Business Ideas

Wouldn’t it be nice

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This morning, I packed up my laptop, walked to the nearby museum to work (they have a nice garden with tables), was rebuffed (museum is closed), and turned back to sit down in a cavernous cafe next to my house.

I am now here, surrounded by other people with other laptops. I got my coffee, and am surveying the results of the 36-hour promo I was running for Parker Worth’s Cold Gold training until a few hours ago. Results:

* 4 emails sent

* 11 unsubscribes (people really didn’t like that “You gotta buy this” email)

* 259 clicks to the sales page

* 42 front-end sales

* 70 sales in total (front-end plus bumps and upsells)

* $4,391 that I made as an affiliate (Parker was giving away a 75% commission)

All in all, I reckon it took me about about 5 hours of total work to run this promo, meaning to write the 4 emails… conduct 5 interviews with people from my list… and package that up into the Cold Outreach Fastlane offer, which is what I was really selling the whole time, while making Parker’s training just a condition to getting what I was offering.

In my book, whenever I can make 1k+ from my list in a day, it’s a good day. And while I don’t really think in terms of hourly wage, I figure that whatever $4,391 divided by 5 comes out to is a fair and just hourly wage in today’s economy.

“Oh please,” I hear somebody in my audience sneering.

Perhaps you think it’s a dick move for me to lord it over people about how I’ve got this casual and comfortable lifestyle and an asset, in the form of my email list, which pays me, and not only in the form of money, but also in the form of offers, and introductions, and quiet but steady word-of-mouth around the Internet.

Maybe it is a dick move. But I am making it because I want to tell you that I am not all that unique. I know a bunch of other people who have similar little businesses to mine, based around an email list, around daily emails, and around a few monthly promos of interesting offers.

These people all get remarkably similar results to mine.

$1 per email subscriber per month is often touted as the norm for email marketing. But for me and other people who do similar stuff to what I do, $3-$5 per subscriber per month is very doable, month after month.

With even a modest-sized list, that becomes a nice income, whether on its own or on top of other stuff you might be doing.

Wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice to have something similar?

If that’s what you’re asking yourself right now, then I want to point you to a very unique opportunity that’s good for the next 24 hours or so.

The fact is, it takes several things to line up for a business like mine to work. You have to write daily emails or close to it… what you write has to be interesting and valuable enough to keep people engaged… you have to have an audience of at least some size… you have to have good offers to promote.

Most people are missing more than one of the items above, and therefore getting to a little daily email biz like mine seems impossible.

Right now, Nick Bandy is making an offer to make all this very possible for you, to plug up any holes you might have right now, and to effectively build you a daily email business that just works.

Nick, by the way, is one of the people who does like I do, and gets similar results from his email list.

He knows how to grow a list. He knows how to email that list with emails that people (including me) love to read. And he’s got a stable of great offers, some of which I’ve promoted in this newsletter.

The very unique aspect of the current opportunity is that Nick is offering a completely “done for you” email business in a box, including proven offers you can sell… list growth… and help with daily emails… at a price of your own choosing.

Maybe you didn’t read the above paragraph to the end. So let me repeat the important bit:

At a price of your own choosing.

For more information on how this works, before Nick pulls this offer:

​Nick’s done-for-you “daily email business” offer​

Last call for Cold Outreach Fastlane

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“People say, you can drag a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. B.S. You just have to give it enough salt.”
— Travis Sago

This is the last email I will send before I pull my Cold Outreach Fastlane offer, which will happen later tonight, at 11:59 pm PST.

Cold Outreach Fastlane tells you how 4 (+1) copywriters, marketers, and business owners are successfully getting business via cold outreach, right now.

At the heart of their approach is the Travis Sago insight above.

Maybe you can figure out how to extrapolate that insight to your particularly situation. If not, you can find how other folks have done it and are doing it right now inside Cold Outreach Fastlane, if you act before it disappears in a few hours.

In case you’ve missed my previous 3 emails, here are the details on this disappearing offer.

