Business Ideas

PSA: $34k worth of value for $500

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For the past couple days, I’ve been teasing the identity of an online guru who has just decided to shut down his course business.

I had been following the guy for the past couple years, and on Wednesday I easily and quickly made the decision to pay him $500 for a clearance bundle of his courses.

A buncha people wrote in, asking who this mystery online guru might be.

I kept mum because frankly I had hoped to promote this bundle of courses as an affiliate. I reached out to the team behind the offer and asked. I got back the following reply:

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Hey John,

We are not doing an affiliate offer on this. As this is a one time offer before we shut the doors, it is simply the only offer and best price we can share- with no affiliate offers attached.

Sorry about that but thank you for sharing and thinking about us😊

We appreciate you.

===

… and yet, here I am, promoting this bundle to you, even though I’m not getting paid anything for it.

I think it’s a great deal, a great offer, and possibly life-transforming knowledge and skill.

I’ve been going through it since I bought it. I only have good things to say so far. I want you to know about it.

If you wanna read the full story, or spend $500 on something that has previously sold for $34k in total and that might transform your life:

https://bejakovic.com/epic

To all my dog trainers, pottery instructors, and professional alpaca whisperers

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Yesterday I got a question from Liza Schermann, the original “Crazy Email Lady” and current head copywriter at surging startup Scandinavian Biolabs. Liza wanted to know:

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Why so tempting??

I promised myself never to click through to the sales page of Daily Email Habit. It’s too good an offer not to buy, but I knew I wouldn’t commit. Yesterday, I gave in and clicked against my better judgement.

Anyhow, now I’m wondering:

The example you provide on the sales page is very specific to online marketing. Are most of the prompts geared towards this crowd? Or is it a mix, and people can adjust as they see fit for their own purposes?

I happen to be in this crowd, so it makes perfect sense to me. But maybe there’s a dog trainer, a pottery instructor, or a professional alpaca whisperer on your list who’s scratching their head wondering what to do with a prompt about daily emails (or something similar).

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I got variants of this question all week. In a nutshell:

Daily emails, like the kind Daily Email Habit gets you to write (including the sample prompt on the sales page) will work in any business or industry. The only caveat is you must be willing to put yourself (or some sort of avatar you write behind) as the face of that business.

In fact, that’s the point of daily emails, unpleasant though it may sound.

You’re ultimately selling yourself as the product, rather than whatever your “product” officially is. In the words of Dan Kennedy, a direct marketer who has managed to sell himself for millions and millions of dollars:

“The higher up in income you go, the more you’re paid for who you are, rather than what you do.”

So now the question becomes, are daily emails, the way Daily Email Habit helps you to write, a fit for you?

Only you can decide that.

Maybe you don’t like the business of selling you, even for a premium, and maybe you want your products or services to stand for themselves, at competitive market rates.

That’s a fine decision. In this case, don’t go the daily email route, because the relationship and authority you build up will only interfere with people buying from you on the strength of your product or price alone.

On the other hand, if you want to charge higher prices… or surround yourself with a moat that’s not easily crossed by marauding neighbors… or have a ready source of income whenever your business or personal life needs it… then daily emails work great.

And Daily Email Habit will help you write them, in an effective and (relatively) painless way, whether you are a dog trainer, pottery instructor, or professional alpaca whisperer.

But that doesn’t change the cruel truth:

The price for Daily Email Habit is going up tonight at 12 midnight PST, from a modest $30/month to an obscene $50/month.

If you’re considering getting in before the price increases for ever and ever, and you want the full info on DEH:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/

Why close down a successful info product business?

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Yesterday, I wrote about guy who is closing down his successful info product business (and who got me to instantly pony over $500 to get a clearance bundle of his courses.)

I didn’t share the guy’s name in my email. This predictably drew a higher-than-usual number of responses from readers.

For example, long-time reader and customer Sean Clark wrote in to ask:

“Do you know why he’s shutting it down vs letting someone else take it over or license the content, etc?”

According to the sales page for the clearance bundle, the info marketer in question has simply decided to retire from teaching, and to go back to doing full-time.

But that still doesn’t really answer Sean’s question.

My suspicion:

The guy in question, being highly sophisticated in business generally and in direct marketing specifically, knows that the majority of the value of a course lies not in the course itself, but in the relationship the buyer has with the person selling the course.

In other words, if he’s really planning to step away from the info business 100%, then the value of his courses will soon drop to a feather over 0, whether he hands it over to somebody else or not.

Don’t believe me?

Then ask yourself, what would you pay for the magnificent and life-transforming courses by sales trainers and personal development gurus of years past, such as J. Douglas Edwards or Og Mandino or W. Clement Stone?

