Business Ideas

A non-zero amount of sales

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This morning, I woke up to a ThriveCart sale notification.

“What’s this?” I said. I ripped it open like Dudley Dursley ripping open his 36 Christmas presents.

The notification revealed its secrets, and told me the new sale I made:

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Emails That Did Well – $79

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“Emails that did well” is an offer made earlier this week, in one email only.

After I made that offer and sent that email, I got a reply from expert email marketer and superior fractional CMO Nick “Jolly” Bandy, who wrote:

“Actually laughing my ass off reading this. So you are selling the SAME bonus stack as last week… without the main offer…for the same amount of money…and this will most likely make a non-zero amount of sales.”

Yes, it’s pretty much like Nick says, minus the laughing.

I first offered “Emails That Did Well,” plus all the free bonuses eventually included with it, as free bonuses to an affiliate offer.

After the affiliate offer closed, I offered the same bonuses for $79, which happened to be the price of the affiliate offer.

And I made a non-zero amount of sales as a result. As for how non-zero?

That’s for me to know and you to find out, at least if you have gotten yourself access to my Emails That Did Well document.

But before I send you to a page that outlines all the details of that offer and possibly entices you to buy it, a bit of marketing insight:

The first email I ever wrote to my list on the topic of positioning came in 2020.

In that email, I compared your positioning to a spear, which needs to have a very small and very sharp point, in order to pierce your prospect’s thick defenses (his skull) and lodge in the soft gray matter inside.

The thing is, if you fuse together several very small and very sharp points, they lose their “very small” and “very sharp” qualities.

Your positioning becomes less like a spear, small and sharp, and instead becomes more like an iron, flat and heavy.

An iron will hurt somebody if you throw it at their head, but it won’t pierce anything or create any kind of new understanding.

In short, positioning is not additive. A plus B plus C is not always greater than A alone, and often it is less.

That’s why a non-zero amount of people have taken me up on the Emails That Did Well offer.

If you’d like to get that offer, so you can find out how well that email has done so far, and to keep track of my other successful emails, now and in the future, here are the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-emails-that-did-well/

Announcing: “Emails that did well”

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Last week, I was promoting an affiliate offer and throwing in a Santa-sized sack of free bonus gifts to boot. To which I got an email from a reader who wrote:

“What if all I want is your email bonus? Will you sell me just that?”

That email bonus is called “Emails that did well.” It was the first and maybe foremost of the bonuses I was offering.

This first and foremost bonus consisted of perpetual access to a private, behind-the-scenes document I have created for myself and keep updating a few times a month, called “Emails that did well.”

In “Emails that did well,” I note down which of my emails stood out in terms of results, and how.

In a way, it’s an ever-expanding swipe file of rare, outstanding emails from yours truly, in case you want to know which of my emails to model because they genuinely worked. (Like I wrote last week, only about 10% of my emails produce outstanding results.)

And if you didn’t want the affiliate offer I was promoting last week, but you do want “Emails that did well,” why, yes, I will sell it to you.

I will sell it to you for $79. And I will also include the all the remaining bonuses I was offering last week (you can find them listed in the PS below.)

Maybe you’re wondering how I have the cheek to sell the bonuses I was giving away for free just a few days ago.

Simple.

First off, I believe these bonuses are worth what I’m asking for them and more.

Second, I have done this exact strategy in the past and it worked great. I first gave away valuable free bonuses and later sold them, for a price that seemed unimaginable, and made a nice bunch of sales. If you need a marketing and info publishing lesson for today, let that be it.

And if you want more valuable marketing insights, you can find them inside “Emails that did well,” and the bonuses I’m including.

If you’d like to grab “Emails that did well” and my 5 free bonuses, ho-ho-ho your way over to the following page:

https://desertkite.thrivecart.com/emails-that-did-well/

PS. Here are the free bonuses I am including if you get “Emails that did well” for $79 today:

FREE BONUS #1. “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.

FREE BONUS #2. “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.

FREE BONUS #3. “How to get copywriting clients a dozen at a time”

A recording of of the call I did with Dawn Apuan, grilling her on how she has been able to become the resident copywriting guru in multiple business masterminds, and rake in dozens of clients at a time.

