets you writing actual copy, practicing, getting feedback, getting better, day after day, through a gamified process that’s actually fun and enjoyable.

For more info on how this process works:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

An evergreen way to create a spectacle

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At 10 minutes before 12 noon today, I hurried down my street and turned to the Rambla del Poblenou.

It’s Sunday today, and people were out and about, strolling down the sycamore-lined street.

​​As I neared the main intersection in front of the Aliança de Poblenou building, which is the very heart of the neighborhood, the strolling crowds grew more dense and then jammed to a stop.

I stood around for a couple minutes, waiting expectantly.

Then at noon exactly, I saw a group of about two dozen men get in a circle, facing the center of the intersection. ​​All were wearing the same uniform — blue shirts, white pants, black sashes tied tightly around their waists, yellow and red bandanas around their wrists.

The men formed two rows. The ones in the outer row were pushing the ones in the inner row towards the center of the circle. The ones in the inner row were holding up their hands into a kind of team salute.

And them, four other men started climbing up — first up the backs of the outer row men, then over the inner row men.

The new climbers scrambled onto the shoulders of the inner row and then stood up, their arms on each other’s shoulders for balance.

Meanwhile, one more set of four was already clambering up the backs of the people on the first storey… up onto the shoulders of the men in the second storey… and then standing up to form a third storey.

This repeated until the team had formed a human tower, six storeys high, with men at the bottom, young women occupying the middle storeys, and kids wearing helmets at the top.

It’s a Catalan tradition, the castell. Since this weekend is the Festa Major de Poblenou, the yearly celebration of the neighborhood, it was a good time to perform the castell.

Today’s performance reminded me of two things:

First, I thought of Harry Houdini, dangling upside down from the building of the town’s main newspaper at 12 noon and writhing to escape a straightjacket… and second, I thought of Claude Hopkins, dreaming up the world’s biggest cake on the fifth floor of a newly opened department store in Chicago.

In a word:

I thought of spectacle, which happens to be one of the more valuable marketing skills you can have.

So how do you create spectacle?

Some of it is operational. Again, today’s castell happened on Sunday at 12 noon, on a central intersection, and was well advertised. A spectacle is no spectacle unless there are people around to see it.

But once you take care of the operational stuff, you still have the “content” of the spectacle.

How do you do that? How do you create something spectacular in content?

​​I will only point out the obvious from today:

Imagine two storeys of human beings… maybe three.

​​Ho-hum.

But six? And kids up top, 30 feet in the air, looking mildly terrified as the whole thing sways and shivers under the human tonnage?

If you think about that a bit, you will be able to extract a reliable, evergreen way to create the intrigue necessary for the content of a spectacle, which will work even if you’re not Catalan and don’t have a team of castellers to form a human tower.

But on to my offer:

If you want me to spell out this way to create intrigue, you can find it inside Round 3 of my Copy Riddles program. And you can find many more such ways.

Because Rounds 3-6 of Copy Riddles are actually all about creating intrigue.

It takes that many rounds, because this is a big part of what marketing and copywriting is. Most things are not spectacular on their own. It’s the marketer’s or copywriter’s job to take mundane elements, combine them in predictable ways, and create something sexy and new and intriguing.

If you go through Copy Riddles, you will start to exercise your own spectacle-conjuring faculties.

​​Plus, you will see how some of the best copywriters in the world dun it, and learn a thing or six from them.

​​For more info on Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

My frustrating experience shipping alcohol overseas

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This morning, I wired money to Daniel Throssell for his share of the Copy Riddles sales made over the past week. But I wanted to send Daniel something more than just an email notification of a wire transfer.

I know Daniel has this message in his signoff:

“Fan mail, death threats and gifts of expensive whisky can be dispatched via messenger kangaroo to:”

“All right,” I said. As a first step, I found an article, “24 Best Alcohol Delivery Services in Australia.”

I went to the website of one of those 24 best alcohol delivery services in Australia.

I added a bottle of Oban to my cart.

Five years ago, I visited the Oban distillery in Oban, Scotland. It was a rare highlight of an otherwise miserable trip, plagued by cold, food poisoning, and a terrifying ride in a van down the wrong side of the road.

Those memories flooded back as I filled out the form with Daniel’s PO Box and my billing details. I clicked the “Is this a gift?” option, and I wrote a little note to Daniel, explaining why exactly this whisky.

​​I pressed the button to get to the final order page… and… and… loading… almost there… still loading… loading…

I tried again. No.

I tried from beginning. Same thing.

I tried a different browser. It wouldn’t work.

I contacted their support. But nothing I did or they advised would get the order complete or my bottle of 14-year-old Oban on the road.

I exhaled to calm myself. I’d wasted a good 40 minutes fighting with one of the best alcohol delivery services in Australia. “It’s okay,” I told myself in a cheery tone. “I’ve learned something!” I made my way down the list.

The next among Australia’s 24 best alcohol delivery services also sold Oban. But since this was a site that specializes in “business gifts,” the bottle cost 40 dollars more.

I stared hard at the screen. I grunted. Fine.

I filled everything out once again, including the gift message about why exactly this whisky.

