Who else wants to get kicked off my list?

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Yesterday, I sent out an email about how I recently created a joke payment plan for my Most Valuable Email course, and how I’ll soon increase the price of MVE from $100 to $297. The subject line read,

“They laughed when I created a payment plan, but when I jacked up the price…”

In case you’re entirely new to copywriting, that was a play on “They laughed when I sat down at the piano but when I started to play,” which is one of the most famous headlines of all time, written by John Caples in 1926.

A healthy number of people bought MVE from yesterday’s email. Some also wrote in to reply and say they thought the email was witty. And then one guy wrote in to say:

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297 plus 3 payments of 1 dollar?

BTW, the subject line is a bit lame, don’t you think?

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I raised my eyebrows a bit, paused for a moment. I then scrolled down to the bottom of the email, and clicked unsubscribe on behalf of this reader.

I don’t know whether his reply was a missed attempt at humor. I don’t know whether it was a genuine attempt at trolling me. I do know it was a distraction.

And it would have stayed just a distraction — but I would hate to allow myself to be just distracted. That’s why I decided to write an email out of it, and get some use out of this ex-subscriber, rather than simply allowing him to interrupt my morning.

Moving on:
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As you might recognize, my subject line today, “Who else wants to get kicked off my list,” is a play on another classic John Caples headline, “Who else wants a screen star figure?”

I’m not actually inviting trollish responses with that subject line. I like almost all of my readers, and I like having a pleasant rapport with my audience. That’s why the “lame subject line” guy is only the fourth person I’ve proactively unsubscribed from my list in 5 years of daily emailing.

But I do draw a line somewhere. I expect my readers to treat me well, because I treat them well.

Which brings me back to Most Valuable Email.

I have been selling MVE for a year for $100.

Over the past year, I’ve had many people tell me that’s a steal, and that I should raise my price.

And just in the past couple weeks, I’ve had a number of people I admire tell me the same. I will tell you about one such mysterious person in my next email.

Eventually, the message got through.

So I am raising my price for MVE, like I said, from $100 to $297.

I am also giving you fair notice about this change. You can still get MVE for $100 until Tuesday, August 22 (yes August, not July), at 8:31pm CET.

But why wait and risk missing out? You can laugh at deadline worries — if you follow this simple link:
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https://bejakovic.com/mve

They laughed when I created a payment plan, but when I jacked up the price…

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This past Tuesday, I created a new, mildly troll-like “financed payment structure” for my Most Valuable Email course. Just $97 today… plus three easy $1 payments each 30 days.

I did make some sales with that new payment structure. But what I did not expect is the sheer amount of laughter, chortling, and knee slapping this aroused.

I got a lot of LOLOL, funny, this is hilarious af 😂😂😂 replies. One particularly amused reader wrote in to say:

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I’ve been laughing at this checkout page for longer than I’ve laughed at ANY standup comedian’s joke.

‘just thought about it again and had to laugh (again) before typing this sentence.

It’s the most absurd thing I’ve seen in ages!

I FUCKING LOVE IT!

Gotta take the ‘sting’ out of those one hundred bucks!

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I’ve since removed that financed payment structure — as I said, it was destined to disappear without ceremony or notice. MVE is back to its usual one hundred bucks price. But soon, it will be time for a new payment structure, with much more sting:

I’ll be raising the price of Most Valuable Email from $100 to $297, effective next Tuesday, July 22, at 8:31pm CET.

I’m deadly serious about this price increase.

I realize that doing so on the heels of a trollish “financed payment structure” might not get me taken the most seriously.

But this is not a stunt, and not something will reverse like I did with that $97 + 3x$1 setup.

This is a genuine price increase. If you’re curious, I will have my explanation and reasoning for it over the next few days. Or in case you’d like to get MVE before the price triples, and you don’t want to risk missing the deadline as so often happens:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

One big proof element

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I read a story this morning about Tim Meeks, the inventor of the harpejji.

The harpejji is a new instrument, one of only a few new instruments invented in 21st century to actually take off. It’s a combination of a piano and an electric guitar. It sells for $6,399 a piece, and Meeks sold more than $1 million worth of them last year.