FREE BONUS #4. A lazy, ‘mom & pop’ ad template to add 3-4 buyers to your email list every day, at a slight profit”

Nick Bandy’s lazy but effective way of creating ads to get people to buy his low-ticket front-end offer and get on his email list.

This is part of Nick’s $500 training on running a low-ticket funnel, but it’s just as applicable if all you wanna do is run lead gen ads.

It’s yours free as part of this Lead Gen Offer, though you will have to additionally opt in to Nick’s list to get it.

FREE BONUS #5. “The second coming of Gary Bencivenga” ad and landing page

A few months ago, I found a guy who was running an ad on Facebook… telling you he will write an ad to beat your best performing ad… and if he doesn’t succeed in beating it, he’ll give you all your money back.

The offer started at $97 and has been going up each time he sells out the slots he’s got for the month. It currently sells for $247. It was a brilliant, modern application of the classic Gary Bencivenga agency ad.

I’m planning to model this same approach to get advertorial clients. If you’d like the ad and the landing page copy, they are yours as part of this bonus bundle.

To get “Emails that did well” and all 5 of these bonuses:

https://desertkite.thrivecart.com/emails-that-did-well/

Do you want a sexy newsletter-writing job?

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I have a friend named Will. Will and I were both in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group at the same time back in the late 19th century.

I talked to Will last week to catch up.

For the past couple years, Will has been doing all the email marketing for Polymarket, one of the two big prediction markets.

First he was doing a cool weekly email, which I even read, because it’s interesting.

Then they got him to start doing a daily email as well.

It’s a lot of writing and a lot of work.

Will is looking for help, for a writer to handle either the daily email, or segments of the weekly newsletter, or some combination of both.

I offered to put the word out to people in my audience in order to:

1. Help Will

2. Look cool to people in my audience

There’s a conflict between those two goals.

Will’s first question was, “Will I get inundated with replies?”

I told him that chances are yes. And I offered to act as an intermediary, to vet people before I pass them on to him.

If you are interested in writing for Polymarket:

1. Reply to this email

2. Tell me you specialize in writing Morning-Brew style newsletters

3. Include highly relevant samples to back up your claim in 2 above

I’ve already put this call out inside Daily Email House, my Skool group. I’ve had three people apply. Two frankly could not follow the instructions above. The third did, and I passed his info on to Will. But I’m guessing you still have a really good chance at this sexy job (at least sexy to me) if you really want it.

But what if you don’t have relevant samples? In that case, you have two options.

Option one is to not apply for this job. If you don’t send me highly relevant samples, I will not forward your stuff to Will, and I will not listen to you when you explain to me why I should hear you out.

Option two is to create highly relevant samples on the spot, maybe even a sample Polymarket email or two (their stuff is all online and you can find it and model it).

NB: If I have to parse, read into, or interpret your message or your samples to figure out how they could be relevant to this job… I will just skip your application. The whole point here is to figure out if you are the kind of person I should hand off to Will. A part of that is your writing experience and skill. Another part of that is your ability to make his job easier, rather than harder, and right now I’m the proxy for that.

What about salary? Terms? Stock?

I have no idea.

If that’s your first concern, I’d say, don’t apply for this.

But if you have relevant experience, or if you want experience writing for a big and exciting newsletter, then you know what to do.

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:

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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

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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.

May I send you the payment link?

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Today is last day to get in on Hogwarts of Influence, one of three tiers I’m offering to make you a wizard of persuasion at greater at greater levels.

Yesterday, I got an email about that offer from Alex Popov. Alex is both an NLP coach and a freelance copywriter with a string of controls for an Agora health brand. He wrote:

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This past month, I had a chance to grab a $997 [one well-known email marketer] offer with a BIG bonus that included a choice book from any of his great books.

I also had a chance to grab a $997 [another email marketer] offer with roughly $4,500 in bonuses, including a selection of his trainings and back issues of [the dude’s newsletter].

But I’d like to grab your Dumbledore-level offer instead.

That is to say, I quite like and am quite impressed with the way you write your copy, structure your offers and teach this magical stuff.

