Business Ideas

Reader warns me against being a Negative Nancy

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A long-time reader replies to my email yesterday:

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Hey John

First – as I stated in a couple of my previous replies to your emails – I love reading yours. (I am subscribed only to two daily newsletters and one is yours)

It gives that chill vibes and interesting reading type of feelings.

And since, I like reading your emails and planning to do so as long as you write, wanted to share with you that today’s email brought a feeling of negativity (it could be me only though).

No intention to judge, just sharing the impact of your email left on me.

===

I’m not 100% sure what this reader meant to convey. If I’m reading into it, I guess he meant that negativity is negative, and negative things are negative. “Don’t be a Negative Nancy,” that kind of thing.

And yes:

It’s good idea to keep your emails light and positive. And yet…

It’s a better idea to change things up from time to time, to keep people from dismissing you by thinking they know what you’ll say next. And then…

It’s a best idea to be congruent, and to never sound like you’re trying to cover up your real thoughts or feelings, or come across as half-heartedly spinning scat into sucrose.

More on the this sensitive topic:

A few days ago, I got an unusual new subscriber to my Daily Email Habit service. I won’t name him here, because I’m not sure he wants me to.

I will say that, unlike most people signed up to DEH, this new customer is not running a typical coaching/course-selling/service-provider business.

Instead, he is a fiction author. He’s looking to sell his more of his own fiction books, and to build a tighter bond with his existing audience.

We exchanged a couple emails, and in one of them, this fiction author wrote about the unique part of writing daily emails to a fiction-reading list:

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It’s a different beast to problem-solving markets as it disproportionately leans more on personal stories, personality, etc., which is difficult when you’ve got no pain points to leverage. Still, it has been fun to stretch myself.

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True. People don’t really read fiction because they are looking for how-to solutions to their specific problems.

That said, people who read fiction do have problems in their lives – as we all do.

My bit of advice to the fiction author was to talk about his own problems. Not in a way of seeking pity or even asking for solutions, but simply as a means of allowing his audience to identify with him.

It took me a long while to realize the following point, because I’m a bit dense:

But the real point of telling a personal story isn’t to brag or be an exhibitionist or even to entertain.

Rather, it’s to allow other people to identify with you, to put themselves in your position in your story, and to say to themselves, “Yeah, that makes sense,” or “Yeah, that’s happened to me,” or “Yeah, that’s how I felt also.”

And so if you ever find yourself asking:

“Is this a good personal story? Should I include this bit? Is it relevant? Is it interesting? Am I just including it for the sake of ego? Is it irrelevant to the story but somehow important on another level?”

… then keep in mind that your personal story isn’t really about you, but is really about allowing your reader to have a certain kind of experience, thanks to you.

Anyways, all that’s to say:

1. Daily emails don’t always gotta be blinding sunshine and positivity

2. In fact there’s a good reason for regularly sharing frustrations and personal problems

3. Sometimes you can cram more than one point into an email

By the way, my email yesterday, which was deemed negative by at least one reader, was negative on purpose, because it was written as my answer to yesterday’s Daily Email Habit puzzle.

Yesterday’s DEH puzzle has now vanished, along with February 2025, never to be repeated.

But another new puzzle will come out tomorrow, fresh for March 2, 2025.

And if you want to use this upcoming puzzle to help you sell more of your own stuff, including even fiction books… and to build a tighter bond with your existing audience… then you may, or you may not, like my Daily Email Habit service. Only one way to find out:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

I’m not letting people resubscribe to Daily Email Habit any more

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In reply to my email yesterday, a now ex-subscriber to my Daily Email Habit service wrote in to say:

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Hello! Which is your paid email? This one or daily email habit? The emails have been all great, and great tips, but I don’t want to get charged $30 per month (doing taxes and realizing how many subscriptions I have 😬). I’d like to unsubscribed for the paid one and not the other.

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First, a disclaimer:

I appreciate all customers. I appreciate the trust they put in me, the interest they have in what I offer, and the money they choose to give me.

But I gotta say this particular customer’s reply made me frown. She didn’t even know which is my personal free newsletter, and which is the paid service?

I must be doing something wrong.

I’ve also had a few Charter Members unsub from Daily Email Habit over the past month, following a very successful quasi-launch I did back in January, and say things like, “I gotta save the $20/month right now, but I will be back soon!”

Again, clearly I’m doing something wrong, because I’m not getting these people to take what they signed up for seriously, to consume it, to get value from it.

I’ve already done what I know to do to make the actual Daily Email Habit service both easy to get started with, and addicting to keep going with.

I might in the future put up some kinds of restrictions on people signing up, to make sure they are actually committed.

But right now, starting today, as this email goes out, I’ve decided to institute a new policy:

I’m not letting people resubscribe to Daily Email Habit after they unsubscribe.

It’s a policy I got from Ben Settle, who uses the same for his paid print newsletter.

This policy worked on me when I signed up to Ben’s newsletter. It made me sign up much later, only when I told myself I was really ready, and it made me take the content that Ben was sharing much more seriously.

And yes, this policy also made me stay signed up to Ben’s newsletter longer than I might have, after I’d had enough.

In part it was the threat of not being able to resubscribe… and in part it was Ben’s dismissive and shaming attitude to people who do unsubscribe.

I’m trying to soften that effect here as far as possible. I have no interest in shaming anyone, or continuing to take money from people who are not getting value from what I offer.

Quite the opposite.

I want dedicated people to sign up to Daily Email Habit, to use the service and to benefit from it, and to get much more from it than what they pay me.

That’s why I invite you to take what time you need to decide if you’re ready to start your own daily email habit, and put in consistent daily work to build up your own authority… a relationship with a list who trusts you and wants to hear from you… and a business that really can run on the back of an email a day, if you so choose.

If after all this, you do sign up to my Daily Email Habit service, and you still find it’s not working for you, of you’re not using it in spite of your best intentions and my best efforts to help you, then no problem.

Again, I appreciate your interest and your trust.

But as of today, anybody who unsubs from Daily Email Habit won’t be able to resubscribe.

I expect I will have to write subsequent emails about this to really get my point across. Still, I’ve updated the Daily Email Habit sales page to clearly state the new reality.

In any case, if you’d like to get the full info on Daily Email Habit, WHICH IS A PAID SUBSCRIPTION OFFER, DISTINCT FROM THIS PARTICULAR DAILY EMAIL NEWSLETTER YOU ARE READING NOW, then you can get that at the following page.

Read through it. Take what time you need to decide if you’re really ready to get started. And then, take a bit more time before you make any rash decisions like signing up. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

A free tip to minimize unsubscribes

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A few days ago, Maliha Mannan, who writes dailyish emails over at The Side Blogger, posted something interesting inside my little Daily Email House community.

Apparently, Maliha was trying a HARO-like service – HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter Out, basically being a service where industry experts can provide answers and quotes for reporters, in exchange for attribution or a link.

On a whim, Maliha decided to ask for a marketing specialist’s thoughts on daily email newsletters. She put her request out into the ether, and like a lightning bolt, an answer crashed upon her:

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Hi, this is C S Sultan, an experienced marketer for over 14 years and doing email marketing for over 5 years now.

As per our data, the highest you should send in a week are 2 emails. But the best would be to send only 1. Then moment we send more that 2, the unsubscribe rate goes up by 70%.

Our email list consists of marketers, content creators, bloggers, and small-to-medium businesses.

Even so, the highest response we get is when we send a single email every week at a fix time and day (for us, usually that’s Tuesday 8AM EST for one segment, and Thursday 8AM EST for another segment).

===

So there you go. An excellent tip to keep your unsubscribe rates really low. Though I imagine if C S Sultan only emailed his list every month, or maybe not at all, he might do even better with the unsubscribes.

Of course, there are other possible goals in the world than minimizing unsubscribes. For example, maximizing opens, clickthroughs, sales, or better yet, lifetime sales.

Or, something more wooly but still important, such as maximizing the quality of people who are buying from you… maximizing the results you get for customers or clients or even readers who don’t buy from you… or maximizing your own sensation of the influence and respect you get in your niche, and the satisfaction with which you run your business and life.

For all those, here’s another free tip:

Email daily.

Yes, people will unsubscribe. But people will read also, and way more than if you just email once a week or once an ice age.

And more people will buy, more will recommend you, more will look to you for entertainment, guidance, or simply the habit that they’ve formed of taking a few minutes each day (gasp!) to consume something fun or thoughtful you’ve put out into the world. Plus you might even grow to like the process. I know I’ve gotten there.

