Leadership

$100 contest conclusions

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Earlier this week, I ran a Battle Royale-style contest inside my Daily Email House community:

I asked House members to come up with public justifications for charging less than they could, as opposed to saying, “I’m just very affordable!” The last contestant standing (in a pool of blood and gore) would win a grand prize of $100.

The results of the contest:

112 comments in a little over 24 hours (a number of those comments were mine, but still)…

… a really comprehensive list of “reasons to be cheap,” which I then collected and grouped inside a “Reasons To Be Cheap Playbook” and put in the course area…

… and most important, an increased chance that each of the House members who thought about this topic, and participated in the contest, and contributed their own ideas will remember all this the next time they are pricing their products or services. That means they are likely to do a better job with their next offer… sell more of it… and preserve or improve their standing instead of compromising it.

I recently went through an old training by marketer Travis Sago. As a throwaway, Travis said the following about groups:

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The Facebook group [this training is so old that it was before Skool was invented] is not there for a sense of community. This is the biggest thing I learned this year. The Facebook group is there for your leadership.

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I’m telling you all this in case you yourself run a group, whether on Facebook or on Skool or somewhere else. Consider Travis’s insight above, that your group is about your leadership and not a sense of community. Try this idea on for size, and see if it changes how you interact with your members and run things in your group.

I can tell you I’ve started doing this consciously, and will be doing more of it in the future.

One way is via more contests like the above.

The goal is not just to throw away money in the hope of getting a bunch of comments or group “engagement.”

The goal is to gradually get more House members results — new and different kinds of money-making promos, offers that sell at a price point you couldn’t imagine, list growth strategies that get buyers into your world.

I don’t mind paying $100 here and there to motivate people to participate, take the first steps to getting big results, and inspire others, because — well, I’ve got self-serving reasons up my sleeves. But my self-interest and your self-interest can be aligned, and that’s what I’m working on.

If you’d like to be a member of Daily Email House when the next Battle Royale contest goes down, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/house

They trust you and your process… so WHY don’t they buy?

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If you sell proven advice in the form of courses or coaching, but you’re finding it hard to convince people to buy, and even harder to get them to actually do what you say, then read on:

Chris Dyson has 25 years of 1-1 sales experience, including over email and DM.

For reasons that are beyond me (because Chris makes a lot of money doing sales), right now he is also teaching a few folks how to do what he does. Except, how do you teach people to make sales and actually get results? Because as Chris put it:

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Let’s be honest, doing something new is uncomfortable. You have to go through that awkward stage where you’re rubbish at something before you get any good at it (thanks dunning Kruger)

And if your process involves putting yourself out there, talking to strangers or risking rejection?

Good luck 😂

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Turns out, Chris has cracked the code (metaphorically speaking, because there was no encryption involved here), for getting people to actually implement and own the skills of 1-1 sales, which so many people feel fear and even aversion to.

And just so we’re clear:

This isn’t about teaching people sales. This is about getting customers and clients results, and getting them onboard for the process of getting results.

Chris wrote up a detailed post about how he’s done it in my Daily Email House community, under the title, “They trust you and your process… so WHY don’t they buy?”.

If you sell information or do coaching, but people are not implementing what you teach and therefore are not getting results, even with all the templates and checklists and video lessons and AI tools you might have given them..

… or better yet, if they are not even buying from you to begin with, even though they trust you and believe in your process, because they are one step ahead and know that they won’t implement and won’t get results if they do buy…

… then reading Chris’s case study, and thinking about how you might do something similar in structure, could make all the difference you need to both make sales now and in the future, thanks to all the amazing results your customers will be getting.

If you’re curious, here’s where to go:

https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/they-trust-you-and-your-process-so-why-dont-they-buy

The kid fell flat and the mother wasn’t moving

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I went for a walk this morning, and on a quiet and pedestrian street in my neighborhood, I saw a toddler running, or more accurately trundling, from around the corner.

His mom followed behind, pushing one of those toddler push bikes.