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I asked Alex if I could answer any more questions for him or if I can send him the link to the order page.

If you need a marketing lesson today, let it be that.

It’s an application of the “mini-agenda” idea from Jim Camp’s book Start With No.

Rather than plowing on with any negotiation or sale like a horny teenager, take your time, ask for permission to proceed, and let people know what’s coming up before you drop it on them.

It never hinders the people who are ready to proceed, and it can surface surprising stuff from people who say they are, but are not.

Anyways, to my mini-agenda, Alex replied:

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Thank you for asking, John!

Nope, no questions.

I was at the webinar.

I’ve been analyzing your emails.

I went through the bonus trainings you gave for joining your list. I did it now, after several years. My loss in time & money that I didn’t use your thinking, writing and persuasion tips earlier.

But I guess my brain needed the time to get it.

Anyway, just some feedback for you.

So, please send me the link. Thanks!

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Alex has since jumped in on Hogwarts of Influence at the Dumbledore level. Will you? It’s your choice. If you want the full details of what’s inside the most generous offer stack I will make this year, before it vanishes later tonight:

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

Intro – You / Me

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A few days ago, I got an email with the subject line:

“Intro – John / Matt”

I’ve gotten emails like this before, and I always open them eagerly. They normally come from one person, who I know, and introduce me to a second person, who I don’t know.

Not so in this case.

This email was from a guy named Matthias, who I don’t know, introducing me to himself (Matthias aka Matt), who I still don’t know.

That was a little subject line trick I wanted to share with you.

It reminded me of how Gary Bencivenga used to get get a great “endorsement” for his offer by having the offer owner say something about his own product, and then having that formatted like a testimonial.

I don’t know if I would use this “Intro You / Me” trick myself, but there’s no doubt it put me into a different, more favorable state of mind, at least right when opening the email, than I would have been in otherwise.

The bigger point is is that it matters immensely how you first position yourself when you try to open up 1-1 conversations with people.

One option is the above approach, to position yourself as a helpful and disinterested bystander, connecting the person you are reaching out to with a valuable new contact.

That’s not bad, but it’s not great either.

What’s much better is to adopt the positioning I talked about during a live workshop I put on a few years ago, called Water Into Wine.

On that workshop, I talked about positioning I had used to open up conversations (and eventually do deals) with business owners who wouldn’t have even opened my email had I come in presenting myself as a copywriter or a service provider.

I charged $197 for Water into Wine when I ran it. I haven’t made it available since. I am making it available now, and as part of my “Hogwarts of Influence” event, specifically in the “Dumbledore” tier. For more info on that:

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

Announcing: PWYW recording of last night’s Core Promise workshop

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Last night, I hosted the inimitable, unrepeatable, wonderful Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call.

To start, I had a bit of a presentation where I broke down, as economically as I could, the two components of a good promise, and why they are often at odds with each other.

That was all right because I got to use, as examples, the 5-Oscar-winning thriller Silence of the Lambs and the Silvester Stallone flop, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.

Then came the fun part, where I ran through a buncha audience member questions, including:

#1. What core promise a copywriter should make when selling his or her services (hint: don’t sell your services)

#2. How to research what promises to make in an entirely unfamiliar professional industry where you know nobody (no, my answer was not “go on Reddit”)

#3. How to make your promise unique if you cannot (or refuse to) guarantee specific performance outcomes like “we will 3x your LTV”

#4. How to structure a core promise for a paid community

So altogether, a fine evening. And then, once I finished, I checked my email. I saw a message from one of my more dedicated readers, who had registered for yesterday’s call. She just wrote:

“I slept through big promise call…”

Unfortunately, the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. Yesterday’s workshop was live, and is over.

But thanks the wonders of space-age technology, there is a recording. As I announced a couple days ago, I am only making this recording available as a paid offer.

How paid?

Well, you can choose three levels at which to pay for this recording:

1. The Hermione Granger Level

2. The Severus Snape Level

3. The Albus Dumbledore Level

Each level comes with its own set of magical and mystical bonuses, meant to turn you into a persuasion wizard of greater and greater power. If you’d like to see the levels, and what’s on offer:

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

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.