That’s where we are today. Here’s how we got to where we are:

Meeks invented the harpejji in 2007. He made videos of himself playing the thing. He showed it off at music festivals. He had a few other harpejji enthusiasts play it and hype it up for him.

Sales. Were. Meager.

And then one day, Meeks was at a trade show in Anaheim, CA. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, can you teach me how to play this thing?”

Meeks stared for a moment and then snapped out of his trance. “Sure,” he said. “Sure! Of course! I’d love to!”

It was Stevie Wonder who was asking.

Stevie Wonder loved the harpejji. He bought one immediately. He has since performed a bunch with it in public.

And here we are today. Point being:

One big proof element can be worth 100 small or middle-sized proof elements.

In fact, entire sales promotions, and even entire businesses, have been built on the back of one big proof element.

So if you’re smart, you will work to get yourself such a big proof element, or maybe even to bake it in to your offer when you create it.

But on to business. I have my Most Valuable Email course to sell. And odds are, you haven’t bought it yet, because only about 5.1% of my list has bought to date.

I’ve shared lots of proof elements for MVE so far:

My own results, tangible successes, and intangible benefits resulting from applying the MVE trick…

The reason why of the thing, which I hint at publicly and explain in detail inside the course…

The testimonials and endorsements and even money-making case studies from many satisfied customers.

The fact is though, none of this qualifies as the One Big Proof Element.

So let me tell you that feared negotiating coach Jim Camp used the Most Valuable Email trick on the very first page of his legendary book Start With No.

This book has formed and influenced other influential people, like email marketer Sen Settle… business coach Travis Sago… and FBI negotiator Chris Voss.

Did all these influential folks find Start With No influential because of the ideas inside?

Yes, but — the presentation was also immensely important. In fact, in the case of somebody like Camp, the presentation and the ideas were really an indistinguishable blend.

If you’re a Jim Camp fan, it will be obvious to you how Camp is using the MVE trick in Start With No once you know what this trick is.

And whether or not are a Camp fan, if you would like to have similar influence on your readers, particularly the influential ones among them, then Most Valuable Email might be your ticket. Here’s where to buy it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

If you have a working ecommerce funnel…

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A break from our usual late-night programming to bring you the following announcement:

If you or a client you work closely with has an ecommerce business, and you currently have a funnel that’s working on cold traffic, then hit reply and let me know. I have something you might like.

Magic boxes

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Last year, specifically on May 29 2023, I wrote an email about Dan Kennedy’s book The Phenomenon. In that book, Dan says:

“There will always be an offer or offer(s).”

I sighed, hung my head, and finally started adding an offer at the end of each email I sent out to my list.

Not surprisingly, I made more money from my list over the past year than I had in the four years prior.

You probably know to put an offer at the end of your emails. After all, everybody does it, and it’s kind of the point of sending out daily emails.

But what if you don’t have a product or a service to sell yet? Or what if you only have a few bum offers, which your list has stopped responding to every day? Should you still insist on a call-to-action at the end of each email?

I covered one aspect of this earlier this week. I gave you a great Dan Kennedy idea about selling “options” on your shiny future offer.

But what if, for whatever reasons of your own, you don’t even want to sell future options?

Here’s what I’ve found:

There are many ways to drive people to valuable action, even if you have nothing good to sell today.

Example:

My first ever one-on-one coaching student sells a $4k training for dental practices. While she was preparing that training, she was writing emails to a list of dentists. And her emails were falling into a void — zero response or engagement.

On our first call, I told her to make a tweak to her next email, and to put in a “magic box” CTA at the end of the email. The result, in her own words:

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Haha, I like that.

Better ingredients, better emails.

I got my first response to an email today from an owner of a fairly large dental practice here in Melbourne.

Thanks for pushing me in this new direction re trying to wrap things up in magic boxes instead of just getting them nodding along.

Excited for the year ahead 🙂

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I don’t know if that dentist ended up buying my student’s $4k training. But when people do respond, you can start a conversation with them. You can get into their world. You can build a stronger relationship. Often, that translates into sales down the line.

That might be something to keep in mind if you have valuable prospects on your list, but you haven’t yet built much of a relationship with them yet.

