What I learned from my chat with a crypto billionaire scammer

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​

I am a most utterly suggestible person

This past Tuesday, Steve Raju floated the idea for a new workshop, one in which he would reveal:

* Why most traditional high-ticket offers don’t make sense any more in the age of AI

* Why most service providers are struggling nowadays

* What you should pivot to

* What hands down the best offer at the end of 2024 actually is

* All the tools you need to offer that

* How to outsource it if you can’t be bothered to do even that

* How to structure deals for the very highest return

“Interested?” asked Steve at the end of his email. “Just reply ‘Yeah, I’m interested, Steve,’ and if enough people say yes, we’ll do it next week.”

I hit reply and I wrote Steve to honestly say:

“I am not looking to pivot or offer another service but God yes I am interested.”

To which Steve wrote back:

“It’s amazing how you are a master in the arts of persuasion and manipulation… and yet you are one of the most utterly suggestible people I have ever met lol.”

It’s true. I am a most utterly suggestible person.

Frankly, it’s one of the reasons why I got into the direct response field — I wanted to figure out what was happening to me so often.

I also suspect my utter suggestibility is one of the reasons I’ve had success in this field. Because, if I only pay attention to my own reactions, I can say “Aha! Got it. I know what happened. And I bet this would work on others too.”

Maybe you’re utterly suggestible too. No shame in it. In fact, you can even think of it as a valuable gift, if you only pay attention.

Of course, in time I’ve developed a thick and cynical buffalo hide to protect me against the world. Today, my default response to most suggestions is “NO!” — before I even hear what the suggestion is about.

But with people I trust and respect, I will sometimes allow myself to indulge my suggestible nature, like I did with Steve above.

After floating the idea, and I guess hearing back from enough people like me, Steve decided to put on this workshop. It’s called The Word Is Not Enough. It will happen next Wednesday at 10am Pacific. As for your investment, it’s pay-what-you-want.

Plus, if you decide to 1) sign up for Steve’s workshop via the link below and 2) forward me your receipt by tonight, Fri, at 12 midnight PST, I will send you a free bonus, The Secret of the Magi.

The Secret of the Magi will tell you how to open up conversations with people you don’t know, even if they are busy, even if they are rich and successful, and even if they are way above you in status.

Of course, The Secret of the Magi will not work in 100% of cases.

But after observing other people cold contacting me… and after spending this past summer cold contacting a bunch of other people… I’ve had one big takeaway for how to open the door to conversations that can lead to those business partnerships.

I will tell you this takeaway, illustrate it with a few examples, and give you specific instructions on how you can apply it too.

Again, the deadline to send me your receipt for Steve’s workshop is tonight at 12 midnight PST. Why? Because I’ve noticed in the past how well deadlines work on me to get me to move. Maybe they work on you too? If so, here’s the link:

​https://bejakovic.com/the-word-is-not-enough​

Pay-what-you-want for a new business opportunity for copywriters

Last year, I promoted an unusual offer, called ClientRaker, by Steve Raju.

Steve was once a whizbang software engineer, who reinvented himself as a successful direct response copywriter, and who then reinvented himself as an AI consultant.

Steve now charges big businesses good money to tell them how to better use AI. But he does more than that.

Steve is actually using AI to set up commission-only deals with businesses that get tons of lead flow. He sends his little AI minions to reactivate the dormant leads of these businesses, and he gets paid on performance, in amounts that would make a Bond villain take note.

Steve hasn’t put on any kind of training since last year’s ClientRaker — he makes his money in different ways. But this next Wednesday, at 10am Pacific, Steve is putting on a workshop called the Word Is Not Enough (he has a habit of naming offers after Bond movies).

Steve announced this new workshop by teasing some of the content:

* Why most traditional high-ticket offers don’t make sense anymore in the age of AI

* Why most service providers are struggling nowadays

* What you should pivot to

* What hands down the best offer at the end of 2024 actually is

* All the tools you need to offer that

* How to outsource it if you can’t be bothered to do even that

* How to structure deals for the very highest return

I am vaguely interested in learning more about how to use AI.

I am significantly more interested in learning about hot new business opportunities.

I am very interested in hearing Steve talk about what he is doing, particularly how he is positioning himself, how he is adapting to the current market, and how he is finding and structuring new deals.

The copywriting world tends to attract smart people who think different. But there are few copywriters I know who think like Steve does, and who have his credentials for smarts (the man was a legit child progidy, I mean, prodigy).

Steve’s training next week is pay-what-you-want. I’ve signed up, and I’ve paid the suggested $47.

I would like to invite you to sign up as well. I’ll even throw in a bonus, which I’m calling The Secret of the Magi. (If Steve likes to name offers after Bond movies, I name mine after Robert Collier books.)

I don’t know the details of what-all Steve will share in his workshop. But I imagine if you get a new offer you can make to businesses, you will need businesses to make the offer to.

My Secret of the Magi bonus will tell you just one secret related to that — how to open up conversations with people you don’t know, even if they are busy, even if they are rich and successful, and even if they are way above you in status.

Of course, The Secret of the Magi will not work in 100% of cases.

But after observing other people cold contacting me… and after spending this past summer cold contacting a bunch of other people… I’ve had one big takeaway for how to open the door to conversations that can lead to those business partnerships.

I will tell you this takeaway, illustrate it with a few examples, and give you specific instructions on how you can apply it too.

All that inside my Secret of the Magi, which is yours, if you sign up for Steve’s workshop and forward me your receipt by tomorrow, Friday Sep 20, at 12 midnight PST.

Sign up after that, or forward me your receipt after that, and you will be in for Steve’s intriguing workshop, but you won’t get no bonus.

If you wanna get both, the time is now:

​https://bejakovic.com/the-word-is-not-enough​

Sign up to Author Stack because it might be interesting or valuable to you

Today I would like to get you to sign up to Author Stack. it’s free, though you can also pay if you want.

Author Stack is a Substack newsletter by Russell Nohelty.

It’s a newsletter for writers. It covers the mysterious business side of writing, as opposed to the familiar technical side that everybody else yaps about, telling you to tack on an ‘s’ to the the verbs in your headline (“TRIPLES your response!”).

As I wrote a few times over the past week, Russell reached out to me when he read that I’m going down the paid traffic route.

He offered to do a recorded interview, and share his experiences spending $30k to grow his own audience, which now stands at over 70,000 subscribers across his different newsletters.

I was grateful to Russell for the offer and for the info he shared with me.

I asked if there was something I could do in turn to make this worthwhile for him as well.

But Russell said he’s not worried about it. “If you put out good and do things with cool people,” he said, “things usually work out like they’re supposed to.”

Outwardly I smiled. Inwardly I cursed. I hate it when people are relaxed, generous, and non-needy around me.

Fortunately, Russell does write Author Stack, and I would like to get you to sign up for it.

Not because Russell asked me to (he didn’t) or because he was nice to me (he was).

Sure, maybe everything I’ve told you so far can be a bit of proof, or a bit of context to help ease you through the link at the bottom.

But really, I would like to get you to sign up to Author Stack because it might be interesting or valuable to you.

Author Stack can be interesting to you if you’re into things like Substack gossip… newsletter growth… or newsletter monetization strategies.

Author Stack can be valuable to you if you write or you want to write — newsletters, books, comics — but more than that, if you want to make money writing, and you’re looking for practical guidance on how to do that in the current moment.

Like I said, Author Stack is a Substack newsletter.

Like many Substack newsletters, there’s a free version and a paid version.

You can get the paid version if you like… or you can choose to not get it. The advice and info that Russell provides in the free version is already copious, and interesting and valuable without any add-ons.

Final point:

I’m not an affiliate for Author Stack. I am personally signed up to get it.

If you would also like to sign up for it, try it out, read Russel’s articles and see if they can benefit you, or open up your mind about what’s possible in the business of writing today:

​https://www.theauthorstack.com/​

How to stop being seen as a milquetoast

Today is the last day to sign up for MyPEEPS and get my free “Shotgun Messenger” bonus. You can expect me to send many more emails about this offer today. And on that note, I wanna tell you a quick story of rejection:

I first discovered marketer Travis Sago thanks to a podcast interview back in 2019. I was super impressed by everything Travis said, and so I got on his email list right away.

Travis had an automated welcome email that ended with, “I’m curious… What business are you in?”

I wrote back. I told Travis that I loved his interview, I gave some specifics of what I loved, and I said my business was copywriting.

And what I got back was… nothing. No smiley face, no “good on ya,” not a single word.

I figured then and in all these intervening years that either Travis didn’t check the reply email regularly, or he simply didn’t think me important enough to reply to.

Then this very morning, Sunday September 15 2024, I was listening to a short recording that Travis did for the people in his community.

Travis was talking about how persistent he is in following up with his prospects, particularly the “movers and shakers.” And he said the following:

“In fact, in my business, if a copywriter reaches out to me, my typical M.O. is not to respond back. I wanna get rid of all the milquetoasts, because I’m looking for people who want to get things done in the face of a challenge.”

Point being:

You might know that followup can get the attention of those who forgot about you or never even noticed you.

You might also know followup can build more desire.

But I imagine you never thought of followup as a kind of proof element.

And yet it is. Because who follows up?

People who believe in what they are doing and selling, including themselves.

The milquetoasts drop away.

So send regular emails, preferably daily… and if you got a deadline coming up, send a bunch.

You’ll catch people’s attention… you’ll remind them of what they want and how you can help… and you will convince them you have something worthwhile, just because you keep following up about it. And now, since you’ve read this email, you are a few minutes closer to the deadline for my MyPEEPS offer. The deadline will come in a flash, tonight at 12 midnight PST.

In a nutshell, MyPEEPS shows you how to build up your email list with paid traffic — putting in $10-$15 and getting out 10-15 new subscribers a day — so you can in time have a proper audience of people who want to read your emails and buy from you.

And the free Shotgun Messenger bonus I’m offering gets you my direct help and input as you actually put the MyPEEPS process into practice.

If you want the full details on that, or to sign up for before the deadline strikes:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

Is there anything earthbreaking here?

Comes a question about my ongoing MyPEEPS promotion, which ends tomorrow night:

===

I know you’re selling this course as an affiliate offer.

I’m wondering if you actually learned anything new in the course or was it just a suite of fundamentals.

I’m asking because I’ve taken a number of courses in Ad buying, and most say much the same thing.

There are nuances in approaches… occasionally there’s a course that has an epiphany – something truly earthbreaking. Something that makes you go “wow…. Aha!” For me, ad temperature levels when I first heard it was interesting. I also appreciated TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU links on campaigns that I learned in another course. MintCRO’s approach for deconstructing Ads to landers was interesting – engineered, but interesting.

I’m asking you because I’ve feel you’re earnest in your emails.

===

I am indeed earnest in my emails, to the point of often telling people not to buy offers that I’m promoting.

Which is what’s gonna happen here.

Because rather than, “Is there anything new here,” I think there are better questions to ask first.

Such as, how is your list doing? How many people sign up on average every day? Is that enough? If not, how are you planning to grow it in the future? And how confident are you that it will work out?

If you are happy with how things are and where they are going, great.

In that case, I would say there’s no sense in taking me up on this offer, whether or not it has anything new in it. Go attack some more promising opportunity instead, or just take the afternoon off.

On the other hand, if your list is not where you want it to be, and you have doubts around how to change that, then MyPEEPS offers a simple method, backed by Travis Speegle’s 20+ years as a media buyer, and the millions of leads he has generated for various businesses.

Plus, the “work alongside me” bonus I’m offering is there to make sure MyPEEPS doesn’t just become another set of ideas that you appreciate and find interesting… but to help you take Travis’s system, put it to use, and grow your list, so you have enough people to write to, and enough people to sell to.

And now, to answer the original question:

I haven’t been through a lot of courses on ad buying, so things that are new to me might not be new to you.

If you must have something new, two things come to mind right now.

One is at the very start of MyPEEPS, how Travis thinks about lead magnets and optin offers.

It was an “aha” to me — a new perspective I hadn’t really seen before, in spite of 10+ years of various copy and marketing books and courses.

I can imagine this simple “aha” can make all the difference in coming up with ad campaigns that work as opposed to ones that flop, and that won’t unflop, even with all the sexy tweaks and tactics that you might want to pay thousands of dollars for.

The other “new” thing for me came at the end of MyPEEPS. It was Travis’s “Reverse Course” method. I had never heard of this method before, nor even considered it. And yet:

Travis has been running one such “Reverse Course” campaign, without any change, using the same ads, for 8 years now.

He just did it again a few days ago, and brought in 40k new leads over two weeks.

When Travis runs this campaign, it typically breaks even or makes money on day zero.

And unlike many ad campaigns that run at such a scale, Travis’s “Reverse Course” campaigns actually create a huge amount of good will, instead of the usual irritation and trolling.

The “Reverse Course” method won’t be right for every business. But it is new, and for the right business or list, it is clearly very valuable.

Like I said, I wouldn’t get MyPEEPS just to find out what the “Reverse Course” method is. I would get MyPEEPS because you intend to put it to use and get value out of it.

But one way or another:

The deadline to take me up on MyPEEPS and get the free bonus — community and my ongoing support as you go — is tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

If you wanna take me up on this offer, or for the full details of how the support element works:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

3-step plan to create “Electrical Socket Offers” out of thin air

Last week I did a presentation inside Thom Benny’s Copyjitsu coaching group. Thom coaches 6 guys, all with good copy chops already, and he invited me, John Bejakovic, to come and pontificate on how to write emails.

One of the guys in Thom’s group asked me the following:

===

I have this thing where I’m writing daily emails. I’m getting in reps. I wouldn’t be writing all this stuff if I didn’t believe I could help somebody.

But also, I don’t have any sales pages or digital products. All this that I’m offering, every day, is still consulting.

Do you have any way to think about that, when you’re at that stage, don’t have digital products, but you’re just pitching consulting?

===

This is a great question. I bring it up now because earlier today, I asked what objections people had to buying MyPEEPS, a course I’m promoting until Sunday, on building up your email list with paid traffic.

Along with the usual objections — don’t need it, can’t afford it, already bought it — I got some surprises. For example, a few people wrote to say, “What can I do with an email list when I ain’t got no offers!”

So let me address that now.

If you got no offers, you can always decide to offer… consulting.

That’s Step 1 of my “Electrical Socket Offers” plan.

The problem is, “consulting” is a horrible, horrible offer. I say that without restraint because I’ve been guilty of offering “consulting” myself. I’ve also been guilty of making other horrible offers, like “coaching,” or “copywriting services.”

These offers are all horrible because they put the burden on the prospect. They say, “How am I supposed to know what I can help you with? I do have some knowledge and skill… but you tell me how you can use them.”

So Step 2 of my “Electrical Socket Offers” plan is to take the burden off the shoulders of your prospects.

You take the burden off by figuring out what problems your prospects have.

This is much easier to do than you might think. You simply ask. You can do it by digging around online. You can do it via email. Or, if you have the stomach for it, you can even do it over the phone.

Ask your prospects where they’re at… where they hope to go… what’s keeping them from getting there. Do this a few times, until you find a specific problem you can actually suggest a solution to.

BLAM!!

Suddenly, you’ve taken your horrible, horrible “consulting” offer, and you’ve transformed it into something wonderful and valuable — a solution to a specific problem that your prospects have.

Because really, when my laptop is running out of battery, I look for an electrical socket.

Once I find an electrical socket, I don’t stop and ask, “What manner of electricity does this socket supply? Was it electricity generated by a windmill? A hydroelectric dam? Solar?”

I really don’t care. I just want my laptop charged. Any socket I can plug into will do.

Same thing with people and their problems. People don’t care if you solve their problem via a digital course, consulting, or even a done-for-you service. Really, what they are after is a solution to their specific problem. They’re looking for a socket to plug into.

Step 3 of my plan is optional but highly valuable.

It’s to give your consulting offer a name, such as, for example, “Electrical Socket Offers.”

Because there is magic in giving things a name. It relieves any remaining burden on your prospects, and gives them just a simple, light word or three to hold in their mind.

So that’s the 3-step plan to create “Electric Socket Offers” out of thin air.

I imagine few people will take the above advice seriously.

I imagine even fewer will actually choose to implement it.

But if by chance, you’ve had the the light come on in your head… and you’ve realized that there is in fact nothing stopping you from selling attractive offers, starting today… then maybe it makes sense to build up an email list? You know, so you have people to sell your attractive offer to?

You decide. And if you decide that the answer is yes, then maybe take a look at the MyPEEPS offer I’m promoting. It comes with my free “Shotgun Messenger” bonus, which is live until this Sunday at 12 midnight PST. For the full details on this offer:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

Personal positioning that gets $15,000/month retainers

Last night, I interviewed Travis Speegle, who is a media buyer, and kind of in the elite of his profession.

Internet marketer Ryan Lee let slip once that Travis gets a $15,000/month retainer, just to start a new project.

I’m telling you this to set up the following quote, which you might dismiss otherwise. Travis was talking about how he moved to Puerto Rico to surf, and how that lifestyle choice influenced how he works with clients. And he said:

===

The personal things, those things that we think have nothing to do with our business, are the things that make the biggest difference.

The thing that made the biggest difference in my business and where I am currently today is when I specifically decided that I was going to live my life and become a professional surfer and that I was going to treat everybody that hired me for anything as a sponsor to my surfing.

And I started telling that story. It was the best filter.

Anybody who couldn’t buy into it or was like, “That’s just stupid,” well they’re not a good client that’s not a good fit for me.

But anybody who did, super respected it, and bought into my life, my lifestyle, then I could almost do no wrong.

And things got better because it just attracted more of the people that would actually like to work with me, not just my style, or the results.

It just so happens that results come a lot easier when you work with the right people.

===

Maybe you have your own takeaways from this, or objections to what Travis is saying.

I won’t try to convince you one way or another.

I’ll just tell you one thing I got from Travis’s “professional surfer” stance, and that’s the value of metaphor — of a super clear and easy-to-communicate image — both for the person who is talking and for the person who is listening.

This is just as true whether you’re pushing a product… a service… or, like in Travis’s case, yourself as a partner, expert, or leader.

But on to biz.

This week, until Sundae, I’m promoting Travis’s MyPEEPS, which gives you the core of Travis’s ~20 years of media buying and list-building experience for a one-time investment of $495 — significantly more affordable than Travis’s $15k/month retainer.

Plus, if you get MyPEEPS via my affiliate link, I will also include a bonus, which I’m offering for free, only this once, and which I would normally charge $500 or more for.

The free bonus is that I’ll ride shotgun as you build up your own list following the process in MyPEEPS, and give you my copywriting feedback and marketing input along the way.

For the full details on how this will work, or to get MyPEEPS and my free bonus as well:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

The reputation benefit of a bigger list

My own email list — this one, about marketing and copywriting and influence — is tiny. But some of the people on my list have much bigger lists than I do.

One such person is Russell Nohelty. Russell is a bestselling author of fantasy books and comics. He also writes about the business of writing, and he runs Writer MBA, a membership program to help writers make more money.

Russell’s audience on Substack is over 70,000 people.

Last week, when I started writing about my plan to grow a new list via paid traffic, Russell reached out. He offered to share his experiences spending $30k since February to grow his audience.

Russell and I got on a call this past Monday. It was interesting and valuable throughout, but one thing in particular stuck with me, something Russell said about the reputation benefits of various list sizes. In Russell’s words:

===

There were a couple of break points where everything felt different.

10,000 emails felt different than 8,000.

30,000 emails felt way different than 20,000 emails.

From my experience, talking to other people, 50,000, 80,000 — there’s different break points where people go, “Oh you’ve got 45,000 people on your list! Yes, I want to get in front of them!”

Promotions become easier. When you’re a Dream 100 guy like I am, you can reach out to almost anyone and be like, “Hey, do you wanna be in front of my 35,000, 45,000, whatever the number is, people.”

===

I can imagine that somebody somewhere has just crossed his arms and frowned. “Well, I’d much rather have a small but mighty list than a stupid big list that doesn’t read or buy from me.”

Sure. It’s my policy as well with my own list. That said, you can have both a large and a mighty list — Russell does.

But here’s the sneaky thing:

All of us constantly use mental shortcuts to evaluate the people around us and the choices we have.

On the one hand, a large list is an immensely valuable asset for its own sake.

On the other hand, a large list is also an immensely valuable asset because of its reputation benefit. Because people treat you differently if you get one. Because opportunities open up which would be closed otherwise.

All that’s to say, if you got a business, and a list, but it’s not quite going how you’d like… then the solution might just be to get a bigger list. Maybe if you can make it to the next break point, like Russell says above, then your problems now might just go poof.

Which brings me back to my plan to grow a new list via paid traffic.

If you like, you can join me. You can build up your own list using the same process I will be following, and get my copywriting feedback and marketing input while we work alongside each other.

I can tell you right now that the investment for this offer is $497 to get started, plus $10-$15 a day for ads. If that doesn’t deter you, hit reply and tell me so, and I can give you more information.

Do you make this mistake with your customer database?

Back in the early 1990s, the New Jersey Nets — the NBA team that’s now the Brooklyn Nets — had a rather clever way of cutting costs:

Each season, they saved on hard drive space by deleting the names of the previous season’s ticket holders.

After all, who’s got space for all those names, addresses, and phone numbers of people who had paid thousands of dollars for season tickets?

Besides, if anybody had not renewed their season ticket this year, then what was the point of keeping their contact data? The Nets could just go out and run TV ads or radio ads or maybe go knock door-to-door to fill any unfilled seats.

Maybe my tone is not sarcastic enough, so let me make it clear:

If you do a good job selling to a cold audience — to people who have never bought from you before — you can hope for about a 2% conversion rate.

In other words, 1 out of every 50 strangers might decide to give you some money, carefully, guardedly.

On the other hand, if you do a modest job selling to a warm audience — to people who have bought from you before — you can hope for about 20% to 50% conversion rate.

In other words, 1 out of 5 people might decide to give you more money, or it might be as high as 1 in 2. Plus, the selling tends to be easier, and the price more flexible.

All that’s to say, the Nets’ habit of regularly deleting customer records was an act of criminal negligence. It probably cost the organization millions of dollars in profits over the years.

Of course, it’s not much less negligent to save customer records and never do anything with them.

One ecommerce client I worked with had a database of about 150,000 buyers. It just sat there inside Shopify, while the client worked furiously to optimize Facebook ads and bring in more new customers.

But you see where I’m going with this, so let me wrap it up:

Step one is to stop wiping your hard drive clean and throwing customer records away.

Step two is to start selling those customers.

If you want to get it done for you, write me and maybe I can help. Or if you want to get it done yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/sme