Customer Selection

I’m not letting people resubscribe to Daily Email Habit any more

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In reply to my email yesterday, a now ex-subscriber to my Daily Email Habit service wrote in to say:

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Hello! Which is your paid email? This one or daily email habit? The emails have been all great, and great tips, but I don’t want to get charged $30 per month (doing taxes and realizing how many subscriptions I have 😬). I’d like to unsubscribed for the paid one and not the other.

===

First, a disclaimer:

I appreciate all customers. I appreciate the trust they put in me, the interest they have in what I offer, and the money they choose to give me.

But I gotta say this particular customer’s reply made me frown. She didn’t even know which is my personal free newsletter, and which is the paid service?

I must be doing something wrong.

I’ve also had a few Charter Members unsub from Daily Email Habit over the past month, following a very successful quasi-launch I did back in January, and say things like, “I gotta save the $20/month right now, but I will be back soon!”

Again, clearly I’m doing something wrong, because I’m not getting these people to take what they signed up for seriously, to consume it, to get value from it.

I’ve already done what I know to do to make the actual Daily Email Habit service both easy to get started with, and addicting to keep going with.

I might in the future put up some kinds of restrictions on people signing up, to make sure they are actually committed.

But right now, starting today, as this email goes out, I’ve decided to institute a new policy:

I’m not letting people resubscribe to Daily Email Habit after they unsubscribe.

It’s a policy I got from Ben Settle, who uses the same for his paid print newsletter.

This policy worked on me when I signed up to Ben’s newsletter. It made me sign up much later, only when I told myself I was really ready, and it made me take the content that Ben was sharing much more seriously.

And yes, this policy also made me stay signed up to Ben’s newsletter longer than I might have, after I’d had enough.

In part it was the threat of not being able to resubscribe… and in part it was Ben’s dismissive and shaming attitude to people who do unsubscribe.

I’m trying to soften that effect here as far as possible. I have no interest in shaming anyone, or continuing to take money from people who are not getting value from what I offer.

Quite the opposite.

I want dedicated people to sign up to Daily Email Habit, to use the service and to benefit from it, and to get much more from it than what they pay me.

That’s why I invite you to take what time you need to decide if you’re ready to start your own daily email habit, and put in consistent daily work to build up your own authority… a relationship with a list who trusts you and wants to hear from you… and a business that really can run on the back of an email a day, if you so choose.

If after all this, you do sign up to my Daily Email Habit service, and you still find it’s not working for you, of you’re not using it in spite of your best intentions and my best efforts to help you, then no problem.

Again, I appreciate your interest and your trust.

But as of today, anybody who unsubs from Daily Email Habit won’t be able to resubscribe.

I expect I will have to write subsequent emails about this to really get my point across. Still, I’ve updated the Daily Email Habit sales page to clearly state the new reality.

In any case, if you’d like to get the full info on Daily Email Habit, WHICH IS A PAID SUBSCRIPTION OFFER, DISTINCT FROM THIS PARTICULAR DAILY EMAIL NEWSLETTER YOU ARE READING NOW, then you can get that at the following page.

Read through it. Take what time you need to decide if you’re really ready to get started. And then, take a bit more time before you make any rash decisions like signing up. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Another customer I like

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Yesterday, I wrote about an ex-subscriber of my Daily Email Habit service.

Even though this guy decided to unsubscribe, he’s still the kind of customer I like, simply because he took something I was teaching and actually put it to use.

Of course, I have other customers I like too, including some who keep being subscribed to Daily Email Habit, and keep putting it to use.

A couple days ago, I heard from one such customer, business coach Steph Benedetto, who is subscribed to Daily Email habit.

I want to share Steph’s message with you both because it serves my purpose, and because it might be valuable to you. In Steph’s own words:

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I wanted to send you a little message to share an unexpected side effect of the daily emails.

Many of these daily emails are prompting me to think about things, like the one that said, “Share the coming attractions. What are you working on? What offers do you have coming up? Share them.”

When I do, I go, “Oh! I guess I have to know what I’m doing next then.” So I look and go, “Ok, this is what I’m doing… and this is what I’m doing… and this is what I’m doing.”