Over the past week, I interviewed 4 people who are getting clients via cold outreach. Among them:

#1. A super young copywriter, without much previous experience, from a non-English-speaking country, who started doing cold outreach two months ago, and who has since gotten two ongoing clients in the US and UK, one for creative strategy and the other for email marketing…

#2. A business owner who makes $12k-$18k in profit every month by sending out a 3-word email to prospects who don’t know him from Adam’s housecat…

#3. An experienced copywriter who used to hire a cold outreach agency, and who has now taken things into her own hands, and is getting on 1-2 calls with dream clients every week on average with her “mind-numbingly simple” cold outreach…

4. A marketing consultant with a unique and very impressive take on cold outreach (I was impressed) that has been a steady source of $20k-$500k client relationships since he left his previous in-house position and started working for himself.

I also interviewed one more guy.

This dude is getting better results from cold outreach, with less effort, than all the above people combined.

But right away, this dude told me he is “slightly terrified of becoming The Cold Outreach Guy™. I use it, but I’m more the convo guy really 😂 Outreach gets you through the front door. I’m much more interested in what happens once someone answers and there’s an actual human being on the other side.”

So that’s what we talked about on the interview:

How to make deals/offers people are willing to say yes to… how to move the conversation along when people actually express tentative interest to your initial outreach… and where people who are new to this flub it up.

I have packaged up all 4+1 of these interviews (4 on cold outreach, one on having convos and moving things along) into an offer I am calling Cold Outreach Fastlane.

Because, the way I see it, there are two reasons people fail with cold outreach:

1. Their cold outreach system sucks (eg. “Hello Sir, may I send a quote?), or

2. They lack belief that their system (which might be perfectly legit) works, and so they give up too soon.

Cold Outreach Fastlane fixes both of these problems.

It tells you 4 different cold outreach systems that are working right now (well 5, but let’s keep that a secret between you and me), plus you get to see the lovely faces and hear the inspiring case studies of the people for whom those systems are working right now.

You know what that does for you?

It tells you what to do, and more importantly and valuably, it gives you belief that you too can succeed, so you don’t get frustrated at your lack of certainty along the way and give up too soon.

Cold Outreach Fastlane: If you are doing cold outreach today, or considering starting it tomorrow, it will get you to where you want to go faster and more smoothly.

And now the price.

Cold Outreach Fastlane is now available to you for the shocking and frankly outrageous price of free.

Well, you have to make an investment. But then you get Cold Outreach Fastlane for free.

What you have to invest in is a ticket to Parker Worth’s upcoming training, Cold Gold.

Parker and his business partner have been running a cold email agency for a while. They are getting results for their clients, including and up to the storied “the outreach was working so well that we asked Parker to stop because we had trouble talking to all the qualified leads.”

On Cold Gold, Parker is gonna give you the details of the cold email system he himself uses to get leads for his agency clients, so you can do use it too if you like. Consider it one more cold outreach system + success case study, a bonus to what I’ve prepared for you inside Cold Outreach Fastlane.

If you wanna take me up on Cold Outreach Fastlane, here’s what to do:

1. Go to this page: ​https://bejakovic.com/coldgold​

2. Invest $99 for a ticket to Parker’s upcoming Cold Gold training

3. Forward me your confirmation email BEFORE tonight, Thursday, at 11:59pm PST, and I will get you access to Cold Outreach Fastlane. (NB: the cart for Parker’s training will remain open for the rest of this week. But my offer for Cold Outreach Fastlane is only good until end of day today. It can make sense to act now if you want it.)

Plethora of work out there that’s so easy to get

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A few days ago, I interviewed Tom Render, a very successful copywriter and marketing consultant.

Formerly, Tom used to write copy at Agora, a job he got via cold outreach.

After Agora, Tom went out on his own, and got himself a series of clients, some paying him $20k, some as much as $500k, again by cold outreach.

I interviewed Tom about his cold outreach philosophy and his various cold outreach campaigns. After the interview was over, Tom said:

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I see cold outreach quite differently from most people. When you look at the people online who teach it, it’s horrible. It’s spam city. And people get this idea that cold outreach is really hard. It’s not hard. And it’s not horrible in any way. If you find it hard and horrible, you’re doing it wrong.

