Business Ideas

How to get really rich in sales and marketing

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I was sitting at the beach yesterday, eating my empanada and trying to mind my own business, when I saw an Indian guy selling beach blankets.

He was talking to a group of women who were interested but not yet decided on buying.

He sweet talked them a little bit.

He answered some questions.

He applied a bit of pressure at the right moments.

Eventually, he convinced them to buy.

He was about to close the sale when the women decided that they wanted another pattern of beach blanket after all.

The guy hung his head.

“No problem,” he seemed to say. And he jogged across the beach for a few hundred yards to get the other pattern from his stash.

He jogged back, handed over the correct blanket, and finally closed the sale.

While I was watching this, all I could think is how much work and skill it had taken for this guy to close this one sale, which probably netted him a profit of a dollar or two.

And it’s just about the same level of work and skill that it would take for a million-dollar deal.

Well, I don’t know about million dollars, but definitely he could be making much more money if he were just selling something else.

And this reminded me of something I’d heard from Craig Clemens.

Craig started out as a direct response copywriter.

He was successful writing in the relationships and dating niche for Eben Pagan (aka David DeAngelo).

Even though Eben and Craig’s dating stuff grew big — around $20 million a year — Craig realized he could be making much more money if he were just in a different market.

So he partnered up with his brothers, and they started Golden Hippo, one of the biggest direct response supplement businesses out there today.

I’m not sure how much Golden Hippo is worth. But I imagine their yearly revenues are in the high hundreds of millions of dollars.

If I see the beach blanket seller again today, I’ll tell him about Craig Clemens and why choosing your market well is key to getting really rich in marketing or sales. And maybe that’s a pointer that you too can benefit from.

On another topic:

If you are looking for advertorials or pre-sell pages that can help you sell supplements or even physical products (perhaps even beach towels), then you might be interested in my upcoming guide on how to write these suckers in ways that convert on cold Facebook traffic:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Claude Hopkins and Gary Halbert meet over a barrel of whiskey

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Back in a village in 19th-century Michigan, there lived an influential man.

He was the leader of his community.

Head of the school board.

Couldn’t read or write.

Here’s his secret to achieving influence in spite his handicap:

Following a ship wreck some years earlier, a large barrel of whiskey washed ashore Lake Michigan.

This man found the barrel, and he put it in the corner of his living room.

He was generous with the whiskey. Folks started dropping by his house. They would sit on soap boxes next to the barrel and discuss local gossip.

In time, his house became the headquarters of the local community. And he became the leader.

I read this story in My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins.

It made me think of something I’d heard in a long-lost recording of another influential marketer, Gary Halbert.

Says Gary: marketing is a process, not an event.

In other words, when businesses buy (or luck upon) a big barrel of whiskey…

They often use it to throw a one-day party for the whole village.

The next day, everybody’s groggy, but a few villagers say, “Bro, that was awesome.”

A week later, however, nobody remembers or cares who threw the big party. And all the whiskey’s gone.

It’s better to keep the drip of whiskey coming, evening after evening…

All the while listening to what folks are saying as they sit around your living room…

While gradually gaining their respect and trust, and nudging them towards seeing you as the village elder.

That’s a process.

Of course, you need to start somewhere. Such as by sending out invitations to your whiskey barrel that get the attention of whiskey lovers within a country mile of your living room. And if you want to see one effective way of doing this, check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

An important reminder for clingy copywriters

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A few days ago, I got carried away.

A potential new client contacted me. “Would you like to write daily emails for us?” he asked.

“Sure I would,” I said. “And I’d like to do more than that for you.”

Then I threw in a kitchen-sinkful of copywriting and marketing services I could provide along with the daily emails. The problem was that at this early stage, I didn’t really know what this client’s actual needs are. In other words, I was pitching instead of selling, as Ben Settle puts it.

Normally, I don’t get this needy or clingy.

But sometimes, it gets away from me.

A few days after this happened, I read something related by direct response copywriter Jason Leister.

I think it’s an important reminder for all copywriters, including myself, who can get carried away when a great new opportunity appears on the horizon. Jason writes:

“Over the years, I’ve come to hire clients very slowly. If you work with clients, consider hiring them SLOWLY. (You are hiring them, remember that. You’re in the driver’s seat of your business, not anyone else. They’ve got the “money” but you have the thing for which they are willing to part with that money. Money is everywhere, YOU are not.)”