No?

Names don’t ring a bell?

You wouldn’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to learn from these dead masters?

That’s my point. These folks influenced and helped hundreds of thousands of people, including today’s gurus, or gurus who trained today’s gurus. The ideas from these old-timers would be as sure to help you as, say, Russell Brunson’s or Tony Robins’s ideas. Maybe more so. And yet…

Before you you think I’m trying to drown you in the impermanence of human existence, there’s a flip side to this depressing truth, which is much more positive.

That flip side is that, if you build up some sort of relationship with an audience, they will want to buy from you and only you, and will be willing to pay a premium far above what the information itself might sell for otherwise, at least while you still choose to be in business.

And so let me remind you that today, Thursday November 13, is the last day to sign up to my Daily Email Habit service at the still ridiculously low price of $1/day, aka $30/month.

Daily Email habit helps you start and stick with showing up in people’s inboxes, every day, with something relevant and interesting to say.

This habit, practiced for weeks and months and years, leads to a relationship and to standing with an audience, so they want to buy from you or hire you, even if hundreds or thousands of equally good alternatives are out there.

If you want to get started building your standing and authority today, and benefit both from taking action sooner and from not suffering from the price increase:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How to get me to pay you $500 in 90 seconds flat

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Today I was on Facebook — don’t ask why — and I saw a post from a dude whose email list I’ve been on for the past two years.

The dude was announcing that he’s shutting down his info publishing business and that he’s making all his courses available in one heavily discounted bundle, which will presumably go away some time soon.

About 90 seconds later, I had entered in my credit card details and paid the dude $500 for this heavily discounted bundle.

Point being:

Discounting works great — IF people already value what you’re selling at the full value.

The dude above has been emailing for years, practically every day.

I didn’t read all his emails, but I read a good number.

He has been building up the case for buying his various courses.

He made the case over and over for the value of knowledge inside… he showed results that people who were applying this knowledge were getting… he kept digging and prodding into soft spots in my flesh, making me suspect that I’m missing out on something really important.

I grew to believe what the dude was saying, and I grew to want what he was selling.

My “no thank you” defenses were good enough to resist his sales pitches while I thought I still had time, while the offer was basically “Get started today OR tomorrow OR the day after if tomorrow doesn’t work.”

But once this became a last-chance matter, and once there was also a significant discount over what these courses had been selling for previously, I saw myself involved in an instant, almost involuntary action to pay the guy $500.

So discounting can work great.

As can launches, promos, and special offers.

But none of them will work unless people in your audience have grown to want the thing you have, and have grown to value it above and beyond the offer you will be making on it.

How do you get people to that point?

Well, I told you above.

Email every day, or practically every day. Make the case, over and over, for people buying what you’re selling. Tease, provide proof, and dismiss alternatives.

Do this over and over, and then, when you make a special deal and you give a deadline for it — you don’t have to close down your entire business, or bundle all your stuff for $500 — people will buy, instantly.

And on that note, let me remind you:

The price for my Daily Email Habit service is going up this Thursday at 12 midnight PST, from a modest $30/month to the Martin Shkreli-like $50/month.

Daily Email Habit helps you start and stick with consistent daily emailing, so you can gradually move people to wanting what you have to sell, and so you can get them to value it at the price you sell it for.

If you wanna get started today, and start moving people to where you want them to go, before the price goes up:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

I’m three years behind where I should be

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A reader writes in reply to my announcement yesterday, about the price increase for my Daily Email Habit service:

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Hi,

I’m just starting my business and don’t have an email list yet. Does this make sense for me?

Thanks

===

I don’t know this reader’s business or her circumstances or goals.

I can only tell you my personal experience, and how I wish it were different.

I started writing daily emails in 2018. At that point I had been working as a freelance copywriter for 3 full years.

I had tried and failed with various side projects.

I eventually started writing daily emails as a sandbox to practice ideas and possibly attract prospective clients, and show them that I can do what I claim I can do.

Three big questions now:

1. Would I be better off today had I started this daily email newsletter 3 years earlier?

2. Would I have been better off in 2018 had I already been writing this newsletter for 3 years?

3. Would I have been better off back in 2015, when I had nothing, knew nothing, and had done nothing, had I started writing a daily email newsletter in addition to trying to get copywriting clients?

Yes, to all three. There’s no doubt about it. Consider:

1. I would have been writing for three extra years

That would have translated into expertise, both in performing my job, and in selling myself to clients.

It also would mean three extra years of content — about 500,000 words — that I could repurpose into books, courses, trainings, talks given from the stage, lead magnets, bonuses.