It’s the same as making friends, or dating. If you’re finding it hard and horrible, you’re doing the wrong thing. It should be fun and interesting. Pick cool people you want to hang out with, and then send them cool shit. It’s not that complicated.

It is something copywriters really need to learn. Even our agency gets inundated with messages people have clearly pasted to a million other people. And I’m like, do you understand how backwards this is? Would you make an ad for one of our clients and just copy and paste it across six different brands? Because that’s what you’re doing with your own brand.

I find it weird that copywriters are like this. So good at writing ads for their clients, but not for themselves. And I do get it. I should write a daily email, clearly. But I never bring myself to do it, for all sorts of reasons. One of them is this. There’s a plethora of work out there that’s so easy to get. It’s not even difficult. People want to work with nice people. That’s it. So be nice.

===

I think Tom underestimates the talent he might have for being cool and figuring out what stuff he could send people that they would find interesting and valuable.

But maybe, if you listen to the interview Tom and I did, and hear various examples of cold outreach campaigns Tom’s done, you will get some cool ideas of your own. You can also hear what Tom would send me if he wanted me to pay him (nobody’s pitched me this before, and I can tell you I would say yes in a heartbeat).

Tom’s interview is part of an offer I am making right now, until the end of today, called Cold Outreach Fastlane. If you wanna find out how to get Cold Outreach Fastlane for free, before the deadline runs out:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-cold-outreach-fastlane/

You gotta buy this

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You gotta buy this new thing I’m selling.

Why? Because other people are buying.

The fact is, making up your mind about a purchase is hard stuff. It takes time and attention and a lot of information, much of which we are not privy to.

So when you see other people buying something — like a long queue outside of an ice cream shop — it makes sense to pause and ask yourself, what’s so special about this ice cream, and should I get a scoop?

Yesterday, I started promoting my new Cold Outreach Fastlane offer. The condition to get that exciting offer for free is to invest in a ticket for Parker Worth’s Cold Gold live training, which happens next week, and to write me with your proof of purchase before tonight, Thursday, at 11:59pm PST.

I woke up this morning and saw a buncha submitted proofs of purchase:

“Forwarding my confirmation/receipt for the ColdGold webinar that I purchased through your link to receive your Cold Outreach Fastlane…looking forward to it!”

“Hi John, Please see below for the: Cold Outreach Fastlane Any questions or if I am missing something please let me know”

“purchased parker’s product through your link”

“I’m not gonna lie, I bought Parker’s course solely to get your bonus… See my receipt below!”

“Hey John, purchased using your link. Let me know if anything else is needed!”

“Bought Parker’s webinar through your link. Here is the receipt below”

“Here you go, my good sir”

“Hi John, here is my receipt.”

When I said up top you gotta buy this, the truth is, that was a bit of subject-line hyperbole.

You don’t gotta buy this. You don’t gotta do anything. You can make up your own mind.

I’m telling you that other people are buying just to make you pause and ask yourself, what’s so special about this Cold Outreach Fastlane ice cream, and should I get a scoop?

I don’t want you making this buying decision simply based on what other people are doing. But if you want more info on my new ice cream flavor, which is available only until end of day today:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-cold-outreach-fastlane/

Announcing: Cold Outreach Fastlane

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10 days ago, I asked people on my list if they’ve tried using cold outreach to get clients. I got two (2) kinds of responses.

One kind was, “Cold outreach sucks, it never worked for me, I hate it.”

The other was, “Cold outreach is working great for me, it’s my main way of getting clients.”

Over the past week, I interviewed 4 of the people in the “working great” camp on the topic of how they get clients and make money via cold outreach. Among them:

#1. A super young copywriter, without much previous experience, from a non-English-speaking country, who started doing cold outreach two months ago, and who has since gotten two ongoing clients in the US and UK, one for creative strategy and the other for email marketing…

#2. A business owner who makes $12k-$18k in profit every month by sending out a 3-word email to prospects who don’t know him from Adam’s housecat…

#3. An experienced copywriter who used to hire a cold outreach agency, and who has now taken things into her own hands, and is getting on 1-2 calls with dream clients every week on average with her “mind-numbingly simple” cold outreach…

4. A marketing consultant with a unique and very impressive take on cold outreach (I was impressed) that has been a steady source of $20k-$500k client relationships since he left his previous in-house position and started working for himself.

And then, just this morning, I also interviewed one more guy.

This dude is getting better results from cold outreach, with less effort, than all the above people combined.

But right away, this dude told me he is “slightly terrified of becoming The Cold Outreach Guy™. I use it, but I’m more the convo guy really 😂 Outreach gets you through the front door. I’m much more interested in what happens once someone answers and there’s an actual human being on the other side.”

So that’s what we talked about on the interview:

How to make deals/offers people are willing to say yes to… how to move the conversation along when people actually express tentative interest to your initial outreach… and where people who are new to this flub it up.

I have packaged up all 4+1 of these interviews (4 on cold outreach, one on having convos and moving things along) into an offer I am calling Cold Outreach Fastlane.

Because, the way I see it, there are two reasons people fail with cold outreach:

1. Their cold outreach system sucks (eg. “Hello Sir, may I send a quote?), or

2. They lack belief that their system (which might be perfectly legit) works, and so they give up too soon.

Cold Outreach Fastlane fixes both of these problems.

It tells you 4 different cold outreach systems that are working right now (well 5, but let’s keep that a secret between you and me), plus you get to see the lovely faces and hear the inspiring case studies of the people for whom those systems are working right now.

You know what that does for you?

It tells you what to do, and more importantly and valuably, it gives you belief that you too can succeed, so you don’t get frustrated at your lack of certainty along the way and give up too soon.

Cold Outreach Fastlane: If you are doing cold outreach today, or considering starting it tomorrow, it will get you to where you want to go faster and more smoothly.

And now the price.

Cold Outreach Fastlane is now available to you for the shocking and frankly outrageous price of free.

Well, you have to make an investment. But then you get Cold Outreach Fastlane for free.

What you have to invest in is a ticket to Parker Worth’s upcoming training, Cold Gold.

Parker and his business partner have been running a cold email agency for a while. They are getting results for their clients, including and up to the storied “the outreach was working so well that we asked Parker to stop because we had trouble talking to all the qualified leads.”

On Cold Gold, Parker is gonna give you the details of the cold email system he himself uses to get leads for his agency clients, so you can do use it too if you like. Consider it one more cold outreach system + success case study, a bonus to what I’ve prepared for you inside Cold Outreach Fastlane.

If you wanna take me up on Cold Outreach Fastlane, here’s what to do:

1. Go to this page: https://bejakovic.com/coldgold

2. Invest $99 for a ticket to Parker’s upcoming Cold Gold training

3. Forward me your confirmation email BEFORE tomorrow, Thursday, at 11:59pm PST, and I will get you access to Cold Outreach Fastlane. (NB: the cart for Parker’s training will remain open for the rest of this week. But my offer for Cold Outreach Fastlane is only good until end of day tomorrow. It can make sense to act now if you want it.)

Announcing: DFY daily emails on comission only

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If you have a running business… if you also have an audience or database of previous customers, clients, or leads… and if you want to bolt on a new profit center to your business, with no work or upfront cost to you… then read on.

Fact 1: Lots of biz owners have proven products or services they sell, as well as a big list of previous customers, clients, or prospects. And yet, they are not sending out daily emails to link their offers and their audience, and to make sales and provide stability for their business.

Consider the following conversation I recently had.

Me (to my entire list): Do you have an email list of 5,000+ subscribers?

Biz owner (replying to my broadcast email): Yes

Me (replying directly to the biz owner, after 2 mins of research): Very cool! I see you’ve got the full offer stack, from courses to DFY. How often do you email these folks?

Biz owner: 👉🏼👈🏼 Umm… my last email… at january 🤦🏽‍♀️

Me: That sounds… criminal. If you’ve got offers and a list, what’s keeping you from mailing your offers out regularly?

