Networking

If you wanna meet interesting people… charge them

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A while back, read an interesting article by a guy named Phil Eaton.

Eaton is a software developer who also runs a popular blog. He started blogging in 2017, in part with the goal of meeting cool, likeminded people.

Even after his blog and Twitter account took off, and although he made his email publicly available, Eaton found nobody ever reached out to him to talk.

So he got devious. He announced he is now charging $100 for people to talk to him.

Result?

You most likely guessed it. Suddenly there were lots of people, each willing to pay $100, and getting on a call with him.

Eaton’s goal was to connect, and he ended up doing so — with VCs, university professors, and startup founders.

He gave away the money to a charity, and made it publicly known that he is doing so.

The fact was doing this for entirely nice guy reasons made him willing to be much more pushy and promotional about his “$100 to talk to me” offer than he might have been otherwise.

So if you too are trying to build up a network of interesting people, and nobody is responding, then put a price tag on it and watch what happens.

“Yea all right,” I hear you say. “I guess that’s kind of interesting. But my time is valuable, my life is short, and I don’t want to simply open up my calendar to strangers for $100.”

Fine. then here’s a variant that I myself can recommend based on personal experience:

Rather than allowing anybody to pay to talk to you, talk to people who have already paid you. Or at least some of them.

I have a habit — not so strict, and I gotta be more diligent with it — of reaching out to people who have bought offers I’ve made.

I set aside an hour of time, usually on Sundays, to talk to one such person each week.

This has resulted in marketing insights, obviously, but it’s also connected me with some smart, successful, and surprising people — people I never would have guessed to be buying my offers, for reasons I never would have guessed.

In turn, I always make it clear that I’m happy to answer questions, give feeedback and my opinion, or generally offer help, within reason, to make the call worthwhile for the other person as well.

I happen to know that some people have taken the advice I’ve given and run with it to implement in their offers or in their client-getting efforts.

So do you wanna talk to me? Or connect with me? Or get my input or help?

No promises, but your best bet is to take me up on one of my offers.

For example, my most popular course, Simple Money Emails, which shows you how to write simple emails, like this one, to make sales today and readers reading tomorrow. For more info on Simple Money Emails:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Masculine and feminine hitchhiking

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Here’s a bit of an allegory about life and marketing:

My friend Marci, part of the group of my long-time friends who assembled during my current visit to Stockholm, told a story of hitchhiking across Europe at age 20 or so.

Marci is from Hungary. At the time of this story, he was living in Budapest. As an adventure, he decided to hitchhike to Amsterdam.

(Of course, when Marci’s mom found out about this, she threatened, begged, and offered to bribe him with anything to keep him from carrying out his plans. “I’ll buy you a plane ticket,” she said. “You will get murdered.” “I’ll have a heart attack.” Marci, for his own reasons, refused to buckle and decided to go on with the hitchhiking.)

On day zero, Marci walked to a gas station where the town ends and the highway begins.

He positioned himself along the road where lots of traffic was passing. He held up his cardboard “Austrian border” sign to his chest. He smiled. And he started waiting…

And waiting…

And waiting.

Nobody was stopping to pick him up. Hours passed.

At some point, another dude on foot walked by. He saw Marci, and did a bit of a double-take.

“Have you ever hitchhiked before?” the dude asked. Marci admitted that he hadn’t.

“You won’t ever get picked up like that.” said the dude. “You have to go to the gas station and start asking people to take you.”

Marci, being new at all this, decided to follow the dude’s advice. So he went to the gas station.

It took him a long time to muster up the courage, but eventually he scoped out a couple that looked nice and friendly enough.

He jogged up to them and asked if they were going towards the Austrian border and could take him.

And… no.

Marci went back to stalking the gas station. It took more time to muster up more courage to ask somebody else. Once again no.

One more time… and another no.

After a half hour or so, Marci had managed to ask five prospects if they were headed his way and would give him a lift.

All said no.

Marci, learning his first lesson, went back to his spot near the highway.

As he was readjusting his cardboard sign for an optimal position on his chest, he spotted the dude who had earlier given him advice about approaching gas-pumping drivers and asking them for a lift.

The dude was lying in the grass and reading a book. And then, Marci saw the dude’s friends arrive. The dude jumped up from the grass, greeted his friends, and the lot of them headed towards the gas station.

