Business Ideas

The biggest egos in the world

by

One morning in 1985, actor Val Kilmer staggered to his bathroom and got ready to shave. He squinted because of how sleepy he still was. But then he spotted something in the mirror that shocked him awake.

In the middle of Kilmer’s chest a perfectly round bruise, the size of a 50-cent piece.

“I didn’t drink,” Kilmer said to himself. “I didn’t fall during the night. What could stab me like this in the chest?”

After a moment, the realization hit him.

The night prior, Kilmer had gone out partying with a bunch of Navy pilots. He was about to start shooting Top Gun, and he was trying to get into the role of Iceman.

The real Navy fighter pilots liked Kilmer a lot.

“You’re the actor that we’re most like,” they kept yelling the whole night. “You got good hair!”

And each time the fighter pilots said this, they emphasized their point by stabbing their fingers into the middle of Kilmer’s chest. That’s how he got the bruise.

Kilmer later said,

“The only egos bigger than actors are rock stars. And the only people beyond that are fighter pilots. They have the biggest egos on the planet.”

My point being, in spite of how it might look in the insular direct response world, email copywriters do not have the biggest egos in the world. Likewise, copywriting and marketing newsletters, podcasts, and books are not the most valuable things to read and study if you want valuable ideas, stories, and inspiration.

I recently made a list of 10 sources where I get ideas for my daily emails.

Most of these sources were predictable, or I had written about them already in emails prior.

But there was one source that I haven’t really talked about much.

And that’s analyses, documentaries, and original material about entertainment I love. Analyses and background info on Looney Tunes cartoons… William Goldman screenplays… Farside comics… and of course, Top Gun. For example, The Val Kilmer story above came from Danger Zone, a feature-length documentary about making of Top Gun.

So that’s my advice for you for today:

Think about your favorite movies, books, TV shows. Read about how they were made, or track down a documentary that saves you from reading.

You will get great ideas you can apply to your business, and in the most enjoyable format, since you will be digging into something you love.

And if you happen to love Top Gun:

I can’t recommend that Danger Zone documentary enough. It’s fascinating, and not just if you are a die-hard Top Gun fan. The documentary shows how complex it is to produce an hour and a half of seamless entertainment… how many specialists are involved… how much thinking lies behind seemingly simple decisions… how many layers of persuasion go into even a jockish, commercial, fantasy flick like Top Gun.

In case you are interested, you can find Danger Zone on YouTube in two parts. Here’s part 1:

The trouble with selling prostitute interviews you gave away for free

by

About six months ago, I wrote an email about a prurient new obsession I had developed with the YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly.

Soft White Underbelly features thousands of in-depth interviews with people on the outside of mainstream society:

Drug addicts… homeless people… prostitutes… escorts… child abuse victims… inbred Appalachian families… gang members… a high-level mob boss… a strychnine-drinking Pentecostal preacher… a conman who ran real-estate frauds totaling in the tens of millions of dollars.

Then, a couple days ago, I read that YouTube had demonetized Soft White Underbelly.

​​SFU videos are still available to watch on YouTube. But they won’t come with any ads, and so they won’t make any money for Mark Laita, the photographer behind the Soft White Underbelly channel.

I tried to do some back-of-the-envelope math for how much money that actually was.

Over the past 30 days, Soft White Underbelly had a bit more than 12M views. Using the low-end rate of $3/1k YouTube views, that comes out to $36,000 over those 30 days, or about $430k per year.

That’s a sizeable chunk of cash to disappear from one day to the next.

My point?

I guess I could tell you the same old story, one you’ve probably heard a million times before:

Don’t rely on anybody else’s platform. Have your own platform — such as an email list — which you control.

The trouble is, Mark Laita already has that. He has his own site, where you can subscribe for $8/month to get all that stuff that’s on YouTube, plus some “exclusive content” in the form of more videos exactly like the stuff that’s on YouTube.

The welcome video to the SFU YouTube channel invites you to subscribe on the paid site. And in that video about being demonetized, Mark also tells people who can afford to do so to get the paid subscription.

Will that replace the income from YouTube?

I have my doubts, for several reasons. The most important reason is this:

It’s hard to sell the exact same thing you’re giving away for free. It’s even harder to sell it there’s a bunch of your free stuff still lying around.

That’s just human nature.

Laziness. Entitlement. Plus, a bit of common sense. If there are already thousands of prurient Soft White Underbelly videos on YouTube, most of which I haven’t watched, why should I pay to get a few more each month?

But here’s what I would tell Mark Laita, and maybe you, if you’re in a similar situation:

This is not really a big problem.

Because it’s easy to sell a slightly different thing to what you’re giving away for free. You can even sell almost the exact same thing, only renamed and repackaged in a sexy way.

So for example, Mark Laita has thousands of video interviews. Instead of selling more of the same, he could repackage some of that content in a different ways:

* He could sell a coffee table book of photography — stills from his videos. (He already has these photos in the videos themselves.)

* He could sell transcripts, packaged up as fancy printed books, or low-end kindle ebooks.

* He could create “themed documentaries” which are really his different videos pasted together. The effect of absentee fathers… the drug scene in east LA… massage parlor confessions.

Of course, there are also many other things Mark could sell congruently on the back end of his YouTube Channel. The above are just a few ideas for things he could sell with practically no additional thought or work.

So like I said, that’s my advice for you too, in case you create a lot of content, which isn’t making you money direct now.

Take that free content, repacakge it, rename it, and stick a (preferably large) price tag on it.

People will buy it, and get value out of it, even if you gave it away for free before.

Of course, maybe you are too close to your own content to see how it could be repackaged or renamed in the most sexy and profitable way. You might be able to find some good ideas on that in my free daily email newsletter. Click here to sign up for it.

How to infect customers with the desire to do what you want

by

Envy the killifish.

Normally a shy and reserved animal, the killifish is always a bit nervous. It’s always looking left and right, trying to avoid danger and trouble.

It’s not a great way to live.

But for a few days of its life, everything changes for the killifish. It’s suddenly filled with energy and passion. Its fears melt away and it finds itself enjoying the wonder and joy that was always there, surrounding it.

In its new-found optimism, the killifish swims up to surface of the water, splashes in the sun, and even turns its scaly belly to the sky for the pure pleasure of it.

And then, a seagull or some other predatory bird, spotting the shiny belly of the killifish glistening at the surface of the water, swoops down, snatches the killifish, and swallows it whole.

Turns out the killifish had actually gotten infected by the Euhaplorchis californiensis parasite.

​​The E. californiensis gets into the brain of the killifish. It messes with its serotonin and dopamine levels. In this way, it makes the normally wary fish action-oriented and fearless.

And here’s the key point:

The parasite does this not out of spite, and not out of random destructiveness.

Instead, the parasite does it because getting the killifish eaten by the seagull is crucial to completing the parasite’s own complex lifecycle (a bizarre story, one that’s worth looking up).

A couple days ago, I wrote an email about tying in your marketing emails to news items.

I wrote something about princes Harry and William, and about “unity.” Then I stumbled onwards, towards my point and sales pitch.

Honestly, that email was nonsense. It was something I did just to demonstrate the point I was talking about. I would never write an email like that if I were trying to really sell something. I wouldn’t ramble on about a random news item and then milk it for some kind of aimless point.

Because here’s something I’ve learned from the best marketers out there:

The best marketers don’t just tell vulnerable personal stories, or just share interesting news items, or just make mind-expanding analogies.

In other words, they don’t just share ideas or provide changes of perspective for the sake of being helpful, friendly, or educational.

Instead, they do everything — story, news, change of perspective — for the sake of furthering the sale.

Perhaps that’s super obvious to you. In that case, you’re smarter than I am, because it took me some time to realize. When I did realize it, it was a huge mental shift that changed both how I consume marketing and how I produce marketing.

Now, it’s popular in the marketing world to say your marketing should be all about your prospect, and not about you.

And maybe that’s true.

But what’s not true is that your marketing should be about who your prospects are, what they want to become or achieve, and how your product or service can help them get there.

Instead, here’s the key point, once again:

Your marketing should be about what you want your prospects to do, and the beliefs they need to have in order to move in the direction you want them to go.

Maybe that sounds mercenary or even parasitical.

Maybe it is. ​​

And maybe it raises the question, if what you are reading right now is marketing, then what is it I want you to do, and what do I want you to believe?

I’ll leave the question of beliefs hanging for now.

As for what I want you to do, I just have an offer, my free daily email newsletter. It’s for you to decide whether you are action-oriented enough to take me up on this offer. In case you feel that you are, here’s where to go to sign up.

In defense of bad headlines

by

I like to get my contact with the world through a news board called Hacker News. It works just like other news boards — popular and interesting article stick around for a longer time. In general, even the most popular articles stick around for only a few hours.

Yesterday, I went on Hacker News and I saw a terribly uninteresting article had appeared on the front page. The headline ran:

“What’s SAP, and why’s it worth $163B?”

“Geez,” I said, “who cares? I know all I need to know about SAP. It’s some big enterprise software company. Why would I ever want to read more about that?”

So I ignored this article.

And I had to keep ignoring it because a few hours later it was still there, getting more and more upvotes.

This morning, I sat down on a park bench with a croissant and checked Hacker News again. “What’s SAP” was still there, with about 10x the average upvotes of all the other posts on the HN front page.
​
I sighed, hung my head, and clicked to read this stupid article.

​​And you know what?

It was fascinating.

I won’t repeat the article here. I will just tell you that it put the current moment into a bigger context and taught me something new about my world. (And yes, that new thing was about enterprise software.)

But this article did more than that.

For example, did you know that until the 1990s, 90% of software sold was custom-built, and not off-the-shelf?

Of course, today, it’s the exact opposite.

Which made me think about the direct response business. Could we be in a similar, pre-1990s situation right now when it comes to DR marketing funnels and sales copy? As in, 90% of copy today is still custom-written, instead of off-the-shelf?

You might say it’s a stupid question, and that it’s impossible to have off-the-shelf sales copy and marketing.

​​Or you might say it already happened, with companies like Clickfunnels, and with niche marketing providers like Vyral Marketing for real estate agents.

Whatever.

The point of this email is not this question of custom-built vs. off-the-shelf marketing. The point is simply that the “What’s SAP” article got me thinking in a new way.

And that’s really what I want to share with you today. A defense of bad headlines.

Because if you find yourself magically attracted to a headline — “I gotta read this!” — odds are good it’s because you are looking for confirmation of previously held views… or perhaps some small update on a topic you already know too much about.

On the other hand, when you find yourself completely repelled by a headline (“What’s SAP”), it might be time to stop and say, “Sounds horrific! But let me see what this is about.”

A couple days ago, I shared a talk given by a very successful and very influential marketer, Dan Kennedy, about thriving during a recession. In that talk, Dan said:

You pay attention to everybody else who’s in your business. It’s like being Amish. It works just like real incest. Everybody gets dumber and dumber and dumber until the whole thing just grinds to a halt.

So you can’t do that. You’ve got to pay attention outside your little Amish community of jewelers or carpet cleaners or whatever it is that, up until tonight, you thought you were.

You’ve got to pay attention to other stuff because you ain’t going to find any breakthroughs in the five other people standing in a circle looking at you. They aren’t any smarter than you are. They are probably dumber than you are.

I think that covers the M and the B in my M+B+C email formula. Now as for that C:

You might or might not already know that I offer an Email Marketing Audit.

So far, I’ve been selling my Email Marketing Audit by referring to results I have achieved for businesses I’ve worked with. The increases in conversion rates in email funnels… the millions of dollars of sales made by writing emails and managing email lists.

But there’s another good reason you might want to get me to look at your email marketing:

​​My non-Amish breadth of of experience in this field.

Off top of my head, I’ve consulted and worked on email funnels to sell weight loss supplements… shipping containers… pet supplies… sex and dating info products… essential oils… Internet marketing… fermented food preparation kits… realtor services… and real estate investing education.

Do you think this breadth of experience might help you and your business get out of incestuous and closed-minded marketing practices?

In case you do, ​​here’s where to go to get my Email Marketing Audit:

https://bejakovic.com/audit

Regular price: Very expensive. Recession price: Very expensive

by

Back in 2009, as the mortgage crisis turned into a recession, a men’s clothing store in NYC put up signs in its storefronts that said:

“Cashmere sweater: $2,500. Recession price: $2,500.

“Lamb’s fleece jacket: $11,000. Recession price: $11,000.”

As you can probably imagine, some passersby burst into the store, fuming and asking to speak to the manager about the shameless tone of those ads. And at such a time!

But other passersby saw the sign, remembered that they urgently wanted to splurge on something expensive, and came in and bought an overpriced lamb’s fleece jacket.

