Business Ideas

Dan Kennedy’s “stealth tactic” for client attraction from scratch

by

Yesterday, I got on Skype. I live in Spain, I have a Croatian phone number, and Skype is my only way to dial an American landline and not pay ridiculous charges.

Skype connected.

“Hello?”

“Hi Steve. It’s John Bejakovic. We were in contact on LinkedIn. Is now an okay time to talk?”

“Hi John. Yeah, absolutely. I was expecting your call.”

Last week, I cold-contacted this guy. We weren’t even connected on LinkedIn but I sent him a message out of the blue.

Earlier this week, I guess he finally opened up LinkedIn because he replied. We exchanged a couple more messages. At the end of it, I got him to agree to a call. He sent me his home phone number.

We did the call yesterday. ​​I was asking questions and he was willingly answering. ​At the end of the call, I also got him to give me his home address.

Now, this wasn’t a business-getting call. But… it coulda been.

The same strategy I used to get on a call with this guy and to even get his home address is one I heard Dan Kennedy advocate in his Business of Copywriting Academy.

Unfortunately, that training is hidden inside the ancient infrastructure at AWAI. That means it’s hard to buy, and impossible to promote as an affiliate. It’s a shame, because the training is really interesting and really valuable.

One idea that’s stuck with me is a kind of Trojan horse for client getting, something that Dan says he would use himself if he needed to. In his own words:

“Let me give you my stealth tactic. Here’s what I would do if I was starting from scratch, right now, and I wanted some clients in Cleveland. If and when I retire and I decide to spend six months out of the year in Orlando, if I then feel I want a couple clients, I will use this strategy exactly as I’m about to describe it to you.”

Dan is famous for 1) never leaving suburban Ohio and 2) for never using the Internet. ​​That’s why he’s talking about using this strategy locally in Cleveland and Orlando.

​​But the same strategy works online too. Again, I used it just yesterday on LinkedIn and Skype, though I wasn’t looking for client work.

So I got a deal for you:

As I wrote yesterday, I’m considering putting together something new, a kind of offer research service that tracks unique and effective offers. In particular, I’m interested in offers that are 1) working now, and that 2) don’t rely on authority or a personal brand.

Have you spotted any such offers recently? Or better yet, have you bought any such offers recently?

If you have, write in and tell me about it.

If the offer you tell me about is unique and actually matches the two criteria above (working now, not relying on authority or personal brand), then I’ll reply to tell you Dan Kennedy’s client-getting stealth tactic — what he would do if he needed clients today.

And by the way, Dan’s stealth tactic is not limited to getting copywriting clients. It’s relevant if you want clients of any kind, or partners, or just connections for your own ends, like what I was doing with the guy I contacted on LinkedIn.

In other words, this tactic can work whenever you really want a connection with a specific person or profile of person.

​​And if that sounds attractive to you, then think of an offer that matches my criteria above. Write in with it, and I’ll tell you what Dan would do.

Looking for a partner for my longevity list

by

I was massaging my ears this morning and watching a training hosted by marketer Ryan Lee.

Maybe you know Ryan — he’s been doing business online for 20+ years. He has coached and collaborated with and gotten endorsements from people like Russell Brunson and Ryan Deiss and Brian Kurtz and and Todd Brown — all big names in the Internet marketing space, in case you don’t know ’em.

Anyways, Ryan said:

===

Biggest mistakes I’ve made by far, I just let a list go or I shift and I get out of that.

If I would have stayed in like the fitness market, just doing fitness stuff from 23 years ago, I’d probably be a billionaire.

Or if I got a piece of everyone’s business I taught, I would definitely be a billionaire by now. I’ve done fine, but I know, seeing what happened.

===

When I heard Ryan say this, I let go of my ears. “Hmm,” I said. “HMM.”

Because back in March, I let my longevity list go.

For over a year, I had been writing a weekly newsletter to that list. The list was small but growing. Readers loved the content. But I didn’t have good offers to promote, and in spite of a year of work, I couldn’t make it pay.

I had had enough. So I stopped mailing it. It’s been sitting there ever since.

And it’s still getting people opting in to it… and even people writing in and asking me when I will write more newsletter issues.

The answer is, never. I have too much other stuff to do. But I had the idea this morning to look for a partner for this longevity list, somebody who would actually like to handle the regular writing part.

Maybe that partner could be you?

Before you start imagining that future, here are three facts of life:

# 1. I’m looking for a partner, not an unpaid coaching student or a drunk intern.

If you can write and enjoy research, then this could be a fit.

But if you cannot write, or if you’re sloppy with research, then it won’t work. I’d rather not send anything to this list than send a tossed salad of fluff and garbage. And while I have systems in place to help with the research and writing… and while I’m happy to give my feedback and ongoing input on the content… I also do not want to be constantly looking over your shoulder.

#2. This will only make sense if you are interested or rather obsessive about health and the science behind it.

If that’s not you in real life, this will not make sense — you will hate the day-to-day work, and the result won’t be very good, not in the long term.

#3. The list is not making any money right now.

If you need money yesterday, or by the end of the today, or by the end of this week, then this is not for you.

On the other hand, if the list ever does make any money, we can split it the way partners split stuff.

About the last part:

Even though the list is making zero money right now, it’s not impossible that it could make money, even right quick.

In part that’s because some things have changed since March — I’ve had a few potential good offers pop up.

Another reason is that, while I don’t want to spend time writing that longevity newsletter each week, I am willing to do other stuff.

Such as, finding offers to promote… finding partners for various JVs… growing the list… or even putting in money — assuming we have some hope of getting that money back.

Again, I am really looking for a partner. Writing is one thing you can contribute, but if you have other things to contribute too, then great. I’m also willing to do my part, long term.

This means we will have to like each other, have complementary skills and resources, and have some kind of common vision.

It’s highly unlikely all these things will line up. But maybe it’s not impossible.

If you’re interested, hit reply. And write me something to convince me that you’ve read this email thoroughly, that you could be a good fit for who I’m looking for, and that you’re actually interested in this idea, long-term.

Jacob Pegs testifies about the JB effect

by

Back in May, on the last day of my promotion for the Daily Email Fastlane workshop, I got a message from Modern Maker Jacob Pegs.

Jacob was one of the three daily emailers I had profiled inside that Fastlane workshop. In brief:

1. For about two years now, Jacob has been posting on LinkedIn as a way to build an audience (he’s built it up to 40k LinkedIn followers)

2. He’s been driving those followers from LinkedIn to his daily email list, where he promotes a lean stack of info products and a group coaching offer

3. A few days ago, Jacob wrote that he had just crossed the 60% mark of his $1M goal for 2024. According to my math — and I was a math major, so you can trust me — this means that Jacob has made $600k so far this year.

I’m telling you about Jacob for two reasons.

One is to show you what’s possible, and even how quickly it’s possible, if things line up right.

Two is that in that email back in May, Jacob sent me a nice testimonial/case study, and it’s now time to trot it out, with only a three-month delay.

Jacob approached me back in April, because he wanted to improve his copywriting and email game.

I mean, clearly it was already working great. But he wanted it to work even greater.

So we did a kind of one-month “Up Your Skills” engagement. Over the course of a month, I gave Jacob my feedback on his emails, and I told him how I might tweak some of the copy he was writing. Result, in Jacob’s words:

===

Here’s a good bit of feedback for you from our latest engagement, which might help as an honest testimonial 😅 —

Something about your writing style kept me glued from start to finish.

I’d go to make a coffee, the kettle would finish boiling, and I’d delay the coffee to the point I’d have to reboil the kettle again!

Because, I had to finish the email. I couldn’t quite pin point what it was, but it made me reach out to you.

3 weeks into our mentorship, I’m getting the same feedback from my list (screenshots attached).

15 sales in, and they can’t “quite pin point how.”

Maybe it’s the JB effect.

And it’s definitely in the fast lane.

===

Like I said, Jacob already had everything lined up. He was making sales. He kept his readers reading day after day.

But Jacob did make changes to his emails during that time we worked together. I noticed the changes. It seems his audience noticed them too, and in a positive way. ​​​​

Maybe you’re in a similar situation to Jacob?

Not necessarily the same numbers with the money and the audience size… but maybe you have offers that are working, and you’re writing regularly to get your people reading and buying from you?

And maybe you’re wondering how much further you could take it?

If you are, I’m guessing it doesn’t make sense to do a long, extended, open-ended coaching program.

​​But maybe a one-month “Up Your Skills” engagement, like I did with Jacob, might make sense.

In case you’re interested, hit reply. No pressure, and no promises at this point. But I’ll get back to you, and we can talk in more detail.

The final bit of Jim Camp gossip

by

This past Tuesday, I wrote a behind-the-curtain email about negotiation coach Jim Camp.

​​Camp is widely respected and cited as a negotiation authority. His ideas are quoted in books and on TV and by dudes like me.

But if you dig a bit, it seems most of Camp’s advice about negotiation was swiped, often verbatim, from sales trainer David Sandler.

Problem:

The claim that Camp swiped Sandler’s ideas is based on textual analysis, by looking at Camp’s book side by side with Sandler’s book. It could be just one hell of a coincidence, or maybe there’s some kind of other explanation than plagiarism.

Solution:

I got a reply to my email on Tuesday from a reader named Ron, with some first-hand experience. ​​I’m reprinting it here in full because it’s juicy, and because there’s an interesting bit of human psychology hiding on the surface of it.

​​Take it away Ron:

===

Thank you John, I’ve tried to tell the same stories to the IM crowd for years and no one seemed to notice.

For a backstory, I took his Camp Negotiation coaching program back in 2009 and it was pretty silly, just a guided text followed by a quiz website (basically rereading the book to you), and my “advisor” was Jim’s oldest son.

At the end of the course, ironically, the module was “no closing” and it was on how closing sales was so 1950’s and you should just ask what do we do next and the prospect should tell you they’re in.

Well after finishing the course, his son called me to show me their new software (which was just a clunky CRM and with little negotiating tips pop-ups to remind you of the techniques) and after the demo, he tried to get me to buy it and I said no thanks.

He goes all weird and tells how I’m going to miss out on all these profitable deals and blah blah blah, and he’s getting pretty aggressive. I chuckled and said “so, no closing right?” He got all butthurt and hung up.

Anyways, I later found out Jim Camp was a franchisee for Sandler (the sales training business was sold city to city as a franchise model) and when his contract was up, Jim just rewrote the book and made up his own terms and sold his programs that way.

===

So there you go. That’s the gossip. I can’t confirm or deny the franchisee part of it. All I can say is it makes sense to me personally. And with that, I’ll leave off this Sandler/Camp drama.

But what about that interesting bit of psychology I promised you? It’s there in Ron’s first sentence:

“I’ve tried to tell the same stories to the IM crowd for years and no one seemed to notice.”

This is a curious human quirk that I’ve noticed a few times before.

For example, back in the 1970s, a man named Uri Geller seemed to be blessed with the supernatural powers of telekineses and telepathy. Geller was making the rounds of TV talk shows, bending spoons and reading the insides of sealed envelopes.

Audiences watched with their mouths agape, certain that Geller was living proof that there’s more to life than we see, and that there are enormous untapped powers latent in all of us.

Then Geller was exposed as a fraud by a magician named James Randi.

Randi replicated Geller’s act completely. He also worked with TV producers of the Tonight Show to devise a scenario where Geller couldn’t do of his supposed telekinesis or telepathy.

Geller came on the show, unaware of what was going on. And for 20 awkward minutes, while Johhny Carson patiently smoked his cigarette and waited, Geller tried and failed to do his usual routine.

And the result?

Nothing. Geller’s fame, and people’s belief in his supernatural powers, remained untarnished.

You can draw your own conclusions from this, in particular about how it relates to marketing and money-making and persuasion.

I’ve drawn my own conclusions. And the most important and valuable one is the one I wrote about in the inaugural issue of my Most Valuable Postcard, two years ago. If you’d like to find out what that is:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp1/

Jim Camp, A-list copywriter

by

Right now I’m reading a book titled You Can’t Teach a Kid To Ride a Bike at a Seminar.

The book was written by David Sandler, a 20th-century sales trainer.

I wrote an email about Sandler last year because of his connection to famed negotiation coach Jim Camp. That email ran with the subject line, “Jim Camp, plagiarist.”

Camp must have studied under Sandler, because the ideas inside “You Can’t Teach a Kid” and Camp’s book “Start With No” are as close to identical as two brown, “L”-sized, farm-fresh eggs. (For reference, Sandler died in 1995, Camp published Start With No in 2002.)

If you ask me, Camp did three things right.

First, he took Sandler’s system out of the world of sales — water filters, life insurance, and whirring hard drives — and he applied it, word-for-word, to the world of billion-dollar negotiation in corporate boardrooms.

In other words, Camp took Sandler’s valuable but provincial knowledge and brought it to a bigger, more prestigious arena, not encumbered by the slumdog baggage that’s attached to the word “sales.”

Second, Camp co-opted what Sandler taught and made it his own. He turned the Sandler Sales System into the Camp Negotiation System, without ever mentioning or crediting Sandler except once, in the middle of a list of 20 other mentors, in an appendix to his “Start With No” book.

You might think this is despicable, and in a way it is, but it’s also a necessary part of the positioning of the guru at the top of the mountain.

And then there’s a third thing that Camp did right.

It’s completely in the presentation, the messaging of his book and of his Camp Negotiation System.

You can see this messaging change in the title Start With No. It’s also present on almost every page of the book.

This messaging change is what built up the mystery of Jim Camp, and it’s why Camp’s book has sold so well and spread so far, and why so many sales folks and marketers and copywriters know Camp today, and why so few know Sandler.

Now ask yourself:

If you knew what change Camp made, and if you could apply it to turn your message from unknown to bestselling, from slumdog salesman to mysterious and yet celebrated negotiation guru…

… what could that be worth to you?

I don’t know. But you do know, and maybe the truth is it would be worth a lot — thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more.

I’m asking you this question because you can find this messaging change, the technique that Camp used to make himself and his system fascinating, in my Copy Riddles program.

It’s there in round 15.

If you own Copy Riddles and it’s not 100% clear to you how Camp applied the technique in that round to his messaging, write me and I will clarify it.

And if you don’t own Copy Riddles, you can find out more about it at the link below.

I can tell you upfront, at $997, Copy Riddles is an expensive program.

But maybe in your case will be worth much more than I’m asking for it. Here’s that link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Quick, hide, Flor is coming!!

by

It’s past 1pm as I write this, which means I am under pressure. I have to finish this email, and then hide a few important knick-knacks where Flor won’t find them.

Flor is my new cleaning woman.

Every Thursday, she arrives at 2pm, or a little before.

And then, over the course of a few hours, while I vacate the house, she mops the floors… cleans the bathrooms… dusts the shelves… polishes any glass surfaces… scours the sinks… rearranges the contents of my fridge and kitchen cupboards… throws out anything she doesn’t like or understand or approve of… and folds and hides any clothes I may have foolishly left out, in a place where I won’t find them for days.

Flor’s been coming for a few weeks now. When she started coming, a friend asked me, “Will you judge her? Will you evaluate how well she’s cleaning your apartment?”

Good God no. The thought never even occurred to me.

I was living in filth before. Well, not filth filth, but filth enough, by my standards.

I had been cleaning my large apartment unwillingly, rarely, partially. I wished somebody would come and clean it for me, all the way, and every week.

And then Flor came into my life.

Now, my sinks are clean — enough. My floor is clean — enough. My shower is clean — enough.

And I’m very satisfied. I gladly pay her whatever wage she asks for. I get out of her way. I take the time to put back the things she’s rearranged for me, or I even let her have her own way. And when I do spot something less than perfectly clean — and it does happen — then I just shrug my shoulders, smile, and say, “Oh Flor!”

Maybe you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Here:

Yesterday, I wrote about this email I sent last autumn, the Bejako Baggins email, which resonated with a lot of people.

In that email, a deliverability wizard made me the offer to fix all my deliverability problems for me, for free.

And yet, I ended up nitpicking and complaining and dragging the poor guy along, and in the end I sent him away with nothing to show for his efforts.

The point of that email was that even if you have the best offer and the most perfect marketing, you will fail if you are selling to people who don’t really have the problem you are solving, or who don’t really care to solve that problem.

My message today is the inverse of that.

Be like Flor.

Or at least, be somebody who serves those who have a problem that they want solved, now. Those who are not nitpicking and shopping around and comparing your offer to every other offer under the sun, because they have the time, luxury, and headspace to do so.

Be like Flor… and the selling will be easier… the price more elastic… and the delivery more pleasant.

And now:

I have no offer to promote to you.

​​Because honestly, none of my courses fit the criteria I just told you above. None of them is really about a problem that needs to be solved, now.

I’m working on fixing that.

Meanwhile, maybe you can help me. Or maybe I can help you.

D​o you have a problem that you would pay to have solved? In particular, something with regard to making more sales, or freeing up your time, or working with better customers or clients?

If you do, hit reply and let’s talk. Maybe I can be your Flor for you, and quickly clean up the mess you’re living in, and rearrange your shelves and fridge, in a way you will cheerfully accept and pay for.

The winners of the 2024 Best Daily Email Awards

by

[lights, red carpet, swelling music… I trot out on stage in a tuxedo and black tie, hold up my hands, and say]

Thank you, thank you.

We’re here tonight to celebrate the greatest year ever in daily emails.

[applause]

As you know, tonight’s awards show is organized by the Daily Email Academy, which you happen to be a member of by virtue of reading this newsletter.

[more applause, I give a few measured claps as well]

This is the inaugural Best Daily Email Awards.

While there’s been lots of glamour and excitement in the buildup to this event, there were also inevitably some little hiccups that go with the first of anything.

That’s okay… as Dan Kennedy might say, if we all stopped doing something if the first time wasn’t perfect, the human race would soon die out.

[a bit of laughter]

No, but seriously. There were some issues.

For example, there are thousands of daily email newsletters out there, and hundreds of thousands of actual daily emails in a year.

We in the organizing committee didn’t realize it’s unlikely that any one daily email would get more than one vote, even with a voting body as numerous and global as the Daily Email Academy.

[camera pans out to thoughtful, nodding faces in the audience]

The second issue was that the rules for voting this year didn’t prohibit voting for your own emails. Which is just what a lot of enterprising Academy members ended up doing.

[a bit of chatter in the audience, some shaking heads]

Since this wasn’t against the rules this year, the committee decided to accept such nominations, but it evaluated them with extra scrutiny.

The third and final hiccup was that there were a large number of submissions.

And since other prestigious awards (ahem, looking at you Oscars) are infamous for long, drawn-out ceremonies that last for many hours, with dozens of categories nobody cares about…

… ​​the committee has decided to make tonight’s ceremony short and snappy, like a good daily email, and focus on 5 most relevant and dramatic categories, highlighting diverse topics and styles, for this inaugural 2024, Best Daily Email Awards.

So without further ado… drum roll please… thank you… starting from the top…

The award for the Best Short Daily Email (under 100 words) goes to:

Josh Spector of the For The Interested newsletter, with his email, “So you say you want a resolution…”

In just 33 words, including the subject line, Josh managed to put a little smile on his readers’ faces… get them to open his email… share two valuable resources… and even include a classified ad that paid him a few hundred dollars.

Big congratulations to Josh for this successful daily email, and for being the first ever Best Daily Email Award winner.

Next, the award in the Best Original Story Daily Email goes to…

Australia’s best copywriter, Daniel Throssell, for his email, The Airport Incident.

Daniel’s email was a taut psychological thriller, set within the boarding queue at an airport gate.

Will she? Won’t she?

You had to keep reading to find out, only for the shocking surprise at the end of the email.

Big congratulations to Daniel on winning this prestigious award, and for writing an email that still keeps people talking months later.

Next, the award for the Best Foreign Language Daily Email goes to…

René Kerkdyk, a school teacher and guitar instructor from Hildesheim, Germany, for his email, “Gute Idee – Falsches Werkzeug.”

Fortunately, René’s email was subtitled in English as well. That’s why the committee could confirm the email was funny, charming, and heartfelt, the way that those European productions often are.

Congratulations to René for his successful email, and for being the inaugural Best Foreign Language Daily Email Award winner.

At this point, only two awards remain.

The tension is palpable.

First, we have the award for the Best Documentary Email, which goes to…

Matt Levine over at Bloomberg, for his email, “Money Stuff: Bill Ackman Wants Less Money.”

This was a 4,052-word email about markets and finances, and about a man named Bill Ackman, who is apparently a billionaire hedge fund manager.

I have to admit, I dozed off during this email, but that’s just because I find the topic of financial markets so foreign to me.

But — clearly those who enjoy financial topics thought this email was particularly fine. Also, it’s very likely that out of all the successful email writers on this list, Matt Levine got paid the most to write this exhaustive and exhausting piece.

For all these reasons, “Bill Ackman Wants Less Money” clearly deserves its Best Daily Email award. Congratulations to Matt and to Bloomberg.

And finally, our last Best Daily Email Award of the night, in the Best Adapted Story category, goes to…

…. yes, well, maybe you were wondering…

… of course it goes to me, John Bejakovic, for my email, “You don’t want to sell to a hobbit like me” — a story set in Middle Earth, featuring a boring and conservative hobbit who refused to heed the call of adventure.

I debated about including this email because it’s my own.

But as I wrote last week, the whole point of inventing an awards show is to be in the middle of it, and to use it for promotion and business-getting. So it would be a bit foolish to back out now. I will only say I was not the one to nominate this email.

So congratulations to all the Best Daily Email Award winners. You displayed an incredible amount of talent, creativity, and devotion to your craft.

And thank you to all Daily Email Academy members who voted in this year’s awards.

We will be back next year, with an even bigger, even more glamorous show, to celebrate what’s sure to be a new greatest year ever in daily emails.

Picture it now and ask yourself…​​

Will you be standing on stage to accept one of the 2025 Best Daily Email Awards?

The best way to make sure it happens is to start writing today. And if you’re ready to make the commitment and to dive in and pursue your crazy passion, here’s the official, Daily Email Academy-endorsed guide to producing interesting, acclaimed, and profitable daily emails:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

A grateful reader succeeds in making me blush

by

Last night, I got an email from marketer and copywriter Shakoor Chowdhury, who wrote:

===

Hello John,

I wanted to take a moment of my day to say “thank you”!

Besides Dan Kennedy, you have played the most impactful role in growing my revenues every single day

most of my NEW cashflow can be directly attributed to you and your courses “MVE” & “influential emails”…

I write emails daily now and they always bring more money or book appointments with high ticket clients…

This year I decided to focus on building relationships with my customers and not just ‘direct selling’ one time…

And I have to say, nobody is able to teach the concepts of email marketing better than you have…

It is simple, straightforward and teaches the FUNDAMENTALS of what it takes to be an email copywriter

I am a lifelong fan and customer.

Hope many more people and great things find their way to you, you are a bit of a ‘best kept secret’ in the copy world

which is perhaps why you are the best… the mystic ‘guru at the top of the mountain’

I found you because OTHER copywriters spoke so highly of you

===

Like I said in the subject line, Shakoor succeeded in making me blush, and I’m blushing now having to write about it. So let me change the topic immediately.

I recently heard business coach Rich Schefren say that he often gives presents to his mentor Mark Ford, because Mark doesn’t like to be in anybody’s debt, and so he always gives presents in return.

Let me do the same with Shakoor:

Based on what little I know of him, he sounds like a guy who gets things done and would probably have been successful one way or the other.

Last October when Shakoor and I first exchanged a couple emails, he was already working with a number of clients as a kind of full-service marketer for ecom businesses.

With just one of those clients working on a performance deal, Shakoor was taking in $10k+ per month. Overall, at that time, he was driving $300k+ in sales for his clients each month.

Somewhere along the line, Shakoor also had time to run his own dropshipping businesses, one of which got up to 100k+ buyers.

All that’s to say, after Shakoor decided to build up his personal brand and to start writing daily emails, I’m guessing he would have been successful with Dan Kennedy or without Dan Kennedy, with me or without me.

That said, I do appreciate Shakoor’s kind words.

​​I also do appreciate that I have been able to help occasional people learn something about direct marketing and copywriting… and even make transformations in their lives, whether that meant making more money, or getting going with daily emailing so they can build a personal brand and stop relying on cold outreach.

And on that topic:

I’m not currently selling the Influential Emails program that Shakoor was referring to. But I still am selling my Most Valuable Email program.

Most Valuable Email pulls back the curtain and shows you, in less than an hour, how to perform a specific email copywriting trick, one I use regularly in my own emails.

Emails using this trick are different from emails you might be familiar with, like story emails, or “hot takes,” or how-to emails, or personal reveals.

Unlike those other kinds of emails, Most Valuable Emails happen to work well whether you have authority or not, whether you’re just getting started with your personal brand or you have had a following for years.

And yet, none of that is the reason why these kinds of emails are most valuable.

The real reason is that Most Valuable Emails make daily emailing fun and educational for me personally, and easy to stick with for the long term.

And it seems for others like Shakoor also.

Maybe for you too?

I don’t know. But if you’d like to find out more about MVE, and see if it makes sense for you:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Jewish terrorists in Palestine

by

On today’s date, July 22 to be exact, a bomb went off in King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in what was then British-controlled Mandatory Palestine.

The year was 1946.

In other words, if you were hoping to hear me take some sort of stance on the current Israel/Palestine conflict, and either to be propped up or outraged in your beliefs, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed by this email.

Maybe best stop reading now.

On the other hand, if you want to be exposed to something new and different, then maybe read on.

Still here? All right:

The King David Hotel was the administrative headquarters of the British colonizers. In the attack, 91 British, Jewish, and Arab soldiers died. 46 more were injured.

The bombing was carried out by a Zionist paramilitary organization called Irgun Zvai Leumi, which called for the use of force to establish a Jewish state.

And regarding that terrorist label:

That’s not me making the judgment.

​​Irgun were labeled terrorists by the United Nations, The US and and UK governments, the New York Times, the 1946 Zionist Congress, and the Jewish Agency.

If that’s not enough, Albert Einstein wrote a public letter in 1948 which he compared Irgun to Nazi and fascist parties.

In spite of all this, I had never heard about Irgun until yesterday, when I did a bit of research in preparation for today’s email.

Encyclopedia Britannica described Irgun as “extremely disciplined and daring.” I was curious what that meant in practice, so I looked it up.

​​In brief:

Those wishing to join Irgun had to know somebody in the organization to have any chance to get in.

The initial interview took place in a darkened room.

The novice had a light shined into his eyes, and was quizzed on his motivations, “to weed out romantics and adventurers and those who had not seriously contemplated the potential sacrifices,” as per Wikipedia.

If the novice passed the initial interview, a 4-month indoctrination followed. This was designed to further eliminate the impatient and “those of flawed purpose” who had slipped through the initial screening.

Only if the recruit passed all these preliminary steps did he start a lengthy and arduous training program in weapons use and and military tactics and bomb-making.

The thing that struck me was that Irgun never had more than 40 members at a time.

And yet, with such a small force, they carried out a number of deadly attacks (such as the King David Hotel bombing) or daring exploits (such as capturing Acre prison, a medieval fortress that not even Napoleon had managed to take with army of thousands).

But bringing all this back to the topic of this newsletter, specifically, direct marketing and what it can tell us about human psychology.

What I read of Irgun reminded me of direct marketing authority Dan Kennedy.

Dan once said that there are large commonalities between those who join mass movements, such as Irgun, and direct response customers, particularly those who follow a guru or leader or expert, on whatever topic, whether copywriting or health or investing.

By telling you this, I don’t meant to trivialize or endorse killing people or other terrorist activity. But I do mean to tell you something about human psychology.

The little that I’ve written above about Irgun’s recruiting and training process all applies, pretty much verbatim, to the effective recruiting and training of long-term direct response customers.

If you find that a little shocking… or a little vague… or you’d just like to find out more about the psychology of those who join mass movements, and how that might be relevant in the more mundane, safe, and profit-oriented world of direct marketing… then there’s a kind of manual on the topic.

Dan once gave out copies of this manual to his own small and select group of fanatical followers, who had made it into the room only after a long period of selection and indoctrination.

If you’d like to pick up a copy of the same manual today:

https://bejakovic.com/true-believer

I was ghosted by a business owner for an eternity

by

Two weeks ago, July 7 to be specific, I sent an email to a business owner I had been talking to back in 2021.

Back in 2021, the conversation between us had dropped off.

I never followed up, not until 14 days ago, to see if it still makes sense to talk about the project we had been talking about back then, where I would help him get more back-end sales for his ecom brand.

The business owner didn’t respond to me 14 days ago. Or 13 days ago. Or 12 days ago.

He ghosted me entirely, all the way up to yesterday, 2 weeks after I sent him the original email. Yesterday, he wrote:

===

Hi John,

Great to hear from you. Yes, we still own [his brand]. Let’s pick up the conversation again.

Here’s a link to my schedule: [calendly link]

I look forward to talking with you soon.

===

I recently read a book called Business Buying Strategies. It’s a book about, er, strategies to buy businesses.

The book was solid, with worthwhile info by a guy named Jonathan Jay, somebody who had clearly done what he was writing about.

But more interesting than the what-to and how-to in the book were a few bonus chapters. These featured candid interviews with various business owners who had made a habit of buying other businesses.

I made two notes for myself from one of those interviews, here reproduced verbatim:

1. In spite of apparent outward success, business owners can be fucked. They might be in a place where they can’t make payroll, or can’t pay themselves.

2. Business owners get hundreds of emails a day.

All that’s to say:

1. It makes sense to reach out and offer a way out to business owners.

2. It makes sense to follow up if a business owner doesn’t respond or if the conversation goes cold.

By the way, in case you’re interested in growing by acquisition, or in cutting down the gigantic odds of failure that go into starting up anything new, now or in the future, then Jay’s book is worth a read.

Here’s the link if you’d like to spend $7.99 on some valuable info:

https://bejakovic.com/business-buying