Jason then describes what this means practically in his business.

I think it’s worthwhile reading for all freelance copywriters.

If you want to read Jason’s complete email including the practical bits, simply write me and I can forward it to you. Or you can head over to Jason’s site, where he publishes his daily emails with a few days’ delay. Here’s the link:

https://incomparableexpert.org/dailyjournal/

Shame on Stansberry Research

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“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once… Shame on… Shame on you? You fool me… Can’t get fooled again.”
— President George W. Bush

Some time around 2011, financial publisher Stansberry Research ran a monster direct marketing promotion.

It was called the End of America.

The gist was that the US government is too deep in debt and our entire way of life will come crashing down soon.

Stansberry ran this campaign everywhere and made many millions of dollars as a result.

It’s now 2019.

(Happy 3rd of July to all you patriots.)

The end still hasn’t come.

And like Dubya says above, fool me once… can’t get fooled again.

Well, maybe not. Because Stansberry Research is at it again. They are running another promotion right now called the American Jubilee. From what I can tell, it’s the End of America all over again, except tied into “socialism.” And you know what?

It’s selling.

In spite of that old Texas/Tennessee saying, Americans all over the country seem ready for more predictions of imminent national collapse.

And who knows? Maybe folks buy these predictions because they smell blood on the wind.

If the end really is coming, I know how I’m gonna prepare.

I’ll keep investing in myself…

Figuring out how I can help other people succeed so I can profit from their success…

And being a slightly less grumpy person to deal with.

These are the only ways that are guaranteed to keep me alive and plump, before and after the Apocalypse.

Maybe you don’t agree with me. But maybe you do. And if you too are looking to help others succeed so you can profit, then this might help you get started:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Marketing lessons from a k-whore

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New technology brings about new social phenomena.

Such as, for example, karma whores. These are the people on platforms like Reddit who post tons of cheap content, often pulled from other sites. Their one goal is to stock their treasure vaults full of fake Internet points, also known as karma.

I read a confessional by one self-admitted karma whore, Brian Burlage.

Of the roughly 250 million Reddit accounts, Burlage’s account is currently 13th in terms of karma. And here’s something to think about: each of his 8.2 billion karma points represents a click from some Reddit user who approved of one of Burlage’s posts or comments.

So what can you learn from such a peak performer? Here are a few lessons:

#1. Stop fighting over scraps

Initially, Burlage lurked on Reddit’s true crime communities. When he decided to become a Reddit titan, he started focusing on massive, mainstream subreddits about cute animals, video games, and interesting photos.

LESSON: Yes, it’s possible to make money in the “teach your parrot to talk” market. But it’s never going to be the kind of money that you can make in massive markets such as health or finance or marketing.

#2. Put on the right mask

From the beginning, Burlage decided to have a joker personality on Reddit. He’d post puns and wisecracks and memes. And he says half the battle was simply choosing a good username: dickfromaccounting.

LESSON: Before you make a move in your market, spend time thinking about how you will position yourself and the angle you’ll decide to take. Like Burlage says, it’s half the battle.

#3. Turn creativity into a chore

Burlage started maintaining extensive notes on his phone, compiling jokes and bits of dialogue that he’d heard, which he could then apply to his Reddit karma whoring.

​​Eventually, his daily routine involved scouring the Internet for hours until he’d rounded up enough good material to get three or four viral posts on Reddit.

LESSON: Much of what looks like creativity, spontaneity, and inspiration is simply drudgery and work. The good news is that, with enough work, even drudges can effectively become creative.

#4. Nerd out, my little engineer

Burlage became a student of the unique personality of each of the subreddits he would post to. He was seeking to figure out exactly what each community wants. And he would obsessively test what works and what doesn’t:

“This was a process of trial and error. I studied the rates at which my viral posts were upvoted minute by minute, hour by hour. I posted at different times of the day to determine when users were most active. For every viral post I made, I deleted a dozen others that failed to stick.”

LESSON: More drudgery. There’s no way around studying your market and testing your marketing approach. But if you take it seriously, you can get to being 13th out of 25 million.