They split up. They started instantly asking anyone and everyone who stopped to take them to just the next gas station down the road.

Within five minutes, as Marci looked over from behind his cardboard sign, the dude and his friends all hitched rides and were off.

I think you see where this is going.

The short and shorter of it is, Marci learned his second lesson. He swallowed his pride, went back to the gas station, and did as the dude did.

He asked anybody and everybody who stopped to take him to the next gas station. He got picked up soon enough.

It was the beginning of a long adventure that Marci still talks about fondly. But I won’t retell all that here. Really, as far as marketing goes, the part above is the relevant part.

It’s a kind of allegory for what I’ve heard described as “masculine mojo” versus “feminine mojo.”

Feminine mojo you are probably well familiar with.

It’s what Marci was doing from behind his cardboard sign. It’s also what blog posts are about… as well as Facebook and LinkedIn posts… and even emails like this one.

Masculine mojo, on the other hand, is more like what got Marci to Amsterdam.

It doesn’t necessarily involve going up to strangers, but it does require proactively approaching people, one by one, and asking if they will give you a lift — or a job, or their advice, or help, or whatever — and keeping at it until somebody says yes.

The point of this allegory is not that masculine mojo is better than feminine mojo, or the other way around.

My point is simply to remind you that these two poles exist. In many situations, a blend of both will give you the best results. And when one pole stops working, it’s almost certain that the other pole will work.

By the way, the terms “masculine mojo” and “feminine mojo” are ones I picked up from Travis Sago.

If you’ve been reading my emails for a while, you might get the sense I am about to plug Travis’s Royalty Ronin community, of which I am a member. And that would normally be true. Except, I got the following question from reader Michael Hinchliffe the last time I plugged Royalty Ronin:

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I have no idea what the Ronin thing is?!! Even after listening to Travis Sago yacking on, I’m none the wiser. What is it?

===

At bottom, Royalty Ronin is a place to learn from Travis and to apply his ideas. The guy is as close to the second coming of Claude Hopkins as I’ve been able to find, and the results he gets and his students get back up my claim.

Beyond that, Ronin is a place where you can get access to all of Travis’s big courses on topics such as selling high-ticket offers ($5k-$50k) without sales calls and with email only… or partnering with business owners to take over and monetize their “trashcan assets”… or running communities on the back of an email list for quadruple the total value.

These courses, which have sold for a combined $12k in the past, are all available for free inside Royalty Ronin.

Finally, Royalty Ronin is also a place to partner with over 500 other business owners, marketers, copywriters, and investors, plus of course Travis himself.

Travis keeps fiddling with the front-end offer for Royalty Ronin.

There’s currently a free 7-day trial.

In the past, that trial has both appeared and disappeared. It’s not clear that, the next time this free trial disappears, it won’t disappear for good.

If you’d like to see for yourself what Travis is about, and why I keep recommending his Royalty Ronin community:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

A daily email newsletter I read and recommend

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Today, I’d like to get you to sign up to Jason Resnick’s daily email newsletter.

6 months ago, I had never heard of Jason. That says less about him (successful and well connected) than it does about me (hermit and a half).

The way I did eventually hear about Jason was that I got on a call with one of my own customers, Chris Howes.

Chris runs Creative Strings Academy, a paid online membership of hundreds of musicians, and he has an email newsletter with over 10,000 people on it.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have more customers like Chris,” I said to myself.

So I asked Chris to get on a call. I wanted to find out more about who he is, how his business works, what his problems are. Maybe this could help me create new offers to attract more customers like him.

Chris agreed to get on a call with me. But he told me straight up, “If you’re trying to recruit me as a coaching or consulting client, I’m already working with someone.”

That someone turned out to be Jason Resnick.

And so, out of my hermit cave, at a safe distance, I signed up to Jason’s daily email newsletter and started stalking Jason online. It turned out that:

1. Like me, Jason teaches email marketing, but he focuses on the many -ation parts of email marketing I know precious little about, like automation, and optimization, and segmentation

2. Jason’s audience is made up of online business owners with profitable businesses (along with Chris, I recognized a few other common customers and clients among the testimonials on Jason’s site)

3. Jason writes daily emails in which he shares actual email marketing tips, based on his own business as well as his work with coaching clients (as opposed to focusing on magic or golden retrievers or New Yorker cartoons, the way I tend to do)

My stalking and lurking went on for 6 months. That whole time, it was on my todo list to write to Jason to get introduced. Of course I never did.