2. I would have built my authority and status sooner and to higher levels

People treat you differently if you have a platform, even if it’s a platform anybody can create and assemble for free like an email newsletter.

The very fact of having something to say, and saying it publicly, gives you greater standing, status, and respect.

3. I would have had a side hustle to balance out ups and downs of client work

This would have made me less needy, more comfortable negotiating, and would have allowed me to turn away projects that I knew shouldn’t work on.

4. I would have organized my own experiences and thoughts about my business, the way I did only in 2021, and only because I had been writing daily emails

I made a lot of mistakes while working as a freelancer, including some that I estimate cost me hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars.

Writing regularly, about what I am doing and learning, might have saved me from making some of those mistakes.

5. Writing to a dedicated audience would have eventually provided income

This would have balanced out what I was making with freelance work, and it only would have compounded in time.

6. Finally, I would have been building my list for an extra 3 years

For much of my time writing this email newsletter, the only thing I did to grow my list was to write my daily email and to post it on my website as a blog post.

It’s an incredibly inefficient and slow way to grow an email list. And yet, in time it still produced results and got me some subscribers, including people who then went on to promote me in various ways and who sped up the growth of my list.

In other words, just the very act of writing and making it available for people to find, is enough to build me the kernels of a list, which in turn became this “business,” though I still don’t even think of what I do as a business.

For all these reasons and more, I wish I had started my email list three years earlier.

It would have made the early days of my freelance career easier and faster.

It would have made the mid term of my copywriting career, around 2018, more profitable and more exciting.

And it would have made me richer and even more famous and beloved than I already am today (hard to believe, I know).

Again, this is all unique to me.

I don’t know your circumstances. I won’t try to persuade you that what makes perfect sense for me makes perfect sense for you.

If you wanna focus on the fact that I worked as freelance copywriter who specialized in writing sales emails… and therefore it was particularly beneficial to me to start writing sales emails for myself every day… you can focus on that.

But you can also focus on the other things I wrote above, which are relevant whether you’re a service provider doing something other than copywriting… or you sell courses or coaching… or you have handmade dog toys you want to get out into the world.

Whatever you decide to focus on:

The price for Daily Email Habit is going up this Thursday at 12 midnight PST, from a modest $30/month to the Martin Shkreli-like $50/month.

Daily Email Habit helps you start and stick with consistent daily emailing, and gives you, in a very condensed daily drip, a practical way to apply what I’ve learned over the past 8 years of writing this daily email newsletter.

I only wish I had started with it earlier.

If you wanna get started today, and take advantage of the still-reasonable monthly price:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Announcing: Martin Shkreli-like price increase for Daily Email Habit

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This Thursday, at 12 midnight PST, I will be increasing the price of my Daily Email Habit service to an unheard-of $50/month.

Daily Email Habit puts an email “puzzle” in your inbox each day, to help you start and stick with sending daily emails.

Daily Email Habit currently sells for $30/month, which means you can get a daily email prompt and ongoing education in how to expand that prompt into a fun and valuable email for just $1/day.

On Thursday, I’ll be increasing the price of Daily Email Habit to $50/month because my accountant, warehouse manager, and mother-in-law have all been beating me over the head and yelling at me to do it for days now.

Apparently the price of digital paper and digital ink have risen dramatically over the past few years, as have the labor costs of the little elves we use deliver Daily Email Habit puzzles to inboxes worldwide.

The fact remains that the price of Daily Email Habit, old or new, is a tiny fraction of what you can make regularly, each month, if you do start and stick with the habit of daily emailing.

Maybe a higher price will lead to higher commitment, at least in some people (a lower price certainly won’t). And ultimately, more commitment and more consistency is the goal of this entire service.

If you are currently signed up to Daily Email Habit, of course you will not be impacted by this dramatic and shameless price increase. You will keep being grandfathered in at whatever price you signed up at.

And if you are not yet signed up to Daily Email Habit, the same is true for you if you sign up today. The price goes up on Thursday for others… but you only have to pay the current rate, and the same in the future, whenever I decide to hike up the price again (say, in case the elves unionize).

If you want the full details on Daily Email Habit — including a sample of the fine printing job we do, which explains why we are so sensitive to rising digital paper and digital ink costs — so you can decide whether you want to join before price goes up:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Info publishing lesson from A24 Films

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I like to look at creative industries — where people are churning out and packaging up ideas and turning them into real world value. Maybe they can teach me something about the info publishing world as well.

Today, I wanna tell you about the movie industry, or rather, a different perspective that’s emerged in the movie industry over the past decade.

As you might know, the classic 20th century Hollywood movie studio is a home-run business.