Fast forward to today:

I don’t read the news and so I was convinced that we are now in a recession, and have been in one for some months. But I did check the news just now, and it turns out to still be a matter of uncertainty, of anxiety, of will-he nill-he, of how-do-you-define-it. A few things are certain:

1. The economy has shrunk for two quarters in a row

2. Stocks have lost 18% of their value since the start of the year

3. Ocean shipping rates have plunged 60% this year

So do all those useless numbers that mean it’s time to raise your own prices to shameless levels… keep them there in spite of the current and coming economic pain… and even proudly advertise the fact?

Well, that’s for you to decide. To help make up your mind, you might want to give a listen to the talk below. It was given by crusty but highly successful marketer Dan Kennedy, back in 2009.

I first listened to this talk two years ago, during “these uncertain times” of enforced lockdowns and economic inactivity. It was one of the most enlightening marketing talks I’d heard in a long while. It remains so, and so I revisit it from time to time.

Only thing is, if you’re easily offended, you’ll definitively want to skip this talk. In fact, Dan Kennedy says at the start that, out of the thousands of talks he’s given in his life, this was the only time he got a complaint letter ahead of the talk itself, and not just after.

So consider yourself warned. If you’re still up for it, here’s where to go:

https://mikecapuzzi.com/dan-kennedy-presentation/

My “War of the Worlds” warning for copywriters and marketers

by

I’ve been studying Spanish, and so I was both pleased and displeased to find a bunch of Spanish-language NPR podcasts that cover Latin America.

Pleased, because the podcasts are obviously interesting, as I will show you in a second.

Displeased, because the podcasts are really above my level. For example…

I had to listen to the first podcast three times. And then I followed along twice more with with transcript, just to make sure I understood it.

​​I’m not sure would have done that for the Spanish learning alone, but the podcast was relevant to this newsletter.

​​In a nut, here’s the story:

On Saturday, February 12, 1949, a local radio station in Quito, Ecuador put on a “radio novella” of the War of the Worlds. “The Martians are coming!”

As you probably know, 11 years earlier, Orson Welles had put on the same in the US.

​​In spite of real-life panic and outrage that Welles’s radio drama had created, for some reason the Quito people thought it would be a good idea to do the same.

And so, a few minutes after 9pm, as a popular musical duo played on the radio, the announcer came on and said,

“We interrupt this musical evening to bring you an urgent news update. According to the information of our reporters…”

According to the information of their reporters, Martian spaceships were attacking Latacunga, a town a few hours away from Quito.

The Martians destroyed Latacunga and then started advancing. With lightning speed.

You can guess how it went from there:

As the Martians progressed towards Quito, the Quiteños listening to the radio, which included pretty much everybody on a Saturday night, became panicked.

​​Some hid in cupboards and others started running and screaming in the streets. Still others took refuge in churches, praying for some kind of divine help. A bunch of people confessed their infidelities to their husbands or wives.

So you could say the “Guerra de los Mundos” was both a big success and a huge disaster, much like the Orson Welles original.

But here’s where the story takes a twist. Because when the radionovella finished, the radio announcer came on and said,

“It was all just a show, people. There are no Martians. Calm yourself, and enjoy the rest of your night.”

The panicked and agitated Quiteños didn’t calm down. But they sure enjoyed the rest of their night.

A large mob assembled outside the Radio Quito building. As the radio employees huddled inside, the mob started throwing bricks and stones at the windows.

And, because at the time it was common to walk around the largely unlit Quito with kerosene torches, the mob started lobbing these at the building as well.

Soon the building set on fire.

The angry mob brought cans of gasoline to add fuel to the fire and make sure the entire building burned down. When firefighters came to try to put out the flames, the mob drove them away. “If you so much as pour out a drop of water,” the mob threatened, “we will kill you.”

Eventually, the police managed to disperse the mob and the firefighters put out the fire. But by then, eight radio station employees had died from smoke inhalation and from burns.

What’s more, another dozen Quiteños died from heart attacks during the transmission. At least a few people jumped to their deaths from tall buildings rather than be annihilated by the Martian rays.

The next day, the Radio Quito building was completely burned down.

Leonardo Páez, the director of Radio Quito who had written and produced the “Guerra de los mundos,” had managed to escape through a window to an adjacent building. He was now on the lam, hiding from the angry mob. Eventually, he would be forced to run away to Venezuela, never to return.

Curious story, right?