Suddenly the kid tripped on the sidewalk and fell flat, if not quite on his face, then on his belly.

I looked at him with the overactive sympathy of someone who’s never had a kid, and who knows nothing about kids. I was sure he’d start bawling right away.

I then looked at his mom. I was sure she’d run over and start comforting her son.

But the mom wasn’t moving. She seemed to have no intent of moving. She just stood there looking at the kid from 15 feet way.

The mom noticed me looking at her. Our gazes met. And she gave me a weary smile as if to say, “He does this all the time. He’ll be fine.”

Sure enough, before I’d even had a chance to look back at the kid, he’d gotten up and started running, or more accurately trundling, in his straight line to God-knows-where his will was taking him.

A couple days ago, I started reading a book called Straight-Line Leadership by some very Serbian-sounding dude named Dusan Djukich.

Last night in that book, I read a bit about “zigzag people” — people who sometimes go on spurts of success and productivity, only to inevitably regress to earlier, pre-success levels. Says Djukich:

“Zigzag people simply don’t see that after that good start, a ‘challenge’ doesn’t have to stop them. They can keep going. In fact, they can use the challenge to build strength along the path.”

I thought of that this morning when I saw the mom with her toddler. You can think of it too, when coaching others that there’s nothing very remarkable about falling flat. It’s ok to get up and keep going where you were going.

You can also think of it when coaching yourself, or rather, when living your life and making your own progress.

The next time you hit a challenge, you can think of that trundling toddler, or think of Djukich’s message above, and realize you can fall flat and still get up and keep going. The “challenge” doesn’t have to stop you, and in fact, you can use it to build strength along the path.

But enough Djukich Soup for the Soul.

Let me just add one last thing:

The reason why I’m now reading Straight-Line Leadership is because it’s long been on my reading list.

The reason it’s long been on my reading list is because I’ve repeatedly heard Travis Sago recommend it.

Over the past week, I’ve been promoting Travis’s Royalty Ronin membership for its most promotable aspects — like money-making, partnerhsip-building, and new marketing and sales ideas.

But the fact is, some of the most impactful books I’ve read over the past year, which have nothing to do with sales or marketing, came via Travis’s recommendations inside Ronin.

If you’re a reader, and if like me, you like to go to the original source, you might like Travis and his teachings, and more importantly, you might be motivated to actually put them to practice, without zigging and zagging all the time.

A week’s free trial to Royalty Ronin, so you can make up your own mind, is here:

​https://bejakovic.com/ronin​

P.S. If you’ve already signed up for a trial of Royalty Ronin via my link above, forward me Travis’s welcome email — the one with “Vroom” in the subject line.

I have a small but growing bundle of bonuses, including my Heart of Hearts and my Inspiration & Engagement trainings, which are waiting for you as a way of saying thanks for taking me up on my recommendation.

Why I can no longer be a Flat Earther

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I was on a plane a few months ago, looking out a window facing west, at sunset, in a perfectly cloudless sky, with the Mediterranean sea below me, all the way to the horizon.

I’m telling you all these details because I believe each one was crucial to a once-in-a-lifetime scientific discovery:

I could clearly see the Mediterranean Sea below me, looking cool and darkened. But there was a line ahead, towards the west, past which the sea gradually became warm-colored and bright, being still lit up by the setting sun.

Like I said, this was once-in-a-lifetime scientific discovery for me. I believe it was the first time in my life I had convincing first-hand evidence that the Earth is in fact round.

For much of my life, I’ve had sympathy for Flat Earthers, the people who insist, today, in 2024, that the earth is or at least might be flat.

I don’t necessarily have the “water can’t cling to a spinning ball” kind of sympathy… or the “Antarctica is a giant ice wall to keep you from falling off and finding out the truth” kind of sympathy.

Rather, I have sympathy with what I feel the Flat Earth movement is really about. Because after I first heard that Flat Earthing is a thing, I asked myself, “How do I know these people are wrong? How can I be sure the Earth is round and not flat?”