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about “magic box” CTAs, I’ll make you a deal:

Reply and tell me the size of your email list. If you haven’t got a list, that’s fine, no judgment, you can write in and tell me that. On the other hand, if you do have a list, or if you have multiple, or if you manage a list on behalf of somebody else, write in and tell me how big your list or lists are.

In return, I’ll tell you how a “magic box” CTA works. There’s a good chance you’ve figured out how it works, but you might still learn a tip or two from me that you hadn’t thought of. And besides, maybe we can get into an interesting conversation.

Announcing new financed payment structure for Most Valuable Email

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This past May I went to the one and only copywriting conference I have ever attended. Trevor “Toe Cracker” Crook, who organized the conference, got up on stage on day two to give his presentation, all about creating outrageous offers.

Trevor had something like 9 points to cover. And then he got into the 10th, which was a pitch for his paid offer, something called Silent Sales Formula.

The structure of Trevor’s offer went like this:

* Access to Trevor’s Own The Casino training (a $5,970 value)
* 3-7 Zoom calls with Trevor for the rest of 2023 ($5,000 value)
* All for an affordable $497 today, and then “9 financed payments of $497 every 30 days”

Trevor made it clear this was not a subscription offer, and you could not hope to cancel after the first month, or really at any other month.

I remember talking to some of the marketers and copywriters after the fact. We were all confused by that payment structure. It seemed to put a kind of anti-demonstration on Trevor’s otherwise excellent presentation about great offers.

It turns out I and the people I had been talking to were probably wrong, and Trevor was probably right.

I say “probably,” going by the other successful marketers I have seen since, offering exactly the same pricing structure:

I saw Sean Anthony do it recently for his High-Ticket Email Conversion Workshop ($590 today + 4 more payments of $590). I saw Justin Goff do it last week for the 7-Figure Email course he was promoting ($97 today + three future payments of $297).

You might think this is just a payment plan.

But for all these folks, there was no option to pay in bulk, and there was not really any talk of the total price. It seems the main reason for this pricing structure is a kind of reverse price anchoring. What you pay today is quite affordable, and the rest… well, the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

As you might know, I am all about taking effective marketing strategies and putting them into practice.

And so I would like to announce I am stealing this idea from Trevor and Sean and Justin.

I have changed the payment structure for my Most Valuable Email course.

Before, the course was much more expensive than it is today — though still grossly underpriced for the value it delivers.

But I’ve changed all that with my new financed payment structure for MVE.

Now, you can get started with Most Valuable Email for just $97 today + 3 financed payments of $1, each 30 days.

You might not believe me. You might think I’m a joker. You might think I’m trivializing an otherwise valuable marketing idea. So check for yourself.

In order to do that, you will have to click through to the page below… scroll past all the big claims I make about MVE (build your authority, grow your email list, create exciting new offers out of thin air)… skirt the towering wall of testimonials… turn right at my guarantee that puts John Carlton and Gary Halbert to shame… and then click on the “Yes I want to learn the Most Valuable Email trick” button.

You will then see my new financed payment structure in action.

I don’t make any promises about how long I will keep this generous payment option up, but right now it’s there. Check for yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

The hidden benefit of the disappearing bonus

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A few weeks ago, I offered a 24-hour disappearing bonus for previous and new buyers of my Most Valuable Email course. One of the people to take me up on that disappearing bonus was Al Donaldson, who wrote to say:

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I recently bought your MVE and I’d be keen to see the disappearing bonus offer (before it vanishes).

You asked for my opinion on the MVE course and I have to say I’m impressed. It’s a beautifully simple idea that has many layers to it. And, as you mention, there are an almost unlimited number of ways to apply it.

Thanks for laying it all out so clearly.

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Of course I’m telling you this to promote Most Valuable Email. But I do also have the slightest and lightest of practical takeaways for you.

I curse myself whenever I do one of these disappearing bonuses.

I always get dozens of emails to respond to, personally. And since I make a policy of responding to everyone within 24 hours max, it’s often a hectic, email-blizzard day.

But I noticed that, along with simple requests for the disappearing bonus, I also inevitably get testimonials coming in, like Al’s testimonial above. Maybe those testimonials would have come in time anyhow. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

The fact is, people often need that extra push, that extra bit of motivation, to tell you what they think of your products, particularly when that feedback is positive.