Biz owner: Most people on my list subscribed to my Substack to receive “content” (which I haven’t produced in recent months—I’ve been completely swamped with work), and others are clients I never told I’d be emailing. I guess I’m afraid of being a nuisance.

Me: I see. So even if you had time, would you want to email these folks with offers that could lead to sales?

Biz owner: Yes, for sure

Fact 2: You might be in the same situation, or something similar to it.

I don’t know what your exact situation is. But if you have proven offers, and if you have an email list of at least 5,000 people, like the person above, and if you’re not sending daily emails but would want to, then…

Fact 3: I can help.

I can put you in touch with an email copywriter to write daily emails for you, to make you look good in front of your audience or database, and to make sales for you.

Also, this copywriter works on commission only. He only gets paid from the sales he makes for you, after the money has landed in your Stripe or PayPal.

No, I am not this copywriter. It is somebody in my audience.

It’s somebody who has the experience and skill to make you money and make you look good, and who also has a direct line to me for help, support, and consultation.

(Why a direct line to me is valuable is because I’ve written thousands of sales emails, managed the email marketing for many 7- and 8-figure businesses, and made businesses literally millions via daily emailing.)

So what do you think? Dumb idea? Let me know if you’re not too disgusted by my proposal, and we can talk more.

The lazy man’s way to copywriting clients

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The past couple days, I’ve been promoting Vasilis Apostolou’s new offer, Million Dollar Hook Machine. People have been buying. What’s more surprising, people have been spontaneously writing to tell me they’ve been buying.

Here’s one such message from yesterday:

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I was hesitant for a total of like 5 seconds. Emailed Vasilis whether it would teach me the actual thinking and writing process behind these sizzling gold plated hooks. He replied back with a very detailed answer and I was sold instantly. Great guy!

I was hoping if you could write an email about 10 ways you would use this offer to make money. I dig those emails and in the context of this promo, I think they would do super well.

Again. Thanks for making this offer and for having a friend like Vasilis.

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10 ways? 10??? My readers… are insatiable. But ok.

I would use Million Dollar Hook Machine to make money by writing 1) Facebook ads 2) native ads 3) TikTok ads 4) solo ads in newsletters 5) …

… you don’t need 10 ways. You need one that works.

The core promise of Million Dollar Hook Machine is it helps you be faster and to get better results when coming up with ads and sales letters and emails that actually make sales.

If you already have clients, that’s how you make money with Million Dollar Hook Machine — by completing more projects with less effort, and by getting results that get clients to hire you again, and better yet, to hire you again and additionally pay you a fraction of the good results you’ve gotten for them.

But what if you don’t have clients right now?

I’m suspecting that’s what’s really lurking in my reader’s request above.

If I wanted to get copywriting clients right now, and I also didn’t have my email list (start one, by the way, if you haven’t, it’s kind of valuable), I’d swallow my pride and go talk to clients who had hired me years ago and who I haven’t talked to since.

I’d try to warm up those conversations, see what they’re up to now and if there’s something there I can help with.

That, particularly the way I’ve presented it, is an unsexy process, but it’s also in my opinion the highest-probability option for getting client work NOW or at least PRETTY SOON.

How do you warm up a conversation that’s been cold for many years?

I’ll tell you one way I’ve found to be unbeatable in terms of its effectiveness, and that’s to come bearing a gift, one that’s relevant and valuable to the person I am giving it to.

One particularly valuable gift I could bring, one gift direct response business owners are always happy to accept, is ideas for new hooks/angles/leads, whether for their current ads, their current sales letters, or the positioning of their current offers.

Problem: ideas for new hooks take work, and I’m lazy.

Solution: Vasilis’s Million Dollar Hook Machine.

And by the way, if writing to a past client with new hook ideas doesn’t get you hired immediately, you can continue to bear gifts in the form of more hook ideas, week after week.

I’ve done this before. I’ve simply made it a point to stay in touch with particularly valuable clients. Like a stray cat that has been repeatedly fed, I kept gratefully dragging gifts to the clients’ doorstep. Inevitably, within a few such doorstep gifts, those clients suggested we work together again, even without me asking.

I imagine the same process, simply delivering value in the form of new hook ideas, would also work with clients you haven’t spoken to in a long while.

And though I’ve never ever had any success getting clients from completely cold outreach, I imagine this same process would work there too, even if you reach out to somebody who isn’t a previous client, but just somebody you actually want to work with.

(The reason completely cold outreach to prospective clients never ever worked for me is that I was never persistent or aggressive enough with it. The reason I was never persistent or aggressive enough with it is that it takes work, and like I said, I’m lazy. But Vasilis’s Million Dollar Hook Machine takes care of that, or at least helps greatly.)

Vasilis is currently running the launch for Million Dollar Hook Machine. The launch ends tomorrow.

Since this is first time he has ever released this, Vasilis is also offering a bunch of valuable bonuses, which can both help you use Million Dollar Hook Machine to get clients if you don’t have clients now, and which can help you deliver results to those clients once you get them.

For the full details on Million Dollar Hook Machine, before the deadline takes the choice out of your hands:

https://bejakovic.com/mdhm

What good will that do you?

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A new subscriber wrote in yesterday to ask:

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How would you start over if you’d lost everything right now? Including your friends and connections that you acquired over the years, only you, your knowledge and your skill.

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I paused at this, because I had recently been thinking about the same question, for my own reasons.

For a moment, I considered writing up my thoughts, and sharing them in an email. But then I asked myself, why?

What good will it do you to know what I would do if I lost everything but MY knowledge, MY skill, and MY good looks?

The fact is, my knowledge (of stuff like marketing principles and tactics) and my skill (in things like copywriting) took years to develop.

The same is true of my mindset, if by that we mean my ability to choose projects… to drive them to the end even when I’m feeling uncertain and dispirited… to tweak my approach and try again when I lay an egg… and to recognize when it’s time to cut my losses and move on.

Because of all this, it would be useless for me to tell you what I would do, unless you have my knowledge and skills and mindset.

(It would also be close to useless if you do have my knowledge and skills and mindset, because in that case you’re prolly not thinking of getting rid of everything you’ve got and starting from zero.)

Here are a few things I think are worth doing in general:

– Selling

– Writing

– Having an audience and maintaining a good relationship with that audience

If you do all three of these on a decent level — not “world class” level, not “so good they can’t ignore you,” simply decent — you will have work and money, as long as work and money are to be had.

Now please just give me a second. Let me go to my closet and dig it out… ah yes, here it is. My favorite hobby horse:

Daily emails.

The fact is, writing a daily email will, bit by bit, get you better at selling, at writing, and in time, even if you do absolutely nothing else, it will build up a small but dedicated audience for you (that’s how it happened for me at least).

Where daily emails will eventually take you, nobody knows. But I’m willing to bet it will be a good destination, better than where you’re at now. Plus, you might even enjoy the journey along the way.

If you want help starting and sticking with the habit of writing daily emails:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

10 things people have copied from me

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1. My “Hello my name is” optin page. (A copywriter I know recently set up a new list and wrote to tell me about it, along with, “I swiped your landing page”)

2. “Announcing” as the subject line to kick off every promo or new offer

3. “Down payment + the rest contingent on success” pricing plans

4. Turning my own current project into a mid-ticket cohort I can sell (I did it with my project of implementing the 1-Person Advertorial Agency program back in May, several people have followed me since)

5. The Most Valuable Email trick (ok, I created a course on that, so little wonder)

6. Using the “Can you do me a favor?” strategy in emails

7. “Bejakovic’s crooked line” (a specific storytelling technique I used in advertorials, which Sam Bradbury-Butler used in his own advertorials and then integrated in his 1-Person Advertorial Agency program, while naming it after me)

8. My personal journaling and notetaking system (ok, I created a course on that too, called Insight Exposed, so little wonder again)

9. “Magic box” CTAs (if you don’t know what those are, then reply and ask)

10. My opening line of copy in emails where the subject line and the body don’t match (you gotta create a bridge)

There’s more, too. I’m possibly the most ripped-off daily emailer south of the Seine and north of the Nile.