#5. Pay no mind to the growing void in your soul

Here’s a bit of reflection from Burlage after he became a Reddit star:

“As much as Reddit had helped me to fill empty time, it exposed a more significant emptiness within me. Attention on Reddit, after all, is like quicksand. Every post I shared made me feel closer to getting out, but the effort that it took to make those posts plunged me deeper into the pit.”

LESSON: Well, Why expose yourself to the whims of a quicksand platform like Reddit, or Facebook, or Instagram?

Pull your audience out of the quicksand. Form a more direct, more permanent, more meaningful relationship with them. And start competing for real dollars instead of various Internet points.

That’s how I see it. ​​​​​​

By the way, if you’re looking to make a more profitable, more meaningful relationship with fleeting customers, you might find some ideas here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

The bland conspiracy behind the Great Awokening

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I saw some statistics today about the use of certain phrases in the New York Times.

Woke terms and concepts such as “patriarchy,” “mansplaining,” “Islamophobia,” and “toxic masculinity.”

The trend is best illustrated by the term “racism,” which has been in widespread use for much longer than the others.

Various NYT articles referenced racism at a fairly even clip throughout the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and up to the early 2010s.

And then, there was a sharp spike.

So for comparison, in 2010, there were on average 5-6 articles in the NYT each day that mentioned racism.

Since 2016, it’s been more like 20-30.

What explains this explosion?

Well, there’s a conspiracy theory floating around that’s straight out of the 70s movie Network.

It says that the rich got nervous about all the attention being given to economic disparities in US society (remember Occupy Wall Street?). So godlike business magnates called in their big-media lackeys, and they said,

“Why do we pay you? So you can report on the growing revolt of the hundreds of millions of poor people in this country? No! Do something else and do it now. Focus on the blacks or the gays or the Mexicans, but not the poor!”

So there’s that explanation. And then there’s the much more bland non-conspiracy theory:

Throughout the 2000s, the print circulation of the NYT was steadily dropping.

At the same time, the newspaper was moving more of its content online.

But unlike a bunch of sheets of paper, a website will happily speak up and tell you what people read and what they respond to.

And just like with Faye Dunaway’s character in Network, it probably took only one intelligent, ambitious, and ruthless editor to take this information and conclude, “Give the people what they want! Give them polarizing stories. Reinforce their already-held beliefs. That’s how we’ll quadruple our digital subscribers.”

Whichever theory is true, I think there are lots of lessons here for you if you’re doing any kind of marketing online.

Particularly if you’re in anything resembling a mass or commodity market. Which is what I’ve been doing a lot of lately. And if you want my insights on how to write polarizing copy that quadruples your mass-market buyers, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Getting ghosted by copywriting clients

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I saw the following question today:

“I took a freelance project and then my client ghosted me. What can I do?”

I’ve fortunately never been jiffed out of money by a copywriting client.

Largely, that was due to getting my clients through Upwork for a long time. Upwork has an escrow system, so even when a client did ghost me (and it’s happened a few times), I could get paid for the work I’d done.

Off Upwork, even though some clients have been slow with payments, in the end they’ve all made good.

But what will I do one day — and I suppose it’s gotta happen once — that a client doesn’t pay?

The Internet seems filled with freelancing village elders who are ready to give advice: keep sending reminders, put up nasty reviews online, take legal action, send the “magic email” (“Well I guess your priorities musta changed!”), eat the loss.

All of those sound more or less reasonable.

And I’d probably try some of them.

But in the end, if getting my money was still no-go, I might simply take a listen to Longmont Potion Castle.

This guy has put out a dozen albums, all recordings of his absurd, bizarre, and incessant prank calls.

He calls up businesses on a Skype call and says threatening, accusatory things — but all in such a calm and comic tone that the person on the other side of the line doesn’t know if this is really an argument or a joke. From a call to a tire shop:

“I’ve got a Daihatsu Blooper. I’m gonna come up there and wring your neck. I want quadruple my purchase price. Period. End of discussion.”

So I might start making such calls to my non-paying client friends to kick off my working day and get myself in a good mood.

Of course, you might think that getting paid is not a joke.

​​Particularly if you were really counting on that money.

And I agree with you.

At the same time, why give somebody the opportunity to cheat you twice? Once, by not paying you, and twice, by putting you in a frustrated, angry frame of mind for days or weeks?