And it creates it through the writing.

As I’m writing about something, whatever the prompt is, and then tying it into whatever offer I have, the offers themselves are evolving and becoming clearer.

And new things are showing up. And I had no freaking idea that was available.

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Most the Daily Email Habit puzzles are not “creative writing” prompts. Many of them are exercises that anyone with an online biz should be doing regularly, like figuring out who you want to work with… or what offers you’re putting out next… or what of business you actually want to run.

Now here’s the possibly valuable part I promised you:

You might not have the time and willpower to sit down and think about those things, and even less time and willpower to think about them regularly, over and over, as things adapt and change.

I know I don’t, not when it’s simply a todo item on my already-infinite todo list.

But like Steph says, with daily emails, you can two things at once. You can create content and make sales, on the one hand, and think about the big picture of your business and the next steps, on the other.

In other words, you can work IN the business… while at the same time working ON the business, just by taking the daily action of writing and sending a daily email.

And if you’d like to do that — to create offers, clarity, a plan — just by writing, then my Daily Email Habit might be a help for you. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The kind of customer I like

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Nine days ago, I got a message from a now ex-subscriber to my Daily Email Habit service, who wrote:

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I haven’t really been emailing since I subbed. But I don’t want to cancel cause you keep me inspired. I can say though that I took your advice on making a simple coaching call offer that 12 ppl have now bought through my LinkedIn and newsletter. Started at 90 euro for 1 hour, now I made it 130 for 45 minutes. And ppl are booking. Made just about 1000 euro so far and I’m learning a ton teaching people.

===

… and then two days ago, I saw that this guy, inspired and learning a lot though he was, unsubscribed from Daily Email Habit.

What to say? Here’s something you might not expect me to say:

I’d much rather have customers like this, who implement something I teach and then leave the fold, than ones I have to shame into staying just so they keep paying me, even though they are doing nothing with any of the info I provide.

That said, it seems a little short-sighted to me to unsubscribe for this guy in particular, since he was a Charter Member of Daily Email Habit, and as such got free access to my Daily Email House community (where the discussion about coaching call offers happened), all for $20/month.

It seems like one bit of inspiration he got via that had already paid for many months of the subscription. And in those “free” months, there’s a good chance he’d get one more idea or one more bit of inspiration, which would pay for many more months still, or maybe years.

As of last month, the Charter Member offer for Daily Email Habit has gone the way of the brontosaurus.

That means a month of Daily Email Habit “puzzles” costs $30 at the moment.

It also means the Daily Email House community is no longer a free bonus, but a paid group, only available at the moment as an upsell when you sign up to Daily Email Habit.

You might feel a bit bummed that you can no longer get the Charter Member deal. You might feel a bit better when I tell you the following:

The current offer is the best offer I will ever be making on Daily Email Habit going forward. And inevitably, there will be people who miss out on this current offer as well.

But really, whatever offer I’m making, you can be sure you stand to make 10x or 100x whatever I ask for, if only you consume and implement, at least an idea here or there.

If you’d like to get on that path today, rather than doing nothing, here’s where to get started:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Figure it out

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A while back, a dude wrote me to say:

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Hello John,

I am interested in joining your Daily Email Habit, but I have a question.

Do you teach us how to set up the newsletter?

The reason why I am interested in DEH is because I want to build the habit of writing daily emails. So I don’t need anything complicated.

I just want to know how to set everything up and get started.

===

Back when I initially conceived Daily Email Habit, I thought of providing some kind of quick-start guide to the tech necessary to send emails.

I decided against it. I realized didn’t want people who couldn’t figure this on their own to sign up for Daily Email Habit.

Not because I have anything against them personally, or think badly of them.

I just realized that anyone who is already blocked at this first slight hurdle is unlikely to deal well with the hundred and one other hurdles, obstacles, and problems that come up in the process of running, writing, and profiting from an email newsletter. And so I’d rather not take their money.

(To his credit, the dude who wrote me the above did figure out the tech on his own, and did sign up for Daily Email Habit after that.)

There’s a bigger point here:

12+ years ago, I read Joe Sugarman saying that he looks at problems as opportunities. It blew my mind at the time. Since I’m slow on the uptake, it’s still something I haven’t internalized fully.