And like I say, relevant to this newsletter, which is about copywriting and marketing.

A few weeks ago, I heard a successful copywriter talk about his prospects as NPCs – non-playable characters. Basically, nonentities, without a soul, who are only there to advance your own quest.

From what I could understand, this copywriter was talking about it from perspective of,

​​”What does it do to you, as the copywriter, to interact with people in this way, and to treat others as just a means to your end?”

It may be bad for you psychologically.

And who knows. There might even be serious real-life consequences.

Like when you write a lead predicting the imminent End of America is here so you can sell stock picks… or announcing that fruits and vegetables are toxic so you can sell a greens powder… or breathlessly announcing an invasion of Obama clones, coming for your children, so you can sell a crank-powered radio…

In those cases, and even in less dramatic ones, who knows. Maybe one day an angry mob shows up outside your workplace and starts to throw kerosene torches at your windows.

But probably not, right? After all, the Internet provides us with way more insulation and security than those people at Radio Quito had.

Anyways, I don’t have a point here. I just wanted to tell you this NPR story and maybe get you thinking a bit. And also, to remind you I have a daily email newsletter. In case you’d like to sign up for it you can do that here.

The next “greatest living copywriter”

by

In response to my “Long-form copy is finally dead” email yesterday, a reader named David wrote in:

So Gary is the Greatest “Living” Copywriter rn. And that’s great. I agree with you.

But I couldn’t help but wonder, if he dies (and I’m not wishing that he does), who’s going to become the Greatest?

I’m thinking top contenders are Stefan, Evaldo, Ferrari and Haddad.

But I have no clue what the metrics are for choosing these kind of things. It’s just a thought that ran across my mind.

Anyhow thank you for your emails. I enjoy my time reading them.

Rather than who will be the next greatest, I can think of a more interesting and useful question:

Why would any person not named Brian Kurtz possibly think that Gary Bencivenga is the “greatest living copywriter?”

After all, it’s not there in the copy. There’s no way to rank “copywriting greatness” by staring at a bunch of sales letters.

It’s also not about results. Again, unless you are Brian Kurtz, who had a chance to compare the sales made by Gary’s copy to that of some other copywriters, you have no direct knowledge of Gary’s results.

So what is it?​​

Well, if you’re anything like me, and I imagine David above, you believe Gary is so great…

Because you’ve heard people like Brian Kurtz say so…

… because you’ve heard of Gary’s farewell seminar, which cost something $5k to attend and which brought together 100 successful DR marketers and copywriters, people like Gary Halbert and John Carlton, to sit and listen to Gary for three days…

… because thanks to email newsletters like this one, you’ve heard Gary’s name mentioned a million times, often with the attached tag line, “greatest living copywriter.”

And if I had to speculate on the rather fruitless question of who the next greatest copywriter will be, I think it will be something similar. Just as something similar applies to you.

Whether you’re a copywriter or a marketer who sells on authority and personality… whether you’re self-employed or under somebody else’s thumb… whether you’re new at the game or been at it for a while…

Your positioning and ultimately your success are much less about any metrics you can point to, and much more about the legend that emerges around you, or that you create for yourself.

That might be something that’s worth thinking about.

I’ve done some thinking about it myself. And I’ve concluded that, at least for the moment, I’m not in the “being a legend” business.

That’s why I’m happy to contribute to Gary’s legend instead of building up my own.

As befitting Gary’s legend as “greatest living copywriter,” I put him first in my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters book.

​​If by some chance managed to miss or resist my continued attempts to sell you that $4.99 book, here’s where you can find it, along with Gary’s irresistible commandment:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments​​

Ideal positioning for coaches, consultants, and I would also add, copy chiefs

by

Back in the days before mammals evolved, I used to lurk on Reddit, specifically the r/copywriting subreddit.

It was almost entirely a giant waste of time. Each day would be a new pile of worthless posts like:

“I just rewrote this Heinz ketchup ad, what do you guys think”

“Ugh how do I get clients”

“Is it really true that copywriting can make you millions”

But, every Mercury retrograde or so, a little bit of gold dust appeared among all the mud and sand.

So for example, somebody once asked a question about the “essential Dan Kennedy.” In other words, out of the millions of words of written content and thousands of hours of recorded seminars and courses that Dan has produced, where to get started?

One guy, apparently a big-time DK fan, wrote up a very thorough comment in response.