Instead, get what you can out of them. Even if that means making absurd prank phone calls. And who knows, the derelict client might be so irritated by the end they will simply pay you to stop.

I hope you’ve haven’t been jiffed by a client. But if you have, and you need inspiration, here’s the mind-bending tire shop call from Longmont Potion Castle himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADR6VNm6Qb0

How to stop worrying and start making better decisions

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In the summer of 2004, I was snorkeling at the Dry Tortugas off the Florida Keys.

The sand at the Dry Tortugas is white.

The water is warm, blue, and perfectly clear. It’s also shallow, so there are many coral reefs, full of colorful tropical fish.

So there I was, mask clamped to my face, salty snorkel in my mouth, swimming along in the sun and having a nice time.

Every so often, I’d see a school of hand-sized green fish. Cute.

Then I saw a single striped blue fish, the size of a football, with yellow markings near its fins. Interesting.

And then for a while, I saw nothing of note.

So I swam further away from the shore and into the ocean. All around was the blue-green water. Below me, there was  white sand which stretched out as far as I could see.

And then a cold wave of fear washed over me.

My heart jumped into my throat. My body froze.

Because right in front, maybe about 10 feet away, was a giant, silver, slithering sea monster.

Its head looked like a boxing glove.

The scales on its back glittered in the sun.

And it wasn’t alone. Behind it, there was another monster. And another. And another. Dozens of them.

I had unwittingly snorkeled my way into a large school of tarpon, one of the biggest game fish you can catch in Florida. They grow up to 8 feet long — about 2 meters. I’m not sure how large the tarpon that I saw were, but out there in the water, each of them looked the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Fortunately, the school of tarpon didn’t care about me. They just leisurely continued on their route, off into the ocean, past where I could see them.

Once they were gone, I slowly recovered control over my arms and legs, turned around, and swam back to shore.

Now, there’s a little lesson in this story about how to stop worrying and start making better decisions. Here’s what I mean:

Most humans, me included, react much more strongly to negative events than to positive ones.

The thing is, we often willingly expose ourselves to feedback, which can be positive as well as negative.

Imagine checking how your Bitcoin investment is doing in the last hour… or how many visitors your website had yesterday.

If the outcome is positive — Bitcoin is up 2%, or you had the usual number of website visitors — it’s like snorkeling and seeing those little green and blue fish. Cute. Interesting.

But if the outcome is negative, the feeling can be much stronger. It’s like being punched in the gut by a giant, boxing-glove-headed tarpon.

But hold on, you might say. Shouldn’t you always know how things stand — and if you’re swimming into dangerous waters — so you can take corrective action if needed?

Maybe. But maybe checking too often will just cause you stress. And if you get a few negative results in a row, it might also cause you to make a bad decision — to turn around, swim to shore, and get out of the water. And this might be a tragedy.

Here’s a formal way to illustrate why, which I got from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow:

Let’s say I offer you a bet. 50% chance you win $200. 50% chance you lose $100.

Many people won’t take this bet. The possible loss of $100 (with a 50% chance) seems too big compared to the possible winnings of $200. The fear of the tarpon is too strong.

But what if the same bet happens 100 times in a row?

In that case, it would almost certainly make sense to take this “aggregate” bet. Your expected winnings would be $5,000 — and your chance of losing any money would be just 1 in 2,300.

And yet, if you don’t look at the aggregate view — but you only consider each 50%-50% bet in isolation — chances are you will never get this large, almost guaranteed outcome. ​​

In other words, it can pay to take the long view. And to have a system. And to stop worrying about short-term results.

Granted, of course, that you’re not exposing yourself to catastrophe in the form of a hammerhead shark or a loss of money that will land you in jail or at the bottom of the sea.

Anyways, that’s my motivational sermon for today.

One last thing: If you need a system and a long-term view to help with marketing your business, then daily emails might be the answer. And if you want some proven advice on how to write such emails, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Selling empty cans to pale, dirty Internet addicts

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Imagine a dark, airless room.

A pale, young man who hasn’t showered in five days is sitting there, lit up by the light of a computer monitor.

He has headphones on his head and he is completely absorbed as one hand bashes on the keyboard and the other twitches at the mouse.

And on the desk, next to his computer, is a steaming can — a new warning symbol for our age.