I’ve been told that’s how it is…

I’ve also seen pictures, illustrations, and videos, supposedly from space…

I’ve even been given models of the solar system, and arguments about rotation and magnetic fields and gravity…

… but I had zero first-hand experience. At least until that flight across the Mediterranean a couple months ago. I now believe 100%, though I’m certainly not trying to push my strong faith on you, that the Earth is in fact not flat, but round.

And I STILL have sympathy with the Flat Earthers.

Yes, the world is immensely complex.

It’s inevitable that much of what we believe about it gets passed on to us unquestioned. We couldn’t function otherwise.

But there’s still value in proving some things to yourself, regularly.

Not everything — there’s too much of that. But some things.

It can give you confidence when you find proof for yourself, beyond the confidence of being given proof.

It can lead you to insights you might not have otherwise.

And possibly, every so often, more often than you might think, it can help you find extra stuff, which others have swept under the rug.

Which things you choose to question is of course up to you.

But maybe stuff that’s directly connected to your work, success, or professional competence is a good place to start.

And if making sales or writing sales copy comes into what you do, then here’s a way to get first-hand experience and proof, which nobody can take away from you:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Leadership by “dynamic indifference”

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Yesterday, I waited to board my plane with my handwritten, 100% fake-looking boarding pass.

The boarding pass was an ordinary piece of paper that had just my name and the number of the flight on it. And that’s it — no other information on there. It was a consequence of yesterday’s IT meltdown.

At the gate, the crew first let in a few passengers who had managed to check in online and had assigned seats.

Then they realized that the majority of the remaining passengers were just like me. The remaining passengers all had stupid pieces of paper in their hands, without any assigned seats. And since the computers were all down, there was no way to assign seats in any normal way.

First, there was a bit of panic on the ground crew’s faces.

They started calling around to their superiors, consulting with each other, trying to ignore the questions and suggestions that pushy passengers were making to them.

In the end, the ground crew shrugged their shoulders.

“Ok everybody can board,” they said. “You can sit wherever you find a free seat.”

And it worked out just fine. The boarding completed was as quickly, or maybe more quickly, than with the usual “excuse me but you’re in my seat” hokey pokey.

Point being:

Let’s burn down all the computers and ticket-booking systems and rules about who sits where and who does what. Let’s abolish all the top-down mandates, because the people will self-organize just as well or better.

Anarchy!

“Uh, really?”

No, not really.

But there really might be cases where doing just what I suggested actually works.

​​And it might work for you, too, even if you don’t run an airline, but an info publishing business.

​​And as a case study, let me share with you an interesting and quick snippet of an interview. The interview is with a man named Bill Bonner who:

1. Is a famous copywriter

2. Founded and still owns Agora, a huge consortium of direct response brands that employs thousands of people

3. Is worth a few billion dollars thanks to his stake in all those publishing businesses

Here’s the thing though. You might think that a billion-dollar company requires strong and dedicated management. But that’s just the opposite of what Bonner is saying in this interview.

It turns out he has abolished not just the seating assignments inside Agora, but has even vacated the pilot’s seat, and has left it to the stewardesses and the passengers to figure out who does what, and how, including flying the plane:

“In France, for example, we tried telling people what to do — from London, no less. It was a disaster. Then, at the end of our ropes, we told the remaining French employees that they would have to figure it out for themselves. “Who will be in charge?” they wanted to know. ‘Whoever takes charge,’ we replied.”

I’m telling you this because maybe you’re like me, and you have an aversion to the idea of managing people.

Well, maybe you don’t have to manage people, or even really have any management, in order for people to work for you, and to good work for you well, and to make serious money for you.

It sounds risky, or like a pipe dream. I know. But if you’re curious to find out a bit more about Bonner’s “dynamic indifference” way of leading a business, you can read about it here:

https://www.imsrindia.com/single-post/focus-on-the-work-itself-bill-bonner-founder-and-president-of-agora