And then, a couple weeks ago, as part of a “JV Outreach Challenge” I ran inside my Daily Email House community, I finally replied to one of Jason’s emails.

I told Jason some of the story above.

I pointed out that there’s an overlap between his audience and my audience, and that he and I seem to focus on complementary parts of the email space.

I asked if he might be down to do a cross-promotion, where we would each introduce our audience to the other’s newsletter.

Jason agreed.

And so here we are.

I’d like to recommend to you sign up to Jason’s daily email newsletter, the same way that I’m signed up.

Jason is offering a lead magnet when you sign up, a 13-point landing page checklist.

Jason’s checklist is free, it’s short, and from what I can tell, having myself never A/B tested a landing page, it’s full of good points.

So sign up to Jason’s newsletter to get the free checklist.

Or really, sign up because what Jason writes about and what I write about are complementary… because you can learn something valuable from his experience and his work with successful business owners… and because you will get to see daily emails done in a different way than you may be used to.

If you run an online business, or if you do email marketing in any way, I suggest you take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/jason

How to look like a wizard without doing any magic

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Two weeks ago, I got a message from a reader who had started a new podcast in the “business writing niche.” He wanted to know, would I like to be his first podcast guest?

I have a long-standing policy of accepting all podcast invites… well, except here.

I replied to the guy to say I’d be happy to be the first guest. I just want to make sure the interview will actually be published.

(I know from personal experience how even seemingly simple projects actually require a lot of behind-the-scenes work.)

And so I said if he would publish just one episode — even just him announcing what the podcast will be about — then I’d come on as the first guest.

The guy wrote back to say he will do as I ask. It’s been two weeks. I still haven’t heard back from him. Maybe he’s working on it, and I’ll hear from him soon. Maybe I won’t.

In either case, I feel good about how I handled the request. And I think it applies more generally, not just if people invite you to a brand-new podcast.

In my experience, you only want to work with people who demonstrate that they are internally motivated, that they get things done, that they will gonna make it one way or another, with or without you.

It makes you look like a wizard, when in reality, somebody else is stocking and stirring the cauldron, and attributing the magic effect of the potion to you.

And by the way, working only with internally motivated, sure-to-succeed people isn’t something you can only do once you have a lot of money, a lot of success, or wizard status.

A few days ago, Josh Spector shared a recipe for how to do it even if you’re completely new.

Specifically, Josh shared a recipe for how to create any career opportunity (or I’d add, business opportunity) you want — in the next 6 months.

Says Josh, this process works amazingly well, and yet, many people won’t do it because it sounds like a lot of work.

But maybe that doesn’t deter you. If so, here’s Josh’s playbook:

https://fortheinterested.com/how-to-get-any-career-opportunity-you-want-in-the-next-six-months/

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

What I learned from my chat with a crypto billionaire scammer

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Two things you might not know about me is that 1) I used to be on YouTube and 2) I used to be in crypto.

This was back around 2018.

Once or twice a week, I’d put on a white dress shirt (no pants)… stand against the only neutral white wall in my then-apartment… and get on Zoom to interview various crypto founders and execs.

Back then, I had plans of becoming a marketer specialized in crypto, before I realized I just couldn’t be bothered to care about the field. In retrospect, it was probably a dumb decision.

But pressing on:

This crypto YouTube channel was how I had an hour-long chat with a certain Israeli-American entrepreneur.

He was already a multimillionaire before he got into crypto, thanks to a half-dozen other tech companies he had started and sold.

But this new crypto venture was by far the biggest thing he had ever done.

Within a year or so of getting started, right around the time I interviewed him, his company had $4 billion in assets under management (not made-up coins, but actual liquid assets). Later that grew to over $20 billion. I imagine the dude’s personal worth reached into the billions as well, for those few brief years at least.

Because it’s all come crashing down since.

The company has gone bankrupt. The guy I interviewed has been arrested and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and market manipulation. If convicted, he could spend the next 15 years in prison.

This isn’t a newsletter about crypto. And it’s not a newsletter about moralizing.