I won’t reprint it here. You can look it up on Reddit if you’re curious.

But at the end of his 1,052-word comment reviewing the best Dan Kennedy material, this guy added in something unusual. Something that wasn’t created by Dan. In fact, a Hollywood comedy.

“This is a movie that Dan has said shows the ideal positioning you want to have as a coach or consultant,” the Reddit DK fan wrote.

“Aha!” I said. “Finally something to pay for all those wasted hours on Reddit.”

The movie in question is called The Muse. It was made in 1999 by Albert Brooks, who also stars in the lead role, along with Sharon Stone, Andie MacDowell, and Jeff Bridges. It even features cameo appearances by Martin Scorcese, Rob Reiner, and James Cameron.

I watched The Muse a couple years ago, right after reading that Reddit post. I rewatched it again last night.

It’s cute but not great. But that’s not the point.

The point is I can see why Dan recommends it as an illustration of the perfect positioning for any coach or consultant.

And I would also add, maybe even the ideal positioning for for any highly successful copy chief.

At least that’s what I thought a few weeks ago. I was reminded of The Muse while listening to a certain very successful copy chief talk about the yearly retreats he takes his team on.

​​During the retreat, this copy chief and his copywriters don’t talk copy or marketing.

​​Instead, they just go for hikes and listen to music in synchrony. It reminded me of the aquarium scene in The Muse.

Anyways, if you are a coach, consultant, or maybe even copy chief, The Muse might be worth a look. Or not.

What’s definitely worth a look, or not, is my daily email newsletter. There tends to be a lot of mud and sand, but occasionally some gold dust in there as well. In case you are curious, you can sign up for it here.

My takeaways from yesterday’s informal survey now that I’m out from under a mountain of virtual mail

by

I’m way behind schedule today because I spent much of the day buried under a virtual mountain of virtual mail. And each time I clawed my way to the surface, gasped for air, and pulled out a stray bit of virtual paper from my throat, another batch of virtual messages landed on top of my head and buried me again.

The context:

Yesterday, I asked my list what the most recent podcast they listened to is. I also offered a little bribe to get people to respond.

An arenaful of people took me up on my offer and wrote in with their most recent listened-to podcast. As a result, I found out some interesting things about my readers:

1. They listen to more business-related podcasts than purely fun or general-interest podcasts. It was about a 60-40 split.

2. The podcasts that came rolling in were extremely diverse. In spite of all the responses I got, there were very few duplicates.

3. The one marketing podcast that did pop up multiple times was the Chris Haddad Show, in particular the episode with David Deutsch.

4. The general interest/purely fun category was broken up into three main groups: 1) self improvement (by far biggest), 2) comedy (second biggest but relatively small), and 3) truly off the wall stuff. A few examples of the last category:

“I’ll be honest — it was Words In The Air, a spoken-word poetry podcast that’s completely useless to you”

“Something to Wrestle with by Conrad Thompson and Bruce Prichard. It’s an insiders view of the WWE from the days of Hulk Hogan, through Stone Cold, up to today.”

“Recently, while on a five hour drive… My wife made me listen to this podcast where women tell their birthing stories. It was horrible.”

There are two takeaways I can make from this. Maybe they will be useful to you also:

The first is that if you keep writing daily emails long enough, then people on your list begin to be a composite of you and your interests.

After all, points 1,2, and 4 above describe me and interests pretty well (except for the birthing thing).

​​As for #3, I’ve listened to an episode of Chris Haddad’s podcast once, though that was the episode in which my name and my 10 Commandments book were mentioned.

My second takeaway is that Ben Settle might be right.

Ben said somewhere, probably in one of his emails, that he never surveys his list about what products to create next. He doesn’t ask people or about their tastes either. Or their preferences.

​​The only worthwhile survey question, says Ben, is what people bought last.

That was why yesterday I asked for just one podcast, and the most recent one you listened to. I believe this produced a much more honest and insightful survey than had I asked, “What are some of your favorite podcasts?”

Anyways, I now have a lot of good info for when I do decide to make a podcast push.

That won’t be right away. I still want to put out some new offers first.

I also plan to convert some of the offers I’ve launched already into offers I can promote all the time.

All of which means, I might not be offering my Email Marketing Audit much longer.

If you have your own email list, and it’s making you some money, then my quick and easy audit could be worth a lot more to you than I charge for it.