Like Maliha wrote, maybe C S Sultan should sign up for my Daily Email Habit service. I doubt that he will.

But maybe you are not playing to lose, but are playing to win. In that case, Daily Email Habit might be a fit for you. For more info, before the next puzzle has come and gone:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The Bejakovic principle

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“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure ought and six, result misery.”

I recently finished reading David Copperfield, a book written some 175 years ago by Charles Dickens.

I read David Copperfield based on the strength of that quote, which is spoken by a character named Wilkins Micawber, and has become popularly known as the Micawber principle.

The Micawber principle pretty much sums up my own attitude to money, try as I have to care more about getting rich for the sake of getting rich.

But today’s email is not about money. Rather, it’s about influence.

Dickens introduces Wilkins Micawber by saying the man had “no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg.”

Micawber’s clothes were shabby, but he carried a “jaunty sort of a stick” and a quizzing-glass (something like a monocle) on the outside of his coat. (“For ornament, I afterwards found,” Dickens adds, “as he seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he did.”)

As becomes clear throughout the book, Mr. Micawber loves pompous language… swings between despair and perfect cheerfulness in the span of a meal… and is always in debt, and is always running away from his lenders. Hence the Micawber principle, which Micawber advises others to live by, but cannot follow himself.

But let me get to the point of this email:

I hadn’t realized this before, but Charles Dickens is famous for his characters. In fact, he might be the most famous novelist of all times, in all languages, when it comes to distinct, memorable characters.

Besides Mr. Micawber, there’s Ebenezer Scrooge, Oliver Twist, Tiny Tim, the Artful Dodger — dozens and dozens of famous characters, many of who have passed into popular culture and even the English language.

So what?

So I’m telling ya, read Dickens for character… and then apply the lessons to yourself.

As Dan Kennedy said once, the basis for influence is invention.

Specifically, Dan said that people who write for great influence — he was talking about people who write for business purposes, as he does — turn themselves into personas, into fictional characters.

And by the way, Dan adds:

“The good copywriters are frustrated fiction writers and read fiction.”

So read Dickens. Or read some other fiction, which is built around distinct, memorable characters.

And then, add a quizzing glass to your outfit, even if you seldom look through it and cannot see anything when you do… and even if it’s only there in your writing, and not in reality.

Now here’s the Bejakovic principle:

“Twenty four hours, one email written and sent out, result happiness. Twenty four hours, no emails written or sent out, result misery.”

Only difference is, unlike Mr. Micawber, I manage to live by my own principle. And if you’d like my help in achieving lasting happiness, and maybe in turning yourself into a fictional character in your emails:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

It can’t go on for long like this

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I once took a class on “health economics,” which is just what it sounds like.

One thing that’s stuck with me from those lectures is how back in the 1980s, the best and brightest political scientists in the West had no clue that the Soviet Union was about to collapse.

The only guy who was confidently predicting the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union was some low-profile economist who was looking at the rates of alcoholism and alcohol-related deaths in the USSR.

I don’t remember the exact numbers, but they were sky-high. A major part of the Soviet working-age population was either chronically drunk, sick from drinking, or dying from drinking.

It couldn’t go on for long like this, that economist predicted. And sure enough, it didn’t.

I thought of this a couple days ago while forcing myself to read an article about the U.S. Army’s recruiting shortfalls.

The U.S. Army’s recruiting woes are not a topic that I am personally interested in, but I’m glad I read the article. Among many other interesting things, it taught me the following:

“According to a Pentagon study, more than three-quarters of Americans between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four are ineligible, because they are over-weight, unable to pass the aptitude test, afflicted by physical or mental-health issues, or disqualified by such factors as a criminal record.”

I wanted to get a baseline.

A bit of perplexitying told me that during World War II, “nearly half” of men were deemed ineligible to serve in the army… during the Vietnam war, that had risen to “more than half” (though many eligible men were exempted for being in college)… by 2017, the number of ineligible men and women, ages 17 to 24, had reached 71%. In the most recent study, in 2022, that number had gone up to 77%.

In other words, in the span of about 50 years, the share of the “ineligible” has gone up by more than 50%… and the share of U.S. citizens, in the prime of life, who are not significantly compromised by health, mental, or behavioral issues, is now barely 1 in 5.

I don’t know what the future of the U.S. is. But the trend certainly isn’t good. It can’t go on for long like this.

Now that I’ve dug a six-foot-deep hole for myself so far in this email, let’s see if I can clamber out.

One idea I’ve personally found very inspiring over the years comes from Dan Kennedy.

I only know this idea as it was retold by Ben Settle in one of Ben’s emails. In fact, it was this email that got me to sign up to Ben’s paid newsletter.

The idea is the “myth of security.” Because, says Dan, there is no such thing as security. Not really, not if you look close.

There’s no security in the money or investments you already have in the bank… in the job that you have now… in the business that you might own… in the current method you have of getting customers or clients… even in your personal relationships, your community, or even your nation (or your nation’s army).

All of that can disappear, from today to tomorrow, or from this year to next year. It’s happened before, and it can happen again.

The only security you have? According to Dan, it’s only in your ‘ability to produce.’ In a few more of Dan’s words:

“… you had better sustain a very, very serious commitment to maintaining, improving, enhancing and strengthening your own ‘ability to produce’, because, in truth, it is all you’ve got and all you will ever have. Anything and everything else you see around you, you acquire and accumulate, you invest in, you trust in, can disappear in the blink of an eye.”

Another valuable idea I’ve learned, this from “Sovereign Man” Simon Black, is that of a Plan B. A Plan B is a plan that works in case things go bad… and that also works and brings in value even if things stay as they are.

Dan Kennedy’s idea of a very serious commitment to your “ability to produce” falls into this Plan B category.

I don’t know what you can produce.

I’ve personally decided to focus on producing effective communication — on putting together words that can motivate, influence, and guide others, and getting better at doing that, day after day.

I figure if nothing ever changes, and things stay exactly as they are, those will be very valuable skills to have.

On the other hand, if things change drastically tomorrow, those will still be valuable skills to have — and they may prove to be the only things that still have value.

If you’d like my help and guidance in developing your own ability to produce, starting today, so you can be prepared for tomorrow:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

My top 7 marketing books

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I heard once that reading lists make for great lead magnets.

Is that true? I don’t know.

But it got me to put together a recommended reading list of my own.

I started with a goal of 10 books — but though I’ve read many more than 10, I couldn’t honestly recommend 10. That’s a good thing for you — less reading to do.

So here are my top 7 marketing books, for you to enjoy, learn, and profit from:

1. The Robert Collier Letter Book, by Robert Collier

This book has it all — wagons of coal, silk stockings, genies in the lamp, free pens, rattlesnakes, dinosaurs. If you only ever read one book about direct marketing, this is my number-one recommendation.

2. Positioning, by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Tons of other good marketing advice beyond, “Get yourself into a niche of one.”

3. My Life In Advertising, by Claude C. Hopkins

All the wisdom in Hopkins’s vaunted Scientific Advertising, but presented with stories and detail that make it go down more easy.

4. The Adweek Copywriting Book, by Joe Sugarman

Very accessible, usable, and current, even if you never write a full-page magazine ad selling a calculator or UV-blocking sunglasses.

5. Influence, by Robert Cialdini

I wish I had written this book. What more can I say?

6. Start With No, by Jim Camp

You may have seen this negotiation book recommended before by online marketers. It happens a lot. What is it about Camp’s negotiation strategies that could be useful to sales and marketing online?

7. Made To Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath

I read this book only once but it’s stuck. That’s because the authors know what they’re talking about, and because they apply it to their own writing.

Like I said, I’ve heard that reading lists make for great lead magnets.

Do they also make for effective email copy? I don’t know.

But I’m willing to test it out.

If you haven’t already clicked away to Amazon to get one of the books above, maybe you will click below to the sales page for my Daily Email Habit service. It sometimes forces even me to write emails I would never write otherwise. Here’s the link if you’d like to find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Bob the mole gets kicked out my garden for the 4th time

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I got an exciting reply to my email yesterday:

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Hi!

Thank you for the offer. May I please have a copy of What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6?

Bob

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I rubbed my palms and grinned at this. “Here we go!”

Bob is not a new subscriber to my Daily Email Habit, which was the condition I had set and clearly stated for giving away, as a free bonus, a guide I’ve created, “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6.”

Instead, Bob is both a new and an old reader of this newsletter, who has never bought anything from me, and who I keep unsubscribing from my list, year after year.

Bob first signed up to my list back in 2020. He used to reply to my emails from time to time in a slightly self-entitled tone that always left me feeling put off, though I couldn’t quite place why.

Then in 2021, he replied to one of my emails accusing me of lying. At that point I unsubscribed him, wrote a nice email about it, and then forgot all about Bob.

Fast-forward to 2023. Bob found his way onto my list again. Within a few days, he again sent me a message that had something slyly aggressive and accusing about it.

I unsubscribed him for the second time without even replying, and I wrote a nice email about it.

Then it happened again a few months later in 2023. Same deal.

Finally, Bob resubscribed to my list this past Monday. I was waiting and wondering how long it would take him to reply to one of my emails in some sort of self-entitled, mildly irritating way. It didn’t take long. And so here we are, with me writing a new email about Bob, after I’ve unsubscribed him for the 4th time.

Marketing to an audience is often compared to gardening. The usual biblical analogies apply — you have to prepare the soil, plant the right seeds, tend to them, and be patient.

If you do all those, then those seeds multiply thirtyfold or sixtyfold or even hundredfold. Not only do you get richer as a result, but you get the pleasure of seeing your garden grow and thrive from season to season, and your good work turn meaningful.

Of course, from time to time blights come along, big and small. Sometimes a mole pops up in your garden, and demands a carrot or a beet, for no good reason other than that it wants one, and quick.

My personal policy in that case is to pick up the mole, thank it for tilling and aerating my soil for me, and then place it outside the walls of my garden, so it can come back next season and do its good work again.

But enough mole analogies.

Because the deadline do get “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6” is tonight at 12 midnight PST.

This guide sums up 6 list-growing techniques, which I’ve jokingly called “magic list-growing secrets Big Email doesn’t want you to know.” (I’m telling you now, they’re no secrets at all. It’s a joke, so don’t write in and accuse me of lying.)

Instead, these 6 techniques all take time, money, or effort (pick any two). But if you can get a bit of any two of money, time, or effort, and if you apply them steadily, then people start finding you — like Bob the mole keeps finding me, year after year.

If you’d like to try out Daily Email Habit for a month and get “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6” as a free bonus, the deadline is nigh:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The 4 faces on my Mt. Rushmore

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Direct marketer Brian Kurtz, who used to be a VP at DM behemoth Boardroom, once named his Mt. Rushmore — the 4 greatest copywriters he ever worked with and learned from.

Inspired by Brian, I had the idea to name my own Mt. Rushmore.

Who are the four people who have influenced me the most?

Fortunately, I didn’t really have to think.

I have an objective measure of who has influenced me the most:

On my website, where I archive these emails, I tag people I’ve mentioned in the emails. That means I can simply go by people I have quoted most often, whose ideas I have referred to the most, who have appeared in these emails, and I guess in my head, the most.

So here they are. The four faces on Bejako’s Mt. Rushmore… along with just one, biggest, most important idea I got from each (it wasn’t easy to choose):

Mt. Rushmore #1: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy tops the list in terms of number of mentions in this newsletter.

As a result, I had the most trouble picking just one idea that I got from him.

I made a list of a dozen ideas, and picked one that truly was revolutionary in my formation.

It was this:

“Infotainment” is not telling readers a fun or touching story and then trying to twist that into a sale.

In Dan’s world, everything is strategic, and is done for a reason. It took me a long time to learn that, and it’s something I’m still trying to fully internalize. As Dan puts it:

“I’m not Harry Dent or Warren Buffet, not an economist or a pundit; I don’t get paid for financial analysis, and I rarely do anything I’m not paid to do. I’m putting this out there to serve my purposes, to stir up and keep stirring up angst about the economy’s hazards and ills, that being with me protects or insulates you from. And again I make the point that this is not news or simply ‘current events.’ […] The sky is either falling or soon to fall, all the time.”

Mt. Rushmore #2: Ben Settle

Ben was my first exposure to many ideas and names in the world of direct response marketing.

He was also my gateway drug — the introduction to many of the legends in the field, including two of the other names on this Mt. Rushmore.

But since I’ve got to pick just one idea for Ben, it’s got to be daily emails.

For years, I had heard Ben talking about how daily emails turn you into a leader. I nodded, and did nothing.

Even after I had started working as a freelance copywriter, and writing emails for clients, years more passed before I had the idea to write daily emails for myself.

Eventually, I paid Ben a few hundred dollars for a book on getting copywriting clients. The book boiled down to the idea, “Write daily emails.”

Somehow, finally, it clicked. I started to write daily emails for myself.

That was back in 2018. I’ve been writing ever since and my life has transformed as a result.

Mt. Rushmore #3: Gary Bencivenga

When I wrote my little book, 10 Commandments Of A-List Copywriters, the first chapter was about Gary Bencivenga.

It was about Gary’s emphasis on proof, which is what he’s best known for.

But there’s one more specific idea I’ve learned from Gary, which has influenced me on a deep level.

It’s to look for offers that have killer proof baked in, rather than offers where you have to somehow conjure up, dig up, or invent proof, which often means it’s second rate.

That’s powerful advice for product creation. But I’ve taken this idea and applied it to content writing as well.

I often get readers telling me how they like my writing, or how I write well.

I appreciate the compliment, because I like to write and I like to think of myself as a good writer.

But really, I don’t like to rely on my writing ability to make my writing good. And when I do rely primarily on my writing ability, I find that the result tends to be lousy.

Instead, I write about things that are inherently interesting — at least to me — and that are easy to write well about as a result. To my mind, this is the same thing Gary was talking about, just in the email and in the book, and not just on the sales page or the order page.

Mt. Rushmore #4: Gary Halbert

Gary Halbert was my very first exposure to direct marketing.

I read the Boron Letters. I didn’t really get it.

Then I started reading the massive online archives of his multi-year print newsletter. I still didn’t really get it.

But at some point I read an issue of Gary’s newsletter titled, “The Difference Between Winners And Losers.” The ideas in this issue have influenced me on a deep level both for business and otherwise. In Gary’s words:

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I’ll tell you something: This issue of my newsletter is going to make a lot of my readers very uncomfortable. Why? Simply because I know the difference between winners and losers and, in this issue, I’m going to put the choice right dead square in your face. I’m going to give you an extraordinarily simple set of instructions and, if you do what I say, your chances of becoming extremely prosperous are going to be magnified by a factor of at least 1,000!

But most of you are not going to follow these simple instructions. I know that already from past experience. And I even know already the reasons you’re going to give for not doing what I suggest. These are the same reasons everybody (including me) nearly always gives for not doing something which will make our lives better.

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Gary says that the difference between winners and losers is…

“Movement! Winners go out and get going before they know all the answers or even most of the answers. Losers will study a problem endlessly to make sure they don’t do anything ‘rash.'”

Fortunately, this came early in my marketing education. As a result, I decided to start blindly doing what I’m told to do, by people who I have decided to trust, like the names on my Mt. Rushmore above.

The results have been inevitably good. I only wish I’d have done it all sooner (like with Ben’s advice about daily emails) and more thoroughly (like with Dan’s stance on “infotainment”).

So now you know my Mt. Rushmore. And now for my offer:

Yesterday, I offered a guide I’ve put together, “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6.” It’s a series of posts I’ve written in my Daily Email House community about the evergreen strategies that have grown my list over the years.

You can get this guide as a free bonus in case you join my Daily Email Habit service by tomorrow, Saturday, at 12 midnight PST.

And in case you’re wondering why you might want to join my Daily Email Habit service:

I’ll help you do infotainment in a purposeful and effective way, as Dan Kennedy does…

I’ll help you start and stick with writing daily emails, so you can become a leader in your field, as Ben Settle promises…

I’ll help you dig up inherently interesting things to write about, so you don’t have to rely on any extraordinary word magic, as I’ve learned to do from Gary Bencivenga…

I’ll help you actually take action and move, instead of continuing to read, and plan, and put things off, as Gary Halbert warned against.

Again, the deadline to join Daily Email Habit and get “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6” as a free bonus, is tomorrow, Saturday, at 12 midnight.

Here’s the link:

​https://bejakovic.com/deh​

The legend of my upstairs neighbor

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One of my upstairs neighbors is a middle-aged, rather large golden retriever, whose name I’ve never learned.

I hear him frequently trundling across the apartment above mine, his unmanicured golden retriever claws clack-clacking on the hardwood floor.

He he as a passion for barking, often late at night, as I’m falling asleep (warding off robbers who might have climbed up to the 10th floor), or early in the morning, before I’ve really woken up (I guess to announce he is awake and ready to pee).

One time I was sitting on my balcony when a gigantic, disgusting clump of yellow golden retriever hair wafted down from the balcony above and landed at my feet.

For a few moments, I sat there staring at it, considering what to do. Eventually I just decided to just pick it up and throw it in the trash, and never speak of it again (until now).

I’ve run into this golden retriever several times in the elevator. He’s always completely ignored me. He’s never bothered to sniff my hand. There was not the slightest tail waggle. He never even looked up at me — the elevator doors were more interesting.

All that’s to say, my entire experience with this golden retriever has been negative. At no point has this dog ever done anything nice for me or towards me.

And yet, I still have sympathy for this stupid dog, and I keep hoping I’ll run into him whenever I take the elevator.

In part, this is because I’m a sucker for dogs. But in bigger part, it’s that golden retrievers have such a reputation about them — playful, loving, comfortable with and interested in all strangers.

I bring all this up because a couple days ago, I was listening to Dan Kennedy’s Influential Writing seminar.

One of the things that Dan talked about was legend.

He gave the examples of Wyatt Earp (who prolly had little skill with a gun, but developed a reputation as the fastest gun in the West) and Harry Houdini (who created such mystique around his acts that grizzled ex-president Teddy Roosevelt once asked Houdini if the stage illusions were real magic).

The value of such a legend, says Dan, is that it precedes you. Once it’s there, it doesn’t matter much what you do or don’t do. People will still perceive you and think of you through the prism of that legend.

So if you want things to get easier for you in the future, before you even arrive to where you’re going, it makes sense to think about legend, one that precedes you like the smell of galleys preceded them.

And now, I have to go. I have a flight in a couple hours, and I still have to pack and get to the airport.

On my way to the airport, I’ll take the elevator to get to the lobby of my building… and I’m hoping against hope I’ll run into the golden retriever, even though he’s never done anything for me, and maybe this time I’ll get to pet him.

In entirely related news, if you’d like my help starting and sticking with writing daily emails like this one, which get people reading and buying today, and spreading your legend tomorrow, then take a look here:

​https://bejakovic.com/deh​

The largest copywriter in the Netherlands gives me his endorsement

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Comes a message from Robin Timmers, whose website bills him as the “grootste copywriter van Nederland.”

Google informs me that, translated from Dutch, this works out to “the largest copywriter in the Netherlands.”

I guess a more elegant translation might be, “the greatest copywriter in the Netherlands.” Though as Robin told me, the tagline is meant to be ambiguous, since he stands over 2 meters tall.

Anyways, Robin writes:

===

Hey John,

Just finished MVE and am now halfway with SME.

Man … MVE is so simple, so easy-ish to implement, but such a strong concept and format.

Awesome course, awesome idea.

Same for SME.

Really simple, really powerful and easy to implement, and model with your own ideas.

I’m very happy with both courses, and can’t wait to start with Copy Riddles.

===

In case you don’t know… MVE is my course Most Valuable Email. SME is my course Simple Money Emails.

You might not know that because I haven’t promoted either course in a few months, ever since I started selling my Daily Email Habit service.

I find my enthusiasm for promoting those courses has dipped.

In part, it’s because Daily Email Habit is not just a daily prompt to write an email… but a distillation of the best ideas in both SME and MVE, as well as ideas I don’t have in either of those courses, particularly around building up status and authority.

And Daily Email Habit presents all this to you as an easy and manageable drip-drip of information, in your inbox, every day… rather than as a course, one which you may go through once or maybe not even once, which then sits behind some forgotten login or in some folder you never check.

But much more important:

Unlike those two course of mine — or any other courses, by me or anybody else — Daily Email Habit is really built around the idea of daily, practical, real-world implementation, rather than simply passive consumption of information.

Because even things that are easy-ish to implement, like Robin says the MVE trick is, tend not to get implemented, not without a lot of stubborn nudging and reminders from the outside.

That’s what Daily Email Habit is for. If you’d like to find out more about this “grootste e-mailservice”:

https://bejakovic.com/deh