This is nothing more than the most fundamental direct marketing truth — that people often put off all kinds of actions, even ones they mean to take, even ones that align with what they want.

Engagement-baiting emails, the kinds I’m slowly becoming known for, are a very manual-labor way to give people that extra push.

But the testimonials that come in make it worthwhile.

Besides, even though I’m always a bit horrified to send out one of these emails and come back an hour later to see an inbox filled with replies I have to attend to, it’s actually very nice to get in direct contact with my readers.

But now back to Most Valuable Email:

There’s no disappearing bonus today.

But if this course is something you’ve been meaning to buy, you might as well get started today.

If I do offer any disappearing bonus in the future, it will be yours if you want it, since I always make all disappearing bonuses available to previous buyers also.

And you will have that much more of a head start. Most Valuable Email is most valuable because of what it gives you if you use it, not because of the $100 I will get paid.

Besides, you might just like to prove me and every other direct marketer wrong. You might like to take action on something positive today, of your own volition, and not wait until tomorrow, next week, or next year, even without the whip of a deadline or the future pacing of certain ruin and misery that awaits you if you don’t.

If that’s the case, then here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

I’ve been a bestselling author for years and I didn’t even know it

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A few days ago, I went on Amazon in search of ideas for “pocket change” offers. That’s after I went through a training that Ning Li put on last week about the same.

I don’t think I’m giving away a huge spoiler for Ning’s course by revealing that a part of his research process is going on Amazon and seeing what else is selling in his niche.

So there I was on Amazon, looking at best-selling books.

As I’ve hinted a few times, this year I’ve started a new newsletter in the health space. I was doing research for possible “pocket change” offers I could create to grow that newsletter.

I was stabbing around various categories and following random hunches. I scrolled down in one highly specific but popular category to about rank 40…

… and then I guffawed, snorted, and chuckled.

I saw a familiar book among the bestsellers:

One o’ mine own.

I wrote this particular book about 9 years ago. I hadn’t really seen it or thought about it since. It was part of about a dozen alternative-health how-to books that I wrote at that time under various pseudonyms.

All these books are still up on Amazon, and some continue to rack up reviews and sales. This particular book is the best of the bunch, and is doing well enough to make me a best-selling author in a fairly competitive category, without any effort, without any promotion, and without even being aware of the fact.

But let’s get biblical:

The only book I currently have on Amazon under my own name is the 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

It’s currently only #96 among best-selling Kindle books in the “direct marketing” category.

But there was a brief period last December when my 10 Commandments book was ranked higher among Amazon bestsellers than Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters and Dan Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing.

Maybe, with your help, I can get my book back up in the rankings, to the top of the charts where it belongs. Plus, it’s only 5 bucks. If you’d like to take a look:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Paid waiting list

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For the first two years of this newsletter, I never made any offers.

Why?

​​Because, like Phineas Gage, who had a steel rod rammed through his eye socket, I apply a different part of my brain when I judge myself than when I judge others.

When I judge others, I yell at them if they don’t include an offer in each email. “Put something, anything, at the end of your email.”

I’ve told people to at least put a link to something free and interesting. And it’s certainly better to end your email with a link than with nothing.

Of course, it’s better still to have a paid offer, and to have the chance to get paid.

But what if you’re creating something big and heavy, something that won’t be ready yet for months or maybe a year?

​​And what if in the meantime you don’t want to get distracted by creating another offer, something quick and cheap… or by finding quality affiliate stuff to promote… or by hawking your mutton as a “consultant”?

I wanna share a story with you. It came from Dan Kennedy’s email newsletter a few weeks ago. You might know Dan as a direct marketing and copywriting genius, but he also had a background in person-to-person sales. And here’s Dan’s bit about that:

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​A story I did not have time to tell in my presentation dates back to my extensive work with a group of retirement communities in Florida. Often, their salespeople had soon-to-be-retirees and seniors on tour who were visiting from up North, had homes to sell, adult children to deal with, etc., and came over for a look while on vacation. They could not immediately be sold a home site.

We invented a series of lesser “things” they could and would buy: first, a 30, 60, or 90 day hold on a particular lot location; if not that, a 30, 60, or 90 day ‘first notification option’ on a location (meaning, if someone else wanted it, they’d be called before that new buyer was allowed to have it). Next, a 3, 6 or 12-month price lock, for a fee. All these fees were credited to purchase but non-refundable otherwise.