But how else could it be?

A problem forms a moat that keeps everyone from doing it, whatever “it” may be.

If you figure out a solution, you’re insulated from the competition of billions of other people who might jump in otherwise.

On the other hand, if you choose to sell your solution, you’re almost guaranteed a market, because none of us is as unique as we like to believe.

A problem is by definition an obstacle, and if you remove it, it makes for a freer flow of energy, desire, and value, which money is one avatar of.

Working to solve a problem is energizing, and moves you to action. It also builds a mindset of self-reliance and resourcefulness.

Before you solve your problem, it makes for an opportunity to connect with others by asking for advice, sharing frustrations and setbacks that result in connection and credibility.

After you do succeed in solving your problem, it gives you instant authority and wizard-like status with those who come after you, and an attractive charismatic character to those around you. After all, you appear to be lucky, success comes easy to you, and everything works in your favor.

And maybe biggest of all, solving problems gives you a change of perspective. It forces you to think, get out of your groove, change up a familiar way of working.

And when you do hit upon a solution, it’s likely to be one that generalizes, and that you can reuse for future obstacles or problems, creating a kind of virtuous upward spiral.

All that’s to say, problems really are opportunities. (Thanks, Joe.)

As for the problem of setting up the technology to send daily emails, I’ll only say I use ​Convert Kit​. It’s very newbie friendly (perhaps too much so). That’s all the tech advice I have to give.

And if you solve your tech problems, and then are faced with the problem of what to send your list, that’s what Daily Email Habit is about.

I purposely made it in a middle ground between complete and paralyzing freedom at one extreme… and a templated, paint-by-numbers approach at the other.

There’s already AI — or freelance copywriters — if you want your emails written for you.

Daily Email Habit is there to focus your mind each day in the right direction, and get you in the habit of solving little problems — puzzles as I call them — which build up your brain, your skill, your authority, and your assets. If you’d like to get started today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

It’s hard to be broke and unmotivated

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A fairly shameless reader from Brazil writes in to ask:

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Hey John,

do you offer parity purchase discounts? I’m asking because I live in Brazil and $100 in the US = $244 here in Brazil as you can see in the image below:

[screenshot of the wrong data from the World Bank]

a lot of creators offer this kind of parity discount like Justin Welsh, Rob Lennon etc

[a screenshot from somewhere on the Internet]

anyway, it would be great if you offer that too. I feel I need this “accountability push” to my daily writing habit.

tks

===

I squinted hard at this message. Was this guy pulling my leg, or some of my other body parts?

The offer he’s referring to, Daily Email Habit, currently sells for $20/month.

Going by his math above, that would mean it effectively costs a Brazilian… $49/month.

This dude (who’s written me before to say he works as a data scientist) can’t afford $49/month (PPP-adjusted!)… and at the same time, he says he needs an “accountability push.”

What can I say?

It’s hard to be broke and unmotivated, wherever you’re from in the world.

That’s all the sympathy I have for this guy.

The fact is, I have no intention of offering discounts on my offers based on country of origin, color of hair, shoe size, age, height, or weight — all of which are correlated with income.

I also won’t offer discounts based on any other factor, personal or not.

But the message above did have the twinkle of opportunity to it.

It made me realize 1) I’ve been offering the introductory pricing for Daily Email Habit long enough, and 2) I haven’t done a good enough job making it clear what the value of this service is.

So I’d like to announce that, starting this Wednesday, I will increase the price of Daily Email Habit from the current Charter Member price of $20/month to a mighty $30/month.

Call it Prospective Profit Pricing.

Because it’s really not about what this service costs, but the prospect of what it can do for you. For example:

* If Daily Email Habit saves you just 5 minutes a day you would have spent thinking up what to write an email about… that’s two hours saved a month.

I don’t know what your hourly wage is, but odds are fair this translates to at least a hundred bucks every month. And if you save a bit more time, or if your wage is a bit higher, then this service becomes even more valuable.

* If Daily Email Habit helps you write a slightly more effective email on occasion, you can make a sale you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Better yet, if Daily Email Habit helps you write emails that make a stronger connection with readers, this can turn into many more sales down the line.