Only, once I’d written that message out, I got a notification that it would cost me an extra $5.95 to have the gift card with the message included. I stared in confusion at this notification, and then I got furious. “Oh no you don’t!” I roared. “That’s the straw that broke this donkey’s back!”

I closed down this second website, and I moved on to number 3 on list of the 24 best alcohol delivery services in Australia. My nerves were starting to fray.

The third site did not sell Oban at all. So much for my carefully crafted note to Daniel, explaining why exactly this whisky. But at this point I didn’t care. I was entirely fixated on shipping something brown, in a bottle, with alcohol in it, to Daniel’s PO Box.

This website did not have a “Is this a gift?” option. So not only would there be no note, but perhaps the receipt would go along with the present.

Tacky?

“Efficient!” I told myself, my teeth clenched together, my eyes darting from side to side.

I entered my credit card details, cackled as I watched the order go through, wiped the sweat off my brow, and started to finally relax. And only then did I realize the sun was starting to go down — and I still hadn’t written my daily email.

So no point or takeaway to today’s email. Who’s got time for a takeaway?

Only thing I can perhaps highlight is how dogged I was in making this purchase, in spite of obstacles put in front of me — frustration, time, effort, and even insults by that “business gifts” website.

My point is not that I’m a uniquely determined personality. My point is that this is how people normally shop for stuff they want.

If you haunt copywriting lists, you will hear expert and non-expert copywriters tell you how important it is to reduce friction… to spend time crafting your headline… how good copy matters! And it’s true, at the margins, and at scale, hundreds of sales per day, or thousands, or tens of thousands.

If you play at that level, you will have to get everything right.

But odds are good you are not playing at that level. And so you don’t have to get everything right. You just have to get basic psychology right, and apply it correctly and consistently. People will still buy.

And on that note, consider my Most Valuable Email training. It won’t teach you basic psychology directly, but it will give you a framework for getting basic psychology downloaded into your brain, day after day, by applying the Most Valuable Email trick correctly and consistently.

This might sound confusing, but I can’t explain it better without giving away stuff that I charge for in the course.

All I can tell you is that lots of people have gone through this Most Valuable Email training before, many have praised the approach, and quite a few have benefited from actually implementing it. In case you’d like to learn more:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Would you look at this table of contents and give me your thoughts?

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In my email yesterday, I posed a kind of persuasion riddle based on the movie The Sting. I asked, “Can you identify this persuasion strategy?”

I got a buunch of responses. Some were flat-out wrong. Some were part of the way to the answer I had in mind. But only one or two people got all the way there.

That’s good.

It makes me feel hopeful about the book I’ve been planning.

I talked about it a few times already. The tentative title is “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Con Men, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Spirit Mediums, and Stage Magicians.”

I decided to sit down today and write up a possible table of contents for the book. In case you’re curious, you can find my proposed 10 Commandments below, along with a representative quote to give you a flavor of what each chapter will be about.

Commandment I: Thou shalt mind the event boundaries

“The bathroom is a great place to negotiate.”

Commandment II: Thou shalt flip the script

“I don’t even know you!”

Commandment III: Thou shalt pace and lead

“Give me your hands.”

Commandment IV: Thou shalt push and thou shalt pull

“Get off me, jeez.”

Commandment V: Honor the magical number seven

“This purple telephone was a gift from four graduate students, two of whom were passing their major course and failing their minors, and two of whom were passing their minors and failing their majors. The two who were passing their majors and failing their minors passed all. The two who were passing their minors and failing their majors, passed their majors and failed their minors. In other words, they selected the help I offered.”

Commandment VI: Thou shalt set the frame

“Can 31 Pages Transform Your Financial Destiny? It seems rather remarkable.”

Commandment VII: Thou shalt interrupt your adversary’s pattern

“Every man you’ve ever known, loved, and trusted has lied to you.”

Commandment VIII: Thou shalt take the winding path

“I’ll tell you about that in a second, but first…”

Commandment IX: Thou shalt agree and amplify

“Is this what you want? Bunch of fucking losers. Fucking Rocky is your hero. The whole pride of your city is built around a fuckin guy who doesn’t even exist. You got fuckin Joe Frazier is from here, but he’s black, so you can’t fuckin deal with him, so you make a fucking statue for some 3-ft fuckin Italian you stupid philly cheese-eatin fucking jackasses. I hope the cheese melts your faces off.”

10. Remember that you’re playing a numbers game

“As a marketer you only have one power, and that’s to anticipate what people are going to think.”

I’m trying to anticipate what you might think of this book.

So let me know if any of these chapters sounds too obvious, too obscure, or could be replaced in your opinion by something that’s more interesting or relevant.

Keep in mind my goal is to say something fresh and new — I don’t want to rewrite Cialdini’s Influence. That book is great, but it’s been written, and I don’t need to rewrite it.

And if you found yourself made curious or even excited by my outline for this book, feel free to write in and tell me that also. It’s always good to get a bit of extra motivation for the work ahead.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I already have one 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

If my second 10 Commandments book above sounds interesting to you… there’s a good chance you will like my first book. Here’s where you can get it, for a rather staggering price:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments