Business Ideas

The day after

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Yesterday around 1pm, I finished writing my Daily Email Habit puzzle and was about to upload it to Kit. But my Internet had stopped working. The odd thing was I checked my phone, and not just the wifi was down, but it looked like the cellular network, too.

I shrugged and went to take a nap because… I live in Spain.

I woke up twenty minutes later. The Internet was still down. I looked inside the fridge to see if there was anything interesting happening there. It was dark. Aha. The power was out.

I opened the the circuit breaker box — all the circuit breakers were fine. I opened the front door of my apartment. The hallway outside was dark except for the emergency light.

Ok. So the power is out in the entire building. There was a notice a few days ago about some utilities work being done, maybe this was it.

I decided to go to the gym, because there was nothing else to do. The elevator wasn’t working so I took the stairs. On my way down, I passed a couple with a baby who were climbing up. The woman was carrying the baby, while the guy, panting, was carrying the stroller. Lucky for them, they live on just the second floor (the building has 12).

As I stepped out into the sunshine, I saw a bunch of people standing around on the street and talking. All stores, restaurants, and banks were dark and empty. I guess the was power out everywhere in my neighborhood?

I passed by a local brunch place. The waitress was explaining to the guests, “It’s everywhere! My boyfriend in Madrid says it, there’s no connection anywhere.”

I got to the gym, which was dark, silent, and full of people. I did my workout among suppressed grunts and increasingly stifling air (the AC wasn’t working).

I heard one of the trainers explain to somebody that this power outage is happening “en toda España.” Somebody else said Portugal too. Others were saying it’s in France and Italy as well (turned out to be exaggerations).

I walked back home. Drivers were carefully stopping at every zebra and intersection because the stoplights weren’t working either.

The streets were packed with people. Neither the metros nor trams were running. The whole city seemed to be either standing on the streets or walking home because no work could be done. An alarming number of women were sitting on park benches and reading books.

Convenience stores were the only thing that was somewhat open. Each one had a queue of people waiting at the front door. The store owners were letting in people one by one to do basic shopping if they could pay in cash.

As tends to happen, the sun started to set. I went for a walk and saw firefighters in front of a pharmacy beating down the rolling security shutter. It must run on electricity. I guess the firefighters were trying to close it by force for the pharmacists, to prevent a breakin at night.

I stood on my balcony as night fell. I was looking forward to seeing the city in total darkness for once. But it wasn’t to happen.

It turned out some buildings still had electricity — the fire station next door, various hotels, an entire neighborhood off on the hillside.

Still, Avinguda Diagonal, the main artery next to my house, was almost entirely dark. So was my little street. My own apartment was even darker.

I made a salad for dinner — the only food I had left in the house that didn’t require a stove to prepare. I had to move the cutting board to the window because the counter where I normally work was so dark I was afraid I would chop off a finger tip while slicing the cherry tomatoes.

By around 9:30pm, my apartment was like a cave. There was no Internet and I had switched off my phone earlier to conserve the battery. I lay on the couch and turned on the backlight on my Kindle to read in darkness.

Around 10pm, I heard cheering and clapping outside. A neighboring block had gotten its power back. But my block and most other blocks around me were still in the dark.

I went to bed around 10:30pm, feeling exhausted. I guess following the natural light cycle does that to you.

And then, some time during the night, I’m guessing around 2am, I woke up to loud beeping. My fridge was back and it was helpfully signalling that the temperature of the freezer was dangerously high.

All that’s to say, as of this morning, everything’s normal once again, and without even an interruption in my daily email cadence.

I have to admit I was actually looking forward to the possibility of a continuing power outage, and to having a proper, unavoidable excuse to not writing my daily email today. What would that be like? I’ve been writing a daily email for years now, every day, without fail. I was excited by the prospect of change. That’s something for me to think about.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that the curious day yesterday reminded me of a curious book I’d read two years ago. In fact, this book was the first book of my year-long Insights & More Book Club, which brought together a few of my readers specifically to read books that offered a mind-bending new perspective.

The first book of the book club fit the bill.

Even though the book is 100 years old, it was written in a particularly interesting and influential style, which I think can be relevant for anyone writing online today.

It also did lead me to moment of real insight, a perspective shift, which sticks with me to this day. I mean, even to yesterday, when I was really thinking about it.

If you’re curious, you can find the book, or maybe even read it yourself, at the following convenient link:

https://bejakovic.com/masses

What matters more than results

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Last year, a dude with some personal domain email address signed up to my list.

I make a habit of doing a bit of detective work on new subscribers. This led me to a New York Times article about the dude from 2015.

At that time, said the article, he was the manager of an investment fund with $35 billion under management.

I wrote him a 1-1 email, as I do sometimes with new subscribers, to say hello, to mention the article about him I had dug up in my snooping, and to ask what a person of his profile is doing signing up to a daily email list like mine, about writing and marketing and effective communication. He replied:

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I basically do the same thing I did for the pension fund, but now for a small group of direct clients. I also run quite a bit of money for other investment advisors and their clients. I manage about $1.2 billion total – I’m a solo shop, do it all myself.

I decided a few years ago that I wanted to be out of the public eye – 20 years was enough, so I’m pretty secretive and off the grid.

My results are still among the best in the country, but I’ve learned in the retail investment world perceptions matter more than results. So I generate best in class returns mostly for myself and personal pride.

My business actually runs and grows off the image I portray to clients and prospects. I’ve learned that I’m lucky enough to have the ability to naturally make complex things simple, which people are dying for in the investment business.

I’ve developed a somewhat unique way to communicate, mostly using very focused, simple communications. Especially in the world of AI, I think this skill will matter more than most. So I’ve become a closet student of writing, copywriting, communication, etc. That’s how I can across your newsletter. I bought your book too.

===

I thought that was curious and wanted to share it with you.

Here’s a dude who, so you might imagine, lives and breathes by measurable results. I mean, either he makes his investors money, or he doesn’t. Either he outperforms the other guy, or he doesn’t.

Except, as he says, that doesn’t really matter, not as much as perception, as the image he portrays to his clients and prospects.

That’s something to keep in mind, if you yourself work in a field that’s supposedly results-based, and particularly if you work in a field that’s more fuzzy and wooly.

So how do you build up and maintain an image that clients and prospects are willing to pay for?

The message above from the investment advisor spells it out.

I can only add that he also told me he sends “clients and prospects periodic emails about the markets, my strategy, etc.”

Maybe it’s something you could profit from too? If you’d like my help on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

It drops out the bottom of every sales funnel

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Last summer, I listened to an old sales training by a guy named Fred Herman. Says Fred:

“I believe every sale sort of funnels down this way. You need to have a product or a service. You need to have a customer, of course, to talk to. Then you need to find out what his dominant buying motive is. And then the picture he will buy will drop right out the bottom of the funnel, because people don’t buy products or services, they buy pictures of the end result of that product or service, playing a part in their life.”

This echoes something that the great Robert Collier wrote a hundred years ago in his Letter Book:

“Thousands of sales have been lost, millions of dollars worth of business have failed to materialize, solely because so few letter-writers have that knack of visualizing a proposition — of painting it in words so the reader can see it as they see it.”

And of course, if you need something a bit more modern, there’s negotiation coach Jim Camp, who summed it up in his pithy and dramatic way:

“No vision, no decision.”

“Sure sure,” you say. “Words, words, more words. I need pictures though! Isn’t that what you’re trying to sell me on?”

All right, let’s see if you can picture this:

Yesterday, I told you about Albert Lasker and Claude C. Hopkins.

Lasker, who ran the biggest and most powerful ad agency in the US, wanted Hopkins to come and work for him.

Problem was, Hopkins 1) didn’t want to be in advertising any more and 2) had made millions and didn’t need to work ever again.

Lasker asked Hopkins to meet for lunch at an upscale restaurant.

He played to Hopkins’s vanity, pulling out several pages of typewritten copy for a major new client, the best copy he had been able to get written by the best copywriters out there, which just wasn’t good enough to be submitted.

He made Hopkins an “easy yes” proposition — “just write three ads for us so we can submit it to this one client.”

Crucially — and this is really the picture-within-the-picture I want to give you — Lasker didn’t offer Hopkins any money to take the job.

After all, what’s money gonna do for Hopkins? He’s already got enough.

Instead, as the dessert arrived, Lasker told Hopkins to send his wife to the car dealer so she can pick out whatever car she likes, and Lasker would pay for it.

A bit of backstory:

1. Hopkins’s wife wanted an electric car (crazy thing is, those existed in 1907).

2. Hopkins, though a multimillionaire, was cheap and couldn’t part with the money to buy his wife the electric car. This was causing… tension at home.

You might think, what’s the difference between getting paid outright and getting paid via a free car for your wife?

In theory, no difference.

In practice, all the difference in the world.

And so it is with your prospects and customers too.

You might be promising them money.

That works some of the time. But what works all the time is to promise people what they really want. And that, like old Fred says up top, is a picture of the end result of what they are buying, playing a part in their life.

Of course, that takes some research on your part. Lasker had to do some scheming and digging to find out that Hopkins’s wife wanted an electric car and that Hopkins was too cheap to buy it for her, and that this was the most pressing problem in his life right now. But that’s what made Hopkins yield, “as all do, to Lasker’s persuasiveness.”

And that’s it. That’s all I got for you.

I have nothing to sell you today, at least nothing wonderfully expensive the way I would like.

But if you want more stories that can buy you a car, featuring Claude C. Hopkins and Albert Lasker, can find a couple in my original 10 Commandments book.

I’ve shipped off the new 10 Commandments book to several trusted readers and I am waiting, my cheeks red from holding my breath, for their feedback so I can integrate said feedback and hit publish on Amazon.

Meanwhile, if you still haven’t read the original 10 Commandments, you can find them all waiting for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

A persuasion riddle featuring the greatest ad man of all time

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I got a riddle for you. A persuasion riddle. It goes like this:

In 1907, Albert Lasker, President at the Lord & Thomas ad agency, badly wanted to hire Claude C. Hopkins, widely believed to be the greatest ad man of that time, and really, of any time.

Problem:

Hopkins 1) didn’t want to work and 2) didn’t need the money.

The background was that, a short while earlier, Hopkins had been publicly disgraced and privately shook up.

He had become a part owner of a patent medicine company called Liquozone. He believed in the Liquozone product — he thought it had saved his daughter’s life. He advertised it very aggressively and effectively.

Hopkins took Liquozone from bankruptcy in 1902 to making a profit of $1.8 million the next year (about $60 million in today’s money).

Over the next five years, Hopkins, who owned a 25% stake in Liquozone, made millions of dollars personally, probably over $100 million in today’s money.

And then some muckracking journalist had the gall to go and write a series of muckracking articles (“The Great American Fraud”) about how patent medicines were all bunk and how Liquozone in particular was the “same old fake” and how, according to lab tests, it was probably more harmful than helpful.

In response to those articles, a bunch of states banned Liquozone, and the federal government set up the Food and Drug Administration, to regulate health products and the claims made about them.

Again, Hopkins, who genuinely believed in Liquozone, was privately hurt. And publicly, being involved with something that was now known as a fake and a scam, he decided to retire to a village on Lake Michigan, determined not to work in advertising no more.

And yet, as Hopkins later wrote, “As far as I know, no ordinary human being has ever resisted Albert Lasker. Nothing he desired has ever been forbidden him. So I yielded, as all do, to his persuasiveness.”

So here’s the riddle:

What did Albert Lasker say or do to convince Hopkins, who didn’t want to work and who didn’t need the money, to come out of his village hiding hole and get back into copywriting?

If you dig around on the internet, or if you get Perplexity to do it for you, you can probably find the answer.

But what’s the fun in that? And what’s the value?

The fact is, if you riddle this out for yourself, you might come up with good ideas of your own.

And when I share the actual answer in my email tomorrow, it’s sure to be much more memorable and useful to you.

By the way, the answer to this riddle applies way beyond convincing A-list copywriters to come work for you. It applies to just about any kind of new business partnership you might want to start.

But more about that tomorrow.

For today, I thought about what offer makes sense to promote, given the Hopkins and Lasker story above.

I realized that once again, it’s Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, which I was promoting extensively last month.

I’m no longer giving away bonuses just for trying out Ronin for free for a week.

I am giving away bonuses if you decide to stick with Ronin past the free trial.

But honestly, the bonuses I’m offering, nice as they are, are but a drop in the total value of what you get if you are actually inside the Ronin community, and if you simply make a point to do something with the resources inside.

If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

More staff?

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This morning, I got a reply from a reader who wrote:

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Great insights, btw do you need more staff? Thanks

Have a good day!

===

I guess it was a great pattern interrupt because it made me blank for a full five seconds.

“More staff? What… where… how much staff do I have now?”

In the past, I’ve hired people for one-off jobs, such as creating book covers or converting an email-based course into a website-based course.

But I’ve never had an employee and frankly I don’t ever want an employee.

In fact, at one point back in 2020, I wrote down 10 characteristics of the kind of business I would like to have. Number 2 on the list was:

“I don’t have to manage people. I can do it all myself or outsource parts of it that I don’t feel like doing.”

I’m telling you this while being fully aware it’s nothing to boast about, and is even rather stupid.

As every reasonable and successful person can tell you, hiring people takes the mushed peas off your plate, allows you to focus on the stuff you like to do and are good at, and makes you more money overall while leaving you more free time.

What’s not to like? I don’t know. I should have an employee. Maybe I should even have two.

But I don’t want one. I don’t want two or more either. And in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, in the end the only real option is to “put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals.”

Rich’s point is that it takes a long long while to change the person you are — like the rest of your life, and even then, you might not be all that different than you are today.

It doesn’t make sense to wait for that.

You might as well figure out how to live your life and run your business and make money with what you got, instead of telling yourself that you should have some other stuff in your pocket, or you should be a different person in your head, and then you will be ready.

What’s made it so that I’ve been able to survive in spite of refusing to hire or manage anybody is pretty simple. It’s daily emails.

In fact, my entire business now is really built on the back of writing an email to my list every day. I started writing daily emails as a way to get better at writing copy, back when I was working with clients. Then it became about potentially attracting clients. Then, after I stopped working with clients, it became about selling products.

At every step of the way, the common thing was simply writing an email each day about something that I found interesting and valuable, and (most of the time) tacking on some kind of an offer.

Not only does it pay the bills these days but it’s transformed my life — I’ve learned a ton of stuff about what I do that I would never have learned otherwise, I’ve become a better writer and marketer, and I’ve even developed a low level of star status in a very niche industry.

I don’t think I’m particularly unique in being able to do this. The main thing is to start, and to stick with it for the long term.

I’ve created something that can help you both get started, and stick with it, if that’s what you’d like to do. To find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Do you know anybody who needs referrals?

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I’ve just prepared a little report about a tweak to get referrals. It works for getting referrals for services, but it can be adapted for products, too.

If you know anybody who needs referrals, write me an email (hit reply or write me at john@bejakovic.com) and I’ll get you a copy of this report so you can give it to them.

A question I’ve been dreading

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Last week I got a question, one I’ve been dreading, from long-time reader Neil Sutton.

Neil is an architect by day and by night, he puts on his copywriting pajamas and works as a copywriter helping businesses who want architects as clients…. which I have to say is kind of brilliant. Anyways, Neil wrote:

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Hey John,

Here’s a picture of me eating a PopTart and scrolling through my Bejako emails, trying to find where I missed the email about your new 10 Commandments book launch.

[Neil included a gif here, showing a small monkey, possible a rhesus macaque, eating a pop tart and scrolling on a phone]

Did I miss it?

===

The back story is that, some time in February, I had the bright idea to publicly announce a deadline — March 24,2025 — by which I will finish and publish my new book, titled:

“10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters”

Well, the deadline came, the deadline passed, no emails went out announcing the book because the book is still not finished or published.

I failed with my self-assigned public deadline, and a few people, Neil among them, have spotted something off.

I can only tell you that just this morning, I finished the introduction to the new book, which was the last part waiting to be written. The book just has to go out to a few folks for edits + suggestions. The cover is already done.

All of which means the book will be finished and published…

Who knows when. I’ve burned myself already by setting and publicly announcing a deadline I failed to meet. I won’t be repeating that mistake again.

Two things are for sure:

One, I am working on it. And two, I will get it done.

In the meantime, if you haven’t read my original 10 Commandments book, you might find that interesting and valuable.

The original 10 commandments book was successful enuff that I decided to copy the core concept, the structure, and even the cover style for the new 10 Commandments book.

If you’re looking for ideas to help you influence others, or just to better understand your own mind, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

How to get a one-time course to maintain its value

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Dr. Kiran Agarwal, who is both a practicing GP in London and a stress-management coach, writes in with a legit question (or actually 3) about my ongoing promo of ChatGPT Mastery:

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Thanks for introducing Gasper – I am interested as you are supporting him.

A couple of quick questions- is this specific for chatGPT? or prompts can be used for any other AIs?

And why would you not let it write your daily emails? Is it because you like writing them or anything else?

As things are changing so fast in AI space, how will this one time course maintain its value after a couple of months?

===

Kiran’s third question is really the most interesting, but let me answer the first two quickly:

1. ChatGPT Mastery is specific to ChatGPT. That said, I imagine the prompts would work in any other chat-like AI tool like Claude or Gemini.

2. I get value out of writing emails beyond just the money I make from them, or the fact that they’re sent out. Plus, I don’t think that anybody or anything can get my own tone and ideas exactly right.

That’s why I wouldn’t let AI write my emails, and why I wouldn’t hire a copywriter to write my emails either.

3. Like I said, this question is the most interesting. Sure, it’s fine to find out how to get the most out of ChatGPT today… but what about in July? Or August? Or next year?

I checked the sales page for ChatGPT Mastery, and there was nothing about this question. So I wrote to Gasper Crepinsek, the guy behind ChatGPT Mastery, to find out what he has to say.

Gasper got back to me with the exact response I was hoping for:

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If someone wants to take the course again, I will simply add them in the future run.

I want to build long-term customers. My whole goal is to keep adding to the course and people who put the trust early will get everything I add locked in at the initial price they paid.

===

I think what Gasper is doing is super smart. I say that having done the same with my Copy Riddles course back when I ran it as a cohort course.

I allowed people who joined Copy Riddles in previous runs to join future runs for free. It bought me a bunch of goodwill, created customers who are still with me years later, plus it produced some great case studies and testimonials from people who got more on the 2nd or 3rd run than they did the first time around. He who has ears, let him hear.

Also, let him hear this:

The deadline to join ChatGPT Mastery is tomorrow, Thursday, at 12 midnight EST (not PST, the way I do).

If you’re on the fence, it’s time to make up your mind one way or the other, otherwise the deadline will make up your mind for you.

If you want more info to help you make up your mind, here’s my initial email, detailing why I’m endorsing and promoting ChatGPT Mastery:

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Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

Announcing: ChatGPT Mastery

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Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

What it’s like to finally sell Guinness

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My friend Biff recently texted me to say he had been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast, which I’ve written about often in these emails.

That podcast features interviews with people in different professions, with the goal of finding out what it’s like to do their job.

(As is often true of these kinds of podcasts, the host is somebody famous or influential, who has decided to do a pet project. In this case the influential person is Dan Heath, author of the book Made To Stick, which I’ve also written about many times in this newsletter.)

Anyways, I had not been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast for a while – there’s too much damn stuff to listen to.

I felt guilty after Biff wrote me to say he had heard some good episodes lately.

So at the gym two days ago, I put on the latest episode, to find out what it’s like to be… a barman.

A barman is apparently what in Ireland they call a bar tender. Except not really, because a barman also acts as a kind of standup comedian as well as a therapist or self-esteem coach, which U.S. bar tenders are typically not certified for.

But let me get to the point of today’s email, the valuable message that can maybe make you millions of cents or even dollars:

The barman — name, Brian Wynne – said that his pub has been around for 30 years. But in spite of it being an Irish pub, in Dublin, they didn’t sell Guinness until three weeks ago. He explained:

“We’ve been open since ’96 and we put our first Guinness tap in three weeks ago. We make an equivalent porter. When I say equivalent, I mean it’s vastly superior, of course, but I can’t say that. I’m sure your lawyers will have a go at you for allowing me to say that kinda thing.”

Dan Heath then asked Wynne how Guinness is doing after the first three weeks. Wynne replied:

“Oh, it’s outselling everything else we have. You spend 20 years explaining to people why we don’t sell Guinness ’cause our products are superior and more Irish. You make jokes about it. I have so many anecdotes and lines all built up about the sale of Guinness, which we don’t have, and then we do have it in…”

… and it outsells everything else, without even trying.

I wanted to share this with you because it’s a truth that goes far beyond the Irish pub.

I thought to myself, as I listened to Wynne while doing my fire hydrant exercises, how many online business owners find themselves in same position?

They work to create a “vastly superior” product… they turn themselves into the equivalent of a barman who educates and jokes and soft-sells… they show up day after day in front of their prospects… and yet, sales still a fraction of what they could be, if they only sold what people already really wanted, ie. a Guinness instead of their no-name vastly superior equivalent.

Do with that what seems meet.

As for me, I’ll take me to do some market research. I’ll even offer you a trade:

Hit reply to this email and tell me the last digital info purchase you made. It could be a course… some live training or coaching… a new newsletter or membership you subscribed to… or an ebook (except Amazon kindle ebooks, that’s too broad for my purposes).

I’m curious to find out what you’ve already spent money on, and maybe I will start selling the same.

And in return?

I’ll reply to you and tell you my own latest digital info purchase. (It’s not Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, I promise that.) I will tell you that it’s an ebook, that I paid $209 for it (yes, there are no missing decimal points in there), and that I have so far taken 9 pages of notes from it.

I’m not sure it will be as useful for you as it has been to me, but if you’re curious to find out what it is, you know what to do.