Am I bitter about this? You bet your sweet—

No, I’m not bitter. The fact is, few if any of the above ideas are actually mine.

My optin page copy is taken from William Goldman’s Princess Bride. The “announcing” subject line I got from Sean D’Souza who got it from Vic Schwab. The “down payment + rest contingent on success” I picked up from Jeff Walker.

And so on.

All these 10 things people have copied from me I have copied from others as well, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Frankly, there is nothing new under the sun.

Yes, it can be fun to buy and sell secrets and secret opportunities, and that’s part of the game of direct response, both for the customers and the merchants.

At the same time, good ideas are cheap and abundant. You have to apply them, and keep applying them, and not get too distracted by the shiny and the new, in order to achieve success.

The good news is, if you apply and keep applying, success comes. It might take a while, but it comes.

Perhaps you KNOW the value of writing daily emails. Perhaps you even KNOW how to write daily emails.

But in case you’re not actually writing daily emails regularly, and applying that knowledge, I have a service that can help motivate you, keep you accountable, and make your job easier.

For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Budapest, Hopkins, cold outreach

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Three mildly connected things for you today, to pick and choose from as you like:

#1. Budapest

I’m just finishing my visit to my former home town, Budapest, where I spent 11 years of my life. I reconnected with friends I’ve known for decades. The weather was perfect. The city was more beautiful than ever. All in all it was a great trip.

One thing that stood out during this trip:

Hungary, of which Budapest is the capital and by far the biggest town, had a big change of government earlier this year. The political party that had ruled for 16 years, and that had become infamous for corruption and undemocratic consolidation of power, finally lost the elections.

Ever since, foreign investment that had been frozen and kept out of the country has started flowing back in… Hungarians who had moved abroad, because they found the local situation hopeless, have been moving back… and the locals here just look optimistic and happy (ok, as happy as Hungarians can ever look).

This brings me to…

#2. Claude Hopkins

Claude Hopkins, author of Scientific Advertising, which is a sort of Bible in the field of direct advertising, once wrote:

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“People are like sheep. They cannot judge values, nor can you and I. We judge things largely by others’ impressions, by popular favor. We go with the crowd. So the most effective thing I have ever found in advertising is the trend of the crowd. That is a factor not to be overlooked. People follow styles and preferences. We rarely decide for ourselves, because we don’t know the facts. But when we see the crowds taking any certain direction, we are much inclined to go with them.”

===

Hopkins was talking about advertising, about picking and choosing products to sell and copy to run based on the trend of the crowd. Sure. But the idea applies more broadly.

The most effective thing in business, and maybe in life, is the trend of the crowd.

Yes, it’s possible to get rich and be happy during depressions and wars.

But a much more effective way to get rich and be happy is to work in industries and live in places that are going through periods of growth or rebirth of expansion. I thought of this during this trip to Budapest.

I hadn’t seriously considered moving back here ever since I had moved away almost 8 years ago. I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days, because of the trend of the crowd. I feel like this will be a place of excitement and growth over the coming years.

#3. Cold outreach

Yesterday I sent out an email to my list, asking folks if they’ve tried getting clients via cold outreach.

I got two classes of responses. Class 1:

1A. “Yes, I hate it. I hired an agency multiple times and every time I hated it.”

1B. “So far, 17 days in, 70 prospects approached, 0 clients, countless menty b’s.”

1C. “No, and wouldn’t ;)”

Then there’s class 2:

2A. “That is my primary method for getting clients.”

2B. “Yes, John. Works very well for me. No fancy cold email stack. Just a 3-liner email with a very relevant problem that they’d wanna get rid of. Brings me every month $12K to $18K!”

2C. “I’m using cold outreach to get clients, and I’m doing very well with it. Personally, one of the best methods, especially if we are talking about cold email outreach.”

Quite the difference between Class 1 and Class 2.

I started a discussion about this in my Daily Email House community.

If cold outreach is not something you hate or are fundamentally opposed to, you can join in the discussion below.

It’s an opportunity to share your experiences, and maybe learn from the experiences of some people who have been very successful with cold outreach. Here’s the link:

https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/cold-outreach