What’s a sale worth to you? What are many more sales worth to you? I don’t know. But it could legitimately be thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars.

* And if you’re not writing daily emails now, or you are but you might drop it, and if Daily Email Habit helps you start and stick with it for the long term, it’s uncertain what the result is going to be.

But there’s a shot, a non-negligible shot, at the kind of money, influence, and opportunities that you cannot even imagine now.

It’s been like that for me and for a good number of other people who have really kept at daily emailing for a while.

So sign up for Daily Email Habit based on those prospective profits… not on the exorbitant price I’m asking for it.

And if that’s STILL not enough for you — greedy, greedy —

I’ll also have a second reason why you might want to sign up for Daily Email Habit before the Charter Member pricing disappears.

I’ll talk about that second reason tomorrow.

Meanwhile, if you want to get the jump on joining Daily Email Habit under the current introductory price (and benefit sooner from the second reason I’ll announce tomorrow), here’s where to go now:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Ex-reader likes playing games with me

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A guy who is no longer on my list asks about getting mentored:

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One question that has been cooking up in my mind is that…

Do you ever coach copywriters?

You have mentioned several times that you were a protege of Dan Ferrari and that it helped hone your skills quite a bit. So I was wondering if you do anything like that at all. And no, I’m not talking about Shiv’s mastermind. I’m talking about your own thing.

If not, would you ever consider doing a paid mentorship, like an A-Z program?

Also, would you recommend copywriters to get mentored by someone to get good and ofc, get the street cred and bragging rights?

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Reasonable questions, right?

No, I don’t think they’re reasonable questions. But I know some things you don’t know.

For example, I know this guy has long been circling the goal of becoming a copywriter, as they say, “like a cat around hot porridge.”

For going on two years now, this guy replied to my emails to express what’s been holding him back:

He hasn’t figured out his ideal client profile…

He doesn’t have sufficient expertise…

He doesn’t have enough time to find clients.

Side note:

A valuable thing I learned from Tony Robbins is that there’s power in asking the right questions.

Says Tony, “why” is not a very good question to ask. And I agree, particularly if you’re unhappy with where you’re at, and you’re asking questions like:

“Why do I find myself in this deep hole? Why have I been unable to get out for so long? Why are others not in this hole, while I am?”

Not good. All those “why” questions confirm you as a hole-dweller, and just give you a glum satisfaction that there’s nothing to be done, because it’s meant to be like this.

Says Tony, “how” is a much better question to ask. As in:

“How the hell do I get out of this hole? How might the normally impossible be temporarily possible? How can I use what I’ve got on me — clothes, hair, nails — to fashion an escape device?”

“Oh,” but you say, “isn’t that what the guy above is doing? Asking how? How he can become a successful copywriter, and if mentoring might be the way out of his deep hole?”

Again, that’s another bit of info that I have that you don’t. Because the same guy has written me before, on multiple occasions, to say how great my offers are. But, alas, he cannot afford them.

He wrote me that when I was selling info products, which almost universally are a fraction of the cost of “mentoring” or “coaching” or any kind of direct work with someone.

Asking about “mentoring” was just another game this guy was playing. “Ah, it would be so great! If only I had the money, which I don’t! I will certainly take you up on it one day, as soon as I can!”

And just so we’re 100% clear, I’m not ragging on this guy because he doesn’t have money. Money is one way to get closer to the things you want, but it’s not the only way, or even the best way.

My point is simply to be honest with yourself, as honest as you can, about what you really want… about what you’re willing to do to get there… and about what it would mean if you don’t succeed.

I’ve long said there’s no shame in starting towards a goal and then deciding it’s not for you. I do it once a week on average.

There are many more goals out there than there is time and energy. And while it can be noble to persevere, it can also be smart to cut your losses, and go do something where you’re more likely to be successful and happy.

But on to my offer:

My offer is to help you start and stick with writing daily emails.

Maybe you’re reluctant to start writing daily emails because you’re not sure if you will be able to stick with it.

It’s a reasonable concern.