You can find out more about it at the link below. And if you are curious about it, then I can repeat yesterday’s message:

The perfect moment is now. The moment never was this good. It might never be this good again. So to get started while this window of opportunity is open:

https://bejakovic.com/audit

I just remembered Cialdini’s best way to teach anybody anything

by

I’ve just awakened from a hypnotic trance.

I spent the last 16 minutes watching a video of a fridge repairman from Alabama disassembling a failed fridge compressor.

As my hypnotic trance cleared, I began to marvel at this mystery.

After all, I don’t have a fridge compressor to fix. And I’m not looking for DIY advice.

In fact, I have zero interest in fridges or handymanism. I wasn’t familiar with 95% of the technical terms the fridge guy was using. I really could gain nothing practical or pleasurable from his 16-minute video.

So why did I watch it, with rapt attention, from beginning to end?

Perhaps, you say, I was just looking to waste time instead of writing this email.

I certainly do like to waste time instead of working. But why not waste time doing something I like, like reading the New Yorker, or watching some Bill Burr on YouTube?

No, it wasn’t that.

But perhaps, you say again, I just enjoy feeling smug and right.

After all, the dead fridge compressor was from 2009. And the fridge repair guy specializes in maintaining long-running, old fridges that go back to the 1940s. So maybe I was just looking for confirmation of my belief that old is good and new is worthless.

Maybe. But if that’s the case, why did I have to watch the video, and all 16 minutes of it? I mean, the video’s title gave me all I really needed to feel smug:

“Declining quality of consumer-grade products – 2009 fridge compressor autopsy…”

So no, it can’t be that.

But perhaps I just wanted to share something cool with a friend.

Even though I have no interest in handymanism, I do have a friend who is into it. I wanted to forward him this video, and maybe, you say, I just wanted to make sure it was worthwhile.

But that doesn’t hold water either. After all, this video popped up on a news aggregator I frequent, where it got 2-3x the usual number of upvotes. That’s a lot of tacit endorsement of quality. And I could tell within just the first minute or two that my friend might find this video interesting, and that I should send him the link.

So why did I myself watch the entire thing?

In trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle, I jumped back to a critical point in the video at minute 5:54.

The fridge guy has just tested whether the compressor failed because of electrical failure. No, it turns out, it wasn’t electrical.

So he decides to cut open the locked-up compressor and see what’s going on inside. As soon as he cuts the compressor open, the motor moves freely, and is no longer locked up.

The fridge guy is in wonder.

“I don’t understand at all,” he says. He decides to try to power the compressor up again. “My guess is it still won’t start.”

“Aha!” I said. “I get it now!”

Because I realized what was going on. I realized why I had been sucked into this video so hypnotically.

It was the structure of the way the fridge guy was doing his compressor autopsy.

He was using the exact same structure I read about once. A very smart and influential professor of persuasion spelled out this structure in a book, and he said it’s the best way to present any new information and teach anyone anything.

I don’t know if the fridge repair guy had been secretly reading the work of this professor of persuasion.

But I do know that if you’re trying to teach anybody anything, whether in person, in your courses, or just in your marketing, then this structure is super valuable.

It makes it so people actually want to consume your material. They will even want to consume it all the way to the end (just look at me and that 16-minute fridge video).

This structure also makes it so the info you are teaching sticks in people’s heads. That way, they are more likely to use it, profit from it, and become grateful students and customers for life.

And this structure even makes it so people experience an “Aha moment,” just like I did. When that happens, people feel compelled to share their enthusiasm with others, just like I am doing now with you right now.

You might be curious about this structure and who this professor of persuasion is.

Well, I will tell you the guy’s name is Robert Cialdini. He is famous for writing the book Influence. But the structure I’m talking about is not described in Influence.

Instead, it’s described in another of Cialdini’s books, Pre-Suasion.

Now, if you read Daniel Throssell’s emails, you might know that Daniel advises people to skip Pre-Suasion. He even calls it the worst copywriting book he has ever read.

I don’t agree.

Because in Chapter 6 of Pre-Suasion, Cialdini spells out the exact structure I’ve been telling you about. Plus he gives you an example from his own teaching.

This is some hard-core how-to. ​And if you ever want to get information into people’s heads, and make it stick there, for their benefit as well as your own, you might find this how-to information very valuable.

In case you want it:

https://bejakovic.com/presuasion