This is a newsletter about marketing, so let me stick to that:

What I learned from my chat with the crypto billionaire scammer is that, if you have a podcast or something like a podcast, you can get in touch with anyone.

Sure, you might say my experience was during a crypto boom period. Plus, how hard is it to get a scammer to accept a new opportunity to spread his scammy message?

Maybe you’re right. But the point about podcasts opening doors still stands.

I have seen it with myself. If pretty much anybody invites me to a podcast, I will say yes (just try me). My due diligence extends as far as seeing if the podcast has any episodes published, so I can assure myself that my interview will probably be published if I spend an hour to give it.

This truth about podcasting is one of the tips I share in The Secret of the Magi, my guide to opening the door to conversations that lead to business partnerships.

By the way, “podcasting” is not The Secret of the Magi. The secret is something else, and there are lots of other ways to implement it, even if you have zero intention of creating a podcast or getting on YouTube in your dress shirt and underwear.

I gave away The Secret of the Magi as a bonus for Steve Raju’s upcoming workshop, with my deadline for that being yesterday.

But I had a thought today, why let this little guide go idle now?

If you got The Secret of the Magi already as a bonus for Steve’s offer, great. I’ll see you at Steve’s workshop next week.

On the other hand, if you had no interest in Steve’s workshop, but you would like to know The Secret of the Magi, you can get it below.

Your investment, if you get it before tomorrow, Sunday, 12 midnight PST, is a whopping $23.50.

At that price, it might be worth getting The Secret of the Magi simply to slake your curiosity.

I won’t say anything about the actual value of putting The Secret of the Magi to use, because if it helps you open even one conversation that turns into some kind of business partnership… it’s likely to be worth so much more than what I’m asking for here that anything I say about it will sound absurd.

I’ll leave you to paint your own vision of the business partnerships this could lead you to.

I’ll just say that, after the deadline tomorrow, The Secret of the Magi will go up to $47.

If you’d like to get it before then:

​https://bejakovic.com/secret-of-the-magi​

You, me, Affiliate World?

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Are you going to Affiliate World? If you are, let me know. I need the encouragement.

I’ve been reading about sales trainer David Sandler’s “traps for success.”

For example, when Sandler used to cold call on prospects at their offices, he would park his car in a downtown garage, knowing he only had enough money on him to pay for either lunch or parking.

He liked lunch, and so he spent his money during the day.

That would mean he’d have to make some sales calls, and close at least one, and get at least a few dollars of deposit, if he wanted to get his car out of the garage and drive home at the end of the day.

That’s why I’m asking if you’re going to Affiliate World.

I already know some people who are going. I’ve thought about it myself.

Last year, I went to two live marketing-related events. After each was done, I was juiced and I told myself I should do this more often. Plus this year Affiliate World’s happening in Budapest. I love Budapest — I lived there for 11 years.

At the same time, thinking about being herded onto a plane… and staying in some dungeon-like Airbnb… and paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege of feeling guilty if I don’t talk to a bunch of strangers… all that’s making me hesitate.

So I’ve set a trap for myself. I’ve told myself I will go to Affiliate World if at least five people I know will also be there.

That’s why I’m writing you. Will you be there?

Let me know. We can meet, talk marketing, or not talk marketing — after all, there are many other interesting things to talk about.

And maybe I can even show you around. Or not show you around — after all, maybe you truly enjoy talking to a bunch of strangers, and it sounds like Affiliate World will be a very stimulating place.

Successful cold outreach that teases secrets

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In my email yesterday, I featured a failed cold outreach message that some dude sent me. I asked readers how they might improve this failed message.

I got a bunch of responses, commentary, and reworked cold pitches. Among them was the following reworked pitch, from a copywriter named Paul:

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Hi John,

I read your book about A-List copywriters and I found it very interesting. Actually, I am also a writer and I had an idea that I’m sure will push your results through the roof. It’s a very interesting concept, especially for your type of business.

I feel like we could do a partnership with me providing extra value to your business and you telling about your experience in direct response.

Let me know if this could interest you, we can schedule a call in the week to talk about it.

===

Like I wrote to Paul, his reworked cold email was an improvement over the original.

Because of this, I might at least respond to this email to acknowledge it.

Or I might not. Because I feel I’m being baited by this promise of a “very interesting concept.” ​​It’s a bait I can well refuse, especially considering the risk of biting down on it — wasting my time and having to meet God-knows-who on a Zoom call.