My answer? Worst case, you won’t stick with it. No real harm in that. This newsletter you’re reading now, which has been going steady for 6+ years, is something like my third of fourth attempt at writing daily emails consistently.

I couldn’t stick with it every previous time. So what?

One thing I know:

Starting today, and seeing how it goes tomorrow, is infinitely better than circling the hot porridge for months or even years to come.

If you’d like to get started, and today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The first online course to sell for $1M?

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Will an online course ever sell for $1M a pop?

Probably not, but who knows. Maybe it will be yours. Consider the following:

In 2007, rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz made a prediction in the New York Times that a rare, signed copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, known as the Kaeser edition, would become the first 20th-century book to sell for $1M.

“I can’t remember now,” said Horowitz later, “but, knowing myself, I imagine I would have used the statement as a come-hither.”

And that’s what it turned out to be.

Soon after, Horowitz got a call from a collector who proposed paying $1M for the Kaeser. Horowitz then called Ron Delsener, the then-owner of the book, who had paid $460,500 for it a few years earlier.

“It took Ron about 10 seconds to say yes,” Horowitz recalled. Horowitz’s commission for making that come-hiter statement about the first $1M book, for making the call to the then-owner, and for waiting 10 seconds to hear yes, was $100,000.

I was amazed to read an article about Horowitz, the top-of-the-top among rare-book dealers. I found so much in common between the rare-book dealer’s world and the course creator world.

Sure, course buyers won’t pay $1M for a course (yet), and most people buy courses for reasons other than collecting.

But consider the following change in the rare-book industry, brought on by the Internet, as described in the article:

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The Internet made scarcity scarce: everyone could see that there were a gazillion copies of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica for sale online, and their price plunged. To sell, a book now had to be the best copy, the cheapest copy, or the only copy.

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Swap out “copy” for “course,”” and “the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica” for, say, “How to write emails,” and maybe you can see a valuable lesson in the above. Again from the article:

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Such books required dealers to know more and to be more imaginative: they had to articulate what made a particular provenance or inscription so valuable. Christian Jonkers [a rare book dealer] said, “Our job as booksellers is to justify the difference between the price we bought it at and the price we’re selling it at by providing a narrative about why you should buy it.”

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Marketing guru Jay Abraham, who claims he has helped his clients create an extra 8 billion dollars in value, has this idea of industry cross-pollination. Says Jay, valuable practices that are as common as gravel in one industry can be imported profitably into your own industry, where they appear to be magic, or gold.

I would never have thought to go searching for business ideas in the rare-book dealer’s world. but the article I read is full of ’em, down to Glenn Horowitz’s downfall, near-bankruptcy and possible jail time, for engaging in a common though legal-gray-area business practice.

I have pages of notes from this article. I even got the idea to create a kind of paid newsletter where I would profile interesting people from other industries, in a kind of done-for-you cross-pollination report.

That’s almost certainly never going to happen. But if you sell courses or information more broadly… and if you’re looking for profitable ideas that nobody else in the course creator industry is using… then the following article is worth a read:

https://bejakovic.com/rare-book-dealer

60% of my book is meh, says reader

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I got a hot/cold review for my book on Amazon a few weeks ago. The headline of the review says, “great.” The number of stars is five. And yet, the actual review reads:

“Love this, recommend this. Could use an update and some more work, 60% is meh. But the other 40% might make about $20k in the next week. So that’s a good ROI on 45 minutes of reading.”

That’s quite an emotional rollercoaster for 37 words.

When I first read it, I was left confused, exhilarated, offended. “Love this… 60% is meh… good ROI.”

I can tell you two things:

1. If you want people to feel something about you, notice you, react to you, then giving them the hot/cold treatment is much more effective than giving them either the hot treatment or the cold treatment by itself. And if you want proof of that, then take this email as proof.

2. Even though the dude above says 60% of my book is meh, I am on the whole well-pleased to have his review up on my page. Not because he gave me 5 stars or because he says he loves the book, but because it sounds like he might be somebody who takes action.

And ultimately, people who take action are the kinds of people you wanna associate with, at least if you are involved in something that might be called business.

If you need some ideas to take action on, here’s my book.