A movie studio experiences lots and lots of strikeouts, which are offset and then some by one big hit, which can gross $100M or $1B or $100B (ok, maybe not $100B, not yet).

But there’s a subtle cost to this way of doing business, as you’ve probably seen at the local theater:

All Hollywood movies eventually become comic book movies.

The reason is both that comic book franchises already have proven stories and characters, with a built-in fan base that can be sold to…

… and that comic book movies make low demands on the viewer, and therefore have mass-market potential (this comes from someone who has spent 6 hours of his past 2 evenings rewatching two of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies).

But there’s another way to make movies.

Perhaps you have heard of A24 Films. A24 is a film and TV production company that got started in 2012. They are best known for making arty, creative movies, often with very small budgets. Some A24 movies have become hits. Some barely managed to recoup their small budgets. But all are cool, unique, and beloved by fans and critics alike.

I read an article about A24 recently. A top executive was quoted in the article with something that struck me:

“To use a baseball metaphor, we hit singles and doubles. And when you set up movies to hit singles and doubles you can let your partner—in the best version of this—really take creative risks. We don’t need to gross a hundred million dollars. We don’t need to gross forty million dollars to actually have a successful financial outcome.”

Here’s how I interpret this translates into the info publishing world:

If you’re only creating a few offers a year, each needs to be a big hit if you’re gonna be a long-term successful as a business.

And that means that over time, you will experience “audience capture” the way that Hollywood has experienced with comic book movies. In other words, you will find that you’re forced to create stuff because the mass mind of your audience dictates it, whether you genuinely believe in it or not, whether you enjoy creating it or not.

This can be fine — you might care about other things in life and get your kicks there.

But if creating cool stuff you’re proud of is something that matters to you, then there’s a lesson in what that A24 exec says. That lesson is to work on hitting lots of doubles and singles, both to cover your nut, and to give you the freedom to keep doing what you want, how you want, when you want.

So much for cross-pollination.

Now I’d like to remind you of my Daily Email Habit service, which gives you a daily email “puzzle” to help you start and stick with sending daily emails.

Daily Email Habit currently sells for $30/month, which means you can get a daily email prompt and ongoing education in how to expand that prompt into a fun and valuable email for just $1/day.

In a few days, I will be jacking up the price of Daily Email Habit to Martin Shkreli levels. If you want to get in before the price increases, or better yet, if you simply want to start writing your own daily email habit today, so you can start hitting singles and doubles regularly:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

I couldn’t give this new reviewer one star

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Last week, I wrote an email about an Amazon customer who wrote the first 4-star review of my new 10 Commandments book (all the other reviews were 5-star up to then).

The review was to the effect of, “the book is really 5 stars, but nothing’s perfect.”

I took a joking tone and gave that reviewer a “4-star review” in an email I sent to my whole list.

Well, the universe must have liked that because it’s now thrown a similar though entirely flipped opportunity in my path.

Here’s my most recent, 2-star review from Amazon customer LouisXIV, who didn’t even want to give my book those two stars:

“I couldn’t give it one star…had to give it two because it at compelled me to buy. This book is a magic trick from a (former?) pick up artist. It’s a bunch of stories loosely strung together. To be fair, I was familiar with a lot of these concepts already so someone may get more out of their introduction. Throwing it the garbage but kudos to the author for getting me to buy! 🤣”

I cannot give this new reviewer five stars, because nobody’s perfect. But I certainly cannot give him one star either. Not only is he helping me write this email and make some sales, but everything he says is true. Namely:

“This book is a magic trick…”

Why thank you.

“… from a (former?) pick up artist.”

… you’re making me blush but ok…

“It’s a bunch of stories loosely strung together.”

Yes, and it took a lot of work to get it so. The whole concept of the book is 10 commonalities among 10 seemingly unconnected disciplines:

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

It took a few years of research and a lot of fiddling to string together the stories that illustrate 10 common techniques used in these fields, as well as the underlying psychology and neurology common to all human beings, which you can then apply to your own life, even if you’re not, say, a pickup artist or a magician.

As for the techniques and principles themselves, they might not all be new to you, but you won’t find any of them in Cialdini’s Influence. Again, that’s by intention and design. For example, take Commandment VI:

“The best way to respond when someone accuses, mocks, or criticizes you. A trick used by pickup artists, which works on men as well as women. (Politicians obey this commandment too, too, from Andrew Jackson in 1828, to Ross Perot in 1990, all the way to Donald Trump in 2016.)”

If you’re as knowledgeable as LouisXIV seems to be, you might already know what this is. You might even have spotted me using it, right in this very email.

But if you’re not 100% sure, or you simply want to hear me go into this in more detail, via several stories that I’ve managed to string together in the most delicate and loose way, you can find it all in my book.

Maybe you’ll even give me kudos for getting you to buy it. In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

2 facts about throwing good email parties

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Yesterday, I announced a new campaign inside my Daily Email House community. My goal is to get existing members to promote the group and help me grow it.

I appreciate all referrals.

At the same time, I’m not letting just anyone join.

To help me vet people, I have a few sphinx-like riddles set up at the front door.

I look at a potential new member’s profile and history on Skool.

I use my intuition to decide if he or she has something to get from and contribute to the group beyond trolling or whining.

Many I’ve allowed in. Some I have not.

Unfortunately, I only started keeping record last week of the colorful reasons why some people have found the doors to Daily Email House closed. Here are a few from the past week:

#1. In answer to “What’s your #1 goal right now?”: [entered his email address]

#2. In answer “What’s your #1 goal right now?”: “learn em”

#3. Bio: “sfd sfsfsf”

#4. In answer to “What’s your #1 goal right now?”: “邮件太多不知如何使用?” [ChatGPT translates this as “Too many emails and don’t know how to use them?” which would not pass muster even if it were written in English]

I recently read an article titled “21 Facts About Throwing Good Parties.” Fact #1:

“1) Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too. Every other decision is downstream of your serenity: e.g. it’s better to have mediocre pizza from a happy host than fabulous hors d’oeuvres from a frazzled one.”

… and fact #20:

“20) Let me repeat that: Parties are a public service, you’re doing people a favor by throwing them. Someone might meet their new best friend or future lover at your gathering. In the short term, lovely people may feel less lonely, and that’s thanks to you. In the long term, whole new children may ultimately exist in the world because you bothered to throw a party. Throwing parties is stressful for most people, but a great kindness to the community, so genuinely pat yourself on the back for doing this.”

An online community should feel and work like something like a house party… as should an email newsletter. It should deliver value. It should be fun and the people participating — the members or readers — should feel like they can participate and express themselves more or less freely.

At the same time, you are still the one whose house it is, and you set the tone and the rules, and the #1 rule, and the #20 rule, is to make it convenient and fun for yourself first and foremost…

… and if that means not allowing people inside just because their vibe strikes you as off, then that’s ok.

So much for the long-term mindset.

If you want more practical, day-to-day advice on how to make your email list feel like an online party, you can find that inside my Daily Email Habit service.

Daily Email Habit currently sells for $30/month, which means you can get a daily email prompt and ongoing education in how to expand that prompt into a fun and valuable email for just $1/day.

In a few days, I will be jacking up the price of Daily Email Habit to Martin Shkreli levels. If you want to get in before the price increases, or better yet, if you simply want to start writing your own daily email habit today, so you can reap the benefits tomorrow:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Others get audited for their travel and entertainment deductions… YOU deduct TWICE as much, yet get no flack from the IRS

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This week I’m promoting Jeanne Willson and Kirsten Graham’s free training on how solopreneurs can offload their bookkeeping without paying CPA prices.

Unfortunately, I know very little about the world of taxes or bookkeeping.

Fortunately, I know something about copywriting, and the world of direct marketing. That’s how I know of a sales bullet, written by A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos, in a blockbuster sales letter from 1996:

“Others get audited for their travel and entertainment deductions. You deduct TWICE as much, yet get no flack from the IRS. The secret is on page 18.”

In case you’re curious about the secret to not getting audited while others do, it’s this, from page 18 of the book Parris was promoting (I’m summarizing):

Submit documentation and proof along with your tax return. The IRS officially discourages attached proof and evidence. Even so, it’s a proven recipe to reducing your chances of an audit, because while audits are triggered automatically, they are reviewed by a live human, and a human might look at your attached proof and decide your claims are legit.

This info, which supposedly comes from a well-connected IRS insider, is from the 1990s.

Is it still true today?

I cannot say. If you’re really worried about getting audited, I would refer you to Thursday’s training by Jeanne and Kirsten.

Jeanne and Kirsten will share a plan to take care of the looming cloud of a tax audit, without paying the $200-$500 per month that you would pay to your local CPA.

And yes, there will be a done-for-you service for sale at the end of Thursday’s training to make your tax worries disappear.

And yes, I will get paid something as an affiliate if you take Jeanne and Kirsten up on this offer.

But I’m not getting paid anything to plug Jeanne and Kirsten’s training on Thursday, which will be valuable and instructive on its own, whether you choose to buy the offer at the end.

If you would like to sign up for this free training, and reclaim the part of your brain that’s worried about taxes:

https://lessmathmoremoney.com/