At least, that’s the argument I just read in an article by one David Courtwright, a professor of history at the prestigious University of North Florida.

Courtwright’s article starts off by talking about the spread of computer gaming addictions: Young guys who spend their entire days and nights sitting at the computer, playing World of Warcraft.

And it’s really entire days and nights.

Some of these guys keep cans by the computer so they don’t have to take time out to go to the bathroom.

Courtwright argues this is a symptom of “limbic capitalism” — selling goods and services that are actually addictive.

Limbic capitalism is not a new phenomenon, Courtwright says, but it’s definitely been helped by the spread of the Internet and the growth of entrepreneurial culture (and opportunities).

But if guys want to pee while sitting at their computer, then why not sell them the can, right?

This might have been the right attitude some time ago.

Once upon a time, you needed large numbers to make a business (and marketing for that business) profitable. And if that meant selling to addicts, so be it.

Even if that was true once (and I’m not sure it was), it’s not true any more.

In the online marketing sphere, guys like Sean D’Souza and Ben Settle make a good living by selling to a small number of curated customers who are willing to spend a lot of money — and get a lot of value — from their offers, year after year.
​
The same systems that have allowed for the rise of limbic capitalism have allowed for the rise of this other kind of capitalism (maybe call it forebrain capitalism, since it’s designed to appeal to deliberate decision making).

So what does this have to do with you?

Maybe nothing.

It’s just something I think about when choosing which projects I will spend my time and effort and lifeblood on.

But maybe this resonates with you in some way, and maybe it helps you when you have to make your own decisions about how to run or grow your own business.

Anyways, enough philosophizing.

If you do have a forebrain business that sells something worthwhile to people who aren’t addicts, and you want sales copy (even limbic sales copy) to help your sales, then you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

7 reasons NOT to date your copywriting clients

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I saw the following thread today in the Ask Men subreddit:

“If you really like a girl, what are some reasons you wouldn’t date her?”

Reading through the top responses, I realized many of these reasons apply, in slightly modified form, to dating your copywriting clients as well:

#1. “Not willing to discuss issues we’ve had”

Some clients I’ve had never shared the results of campaigns I worked on for them. Was a time, when I happily kept working for these clients, just for the money.

Not so any more.

Today, a big part of what I get from any new copywriting project is the opportunity to learn and improve — and getting feedback in the form of sales results is a major part of that.

#2. “Different stages in life”

I’m in a kind of settled, “middle age” period in my little copywriting career.

This means I prefer to work with boring, established, successful businesses that are already making sales.

I would be unlikely to get involved with the uncertainty and stress — or if you prefer, excitement — that comes with most young, hungry, no-name startups.

#3. “Deep debt, unwillingness to work”

If a client is not doing well financially, and if they are hoping my copywriting will save the day, I silently pivot on my heel and run in the opposite direction.

#4. “She lives 8 hours away. By airplane”

I’ve had long-term clients from all over the world, from New Zealand to Thailand to the UK to California.

So physical distance in a client relationship doesn’t bother me.

But I do still need a bit of love and regular interaction, at least in the form of timely replies to questions I send and requests for info I make.

#5. “She doesn’t want to date me”

Why chase clients who don’t want to work with me — when there’s so much demand for good copywriting out there?

#6. “My wife would be pissed”

There were times when I was working with several clients at the same time who could be considered competition to each other.

None of them has ever been jealous or tried to keep me all to themselves.

That said, if I did date a copywriting client long-term, and they asked me not to work with a specific competitor of theirs, it’s something I would consider doing.

#7. “Mismatch of core values: religion, etc.”

Some businesses out there are outright scams, selling shoddy or harmful products.

Others prey on segments of the population — gambling addicts, for example — who cannot make anything close to a rational decision.

I don’t work with these kinds of clients, because I feel that there are plenty of ways to get rich by selling something that gives value to the buyer instead of making them worse off.

And there you have it:

7 reasons NOT to date an otherwise attractive girl…

And 7 reasons I choose NOT to write copy for some otherwise attractive clients.

Now, if you have a business and you found yourself on the list above, then odds are slim we will work together.

And if you did not recognize yourself on the list above, but you are looking for sales copy and you think you might want to work with me, then write me an email and we can schedule a lightning-fast first date to get to know each other a bit better.