40% of it is apparently worthwhile and has money-making potential, that is, if you have 45 minutes and $5 to spare. Link:

​https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

EXPECTING YOUR REPLY

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This past Sunday, I sent an email with a link to a survey, asking people about their single biggest challenge when it comes to writing or profiting from their email list. One respondent wrote:

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Getting suitable copywriting clients to work with and how to find them and make sure they are suitable and are a good fit with both client and service provider happy with outfoem of the relationship. What are the most effective ways to find copywriting clients when starting out? (EXPECTING YOUR REPLY)

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Even though this respondent included his (pseudonymous) email address, I did not reply to him. Maybe you can guess what happened next.

I got an email yesterday from the same guy, replying to that email I had sent out on Sunday. He asked:

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Hey John!

How would you get your first copywriting client if you had to start with that?

===

I nodded thoughtfully for a moment, and then I scrolled down to the bottom of the email and I unsubscribed the guy from my list.

Not because he’s pushy or entitled (though EXPECTING YOUR REPLY did rub me the wrong way).

I unsubscribed him because I have zero interest in writing about getting your first copywriting client. I also expect that, for the rest of my life, that will never ever change.

It would be a waste of time, both for me and for the guy above, if he were to stay on my list and keep EXPECTING MY REPLY, given that his single biggest challenge is to get his first copywriting client.

To my mind at least, the most merciful thing is to set this bird free so it can fly off somewhere else. Which is what I did.

You might feel this email is a kind of flex about how I’m so cool that I can casually send engaged readers away from me.

Well, it is that, but it’s also something more.

Because one thread I found in the survey responses came from various people who already run email lists. Their single biggest challenge is that the people on their lists are the wrong type of subscribers.

Too broad of an audience… or no money… or simply a different kind of profile to what the list owner is looking for.

I’d like to suggest to you that regularly sending away the wrong people is one part of getting more of the right people onto your list. We all define ourselves both by accepting and by rejecting. You can bond with someone because you both love the Beatles… or because you both hate the Rolling Stones.

By the way, I’m not saying there’s anything personally wrong with someone if they like the Rolling Stones… or if they are looking for their first copywriting client… or if they have no money right now.

I’m just saying we all have the right to choose what birds we allow to perch and nest inside our own private and walled gardens.

Of course, repelling the people you don’t want is usually not enough. You usually also have to do some things to actively attract the people you do want.

So lemme ask you:

Do you face the challenge of getting the right people onto your list? Or do you face the challenge of a list filled with subscribers you don’t want?

If you do, hit reply. I’d like to hear more about what you’ve tried to overcome this challenge, and how it’s worked out for you.

In turn, if I can give you any suggestions or advice to help you get more of the right kinds of people onto your list, I will.

Should I say it now? I guess it’s inevitable:

EXPECTING YOUR REPLY.

Customers who pay you to pay you

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Right now, for the meager price of $30,000 to start, and then $10,000 per year to keep going, you can sign up to get a spot at Carbone.

Carbone is an exclusive restaurant in New York.

​​The $30k + $10k/year membership gets you a regular weekly table there.

​​Of course, you still have to pay for the food and drinks and service, which, as you can imagine, are expensive.

It turns out there are more and more such restaurants, going members-only.

They cater to people with money who want a few different things. One is better service, less waiting, and being treated with respect. Two is status and recognition. Three, and more than anything it seems, is a feeling of community.

In other words, people are paying good money to be among others like themselves, and to feel comfortable, welcome, and warm.

I’m telling you this to maybe warm up your own mind to the possibilities that are out there.

You can charge people decent money — maybe even indecent money — just for the privilege of being able to buy from you.

Of course, you do have to offer something in return — exclusivity, top-level service, a community.

Who knows? Maybe this is even a way you can charge for the marketing you give away now. Such as your daily emails, for example.

And with that, let me remind you of my Simple Money Emails program.

This program teaches you how to write emails that people want to read, and that they buy from.

I’ve only sent these kinds of emails to prospects for free.

But maybe you can not only use use these kinds of emails to make sales, but charge for them as well, by combining them with the idea above.

Whatever the case may be, if you’d like to find out more about Simple Money Emails:

https://bejakovic.com/sme