​​Three different ‘products’ to be sold when the product could not be sold. The conditional close is better than no close at all. A real sales pro HATES not closing.

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I don’t know about you, but I do know about me, and me was very impressed by this story.

I had heard of people taking free consults, and turning those into paid diagnostic reports.

I had heard of people taking free lead magnets, and turning them into paid front-end offers.

But I had never heard of people taking a free waiting list, and turning that into a source of income — not until Dan opened my eyes.

I tried to think about what’s really going on here, how to generalize this idea. I haven’t figured it out. Maybe you can clue me in.

The best that I came up with is that there is value to your prospect that you might not be charging for now. Access… flexibility… convenience… security… extra value, above and beyond your core offer. These are all things you can sell ahead of time, even before your main thing is ready to sell, or even pre-sell.

Or maybe what’s going on is simply what Dan says at the end. Making a sale is nicer than not making a sale. So think about what you can sell, today, even if it’s just a promise or a future option.

Fortunately, I have an offer to put at the end of my email tonight. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with anything I just told you about. ​That’s also something I would yell at other people about… but that I foolishly allow myself.

But my lack of proper selling tonight doesn’t change the fact that my offer tonight is valuable.

​​In fact, it’s most valuable, if only you spend an hour learning it, and then spend a lifetime applying it. In case you’d like to find out the full story, and maybe buy:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

I’ve caught James Bond stealing, and I would coach him to do it all over again

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I recently watched several old Bond movies, including the first one, Dr. No.

I was surprised by the scene that introduces the debonair Bond, which only happens 10+ minutes into the movie.

Of course, it’s at a high-end casino, at a baccarat table surrounded by women in gowns and men in tuxedos. A beautiful, aristocratic brunette is playing against a man not yet shown on camera. She keeps losing, getting more and more angry, and insisting on playing again.

Her off-camera opponent drawls with a Scottish accent. “I admire your courage, miss…?”

“Trench,” she says with a touch of irritation. “Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, mister…?

The camera finally shows the handsome secret agent. He’s lighting a cigarette and looking immensely bored. “Bond. James Bond.”

Did you catch that?

“Bond. James Bond.” The most iconic item of Bond legend, along with the 007 designation and the stupid martini.

But even though it’s the main catch phrase people have associate with Bond for decades, it wasn’t his in the first place.

Mister Bond, James Bond, was simply mirroring what he had just heard from miss Trench, Sylvia Trench. You can even say he stole the cool introduction from the poor woman, along with her heart, and then made it his own.

And why not?

Over the past week, I’ve been lucky to draw the attention of a very successful and accomplished business owner, investor, and marketer.

He replied to one of my emails and gave me surprising encouragement and advice, including about creating high-ticket offers. $5k. $10k. $25k. Here’s a bit of what he wrote me:

“High-ticket copy offers are everywhere. I say the best artists steal from everyone to create completely new things that bring great value to the world. You might do just that as you create your value ladder, which I hope you are doing as you read this now.”

I read that yesterday morning, thought about it through the day, and started to apply it last night.

Today, I want to share it with you, in case you too have a list, and maybe even some offers, but nothing yet in what you might consider the high-ticket range.

Maybe like me, you’ve been thinking and waiting to create an offer in those higher price ranges. But like that very successful business owner wrote me, such offers are everywhere. You can mirror them, model them, and make them your own. Starting right now.

And if you want my help with that:

I offer coaching. I promote it as being coaching on writing daily emails. I do that because there’s something sexy to people about the idea of copywriting and email.

But the fact is, with the people I’ve coached so far, the coaching has been as much about creating new offers, or lead magnets, or ads, as it has been about writing emails. But don’t tell anybody that, because for some reason, email copywriting is really the thing that people want to be sold, and anything else might distract them.

I don’t often advertise this coaching program. I don’t often take on new students. I also don’t accept most people who express interest in this coaching.

But in case you are interested, reply to this email. Tell me a bit about yourself — who you are, what you do, who you do it for.

I’ll tell you if I think you’re in a place to benefit from the coaching. And if I think you are, we’ll get on a call to see if it’s a fit. A real fit.