One thing’s for sure. I definitely wouldn’t agree to get on a call based on just this email.

And yet…

A very similar cold outreach message has worked in the past.

In fact, a very similar cold pitch opened up doors, got a meeting, and launched a million-dollar, A-list copywriting career.

The pitch was very similar to the one above. But it was also different, in one critical regard.

I’m not sure the if the critical difference will be obvious to you.

But if you are looking to do cold outreach that actually gets a response, it might be worth trying to figure out the difference between the cold outreach message above, and the one on the following page.

In case you are curious:

Click here to schedule a call with me (no, just kidding, click here to see the successful cold outreach message)

How to write a better cold outreach message

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Today, I got an email from somebody I don’t know with the subject line, “Need an intern?” I opened it. It read:

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Hi John,

I think I originally came across you via a Google search after reading Peter Tzemis’s blog. I like your writing style, and I was curious if you need anyone to help you with anything? I want to get hands on experience with direct response.

I currently write on [link to guy’s personal musings Substack]. Let me know if this is of any interest to you.

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I heard marketer Sean D’Souza say a smart thing once.

If you have a problem in your business, says Sean, don’t work on fixing it. Instead, work on fixing somebody else’s business.

Somehow, we’re all blinded by our own unique circumstances. It makes it hard to see the right thing to do.

It’s much easier when looking at other people’s circumstances. Figure out how to help others, and you figure out how to help yourself.

I’m telling you this because maybe you would like to connect with people you don’t know.

Maybe you’re looking for clients, or for an opportunity to get your message out, or you’re just trying to build your network.

Cold email can open lots of doors. But maybe it’s not opening doors for you right now.

So here’s your chance.

Figure out how you might fix the approach of the guy who wrote me above.

I can tell you I didn’t take him up on him on his intern offer.

​​In fact, I didn’t even respond to his email, and I make a habit of responding to almost everyone who writes me.

What could he have done differently?

Think about it, and maybe you can help yourself. And if you like, write in with your best idea, and I can tell you my opinion on whether it would have made a difference or no.

The oddest info product creators on my list

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Last night, I sent an email asking my readers if they sell their own info products. That email got a LOT of response.

Of course, most people on my list sell familiar info products — ebooks and courses on marketing, writing, bizopp.

But some people wrote in and managed to surprise me. A few standouts:

#1: “My wife and I are developing theatre training courses, mainly to sell to school teachers who are not drama teachers by trade, but have been ‘elected’ to teach the courses and put on the productions.”

#2: “Am currently writing some digital reports requested by our specialist cancer research audience although I have no real idea how to do this!”

#3: “I sell Numerology info products, such as relationship forecasts, life forecasts, name adviser, lucky numbers and in depth reports. I sell to business owners, individuals and women looking for alternative angle to motivate and advise on current situation.”

This morning, I sat down to reply to these folks and to everyone else who had written me. But before I did so, I asked myself:

“What do I want out of this interaction? Why did I even ask this question?”

The following reasons poured out of me. Maybe they will be of some interest or value to you:

1. Find out who’s doing well

2. Connect with more people

3. Find out what problems people are having

4. Find out what problems their customers are having

5. Find out if they have [CENSORED but keep reading, trust me]

6. Find out what’s currently working for them, what’s not working

7. Maintain or rather enhance my reputation

8. See if any opportunities [CENSORED again, but still keep reading, I promise I won’t keep doing this much more]

9. Get possible ideas for new offers to create

10. See if there are any good offers that [CENSORED, last censored thing, keep reading to find out how to uncensor]

11. See if there are people I could connect with each other, either as some kind of broker or just to help out

I’m not sure whether the list above can be useful to you in any way.

Whatever the case may be, my offer from yesterday still stands.

So if you sell your own info products:

1. Hit reply

2. Tell me what info product or products you sell and who you sell it to

When I get your message, I will reply and tell you a genuine secret way to sell more of what you’ve created.

I’ll also tell you about a special, free training — free as in not even any optin required — that lays out real gold about how to actually run this secret selling strategy in practice.

If you watch this free training, the CENSORED bits above will become clear as day.

And who knows. If you just reply to this email, maybe we can connect or exchange some ideas along the way.