Business Ideas

Getting hosed by trolls and haters for the win

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A quick but slippery story today about dealing with trolls and haters:

Back in 1978, the TV show Taxi went on the air. It had an ensemble cast of past and future stars: Tony Danza (who became one of the biggest TV leading men of the 80s)… Christopher Lloyd (who became Doc in the Back to the Future movies)… Danny DeVito (who became the Penguin, among other things).

Oh, and then there was also Andy Kaufman.

Kaufman was famous already. And he would become more famous still, thanks to his kooky and anti-humor characters on Saturday Night Live and David Letterman.

Anyways, it was a few months in, and the cast of Taxi was gelling. They liked working with each other. They felt they were on to something big — the ratings were good.

But there was a problem:

Tony Danza really didn’t like Andy Kaufman.

“I was a team player,” Danza said. “And this guy is meditating in his car. He’s eating seaweed. He doesn’t come to rehearsal. But when we have a gag reel, he doesn’t make any mistakes. That galls you too.”

Danza decided to do something drastic to provoke Kaufman. He wanted to make it clear to Kaufman that his better-than-you attitude wouldn’t fly.

“I’m not proud of this,” Danza said. “But I took a fire extinguisher. It was a water fire extinguisher, not chemical. And I shot him with it, figuring he would get mad.”

But no.

Andy Kaufman just stood there.

Danza emptied the fire extinguisher.

But Andy Kaufman just kept standing there, blinking and looking harmless as usual, focusing his baby-sphinx gaze on Tony Danza.

“I was so frustrated,” Danza said. “Because he didn’t do anything.”

Frustrated? Sounds like a win for Andy Kaufman. And get this:

Fire extinguisher now spent, Danza apologized. And over the coming hours and days, he decided to take a second look at Kaufman.

At the time, Kaufman was doing a show on Sunset Boulevard. Danza decided to go.

“The show was the craziest show I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I started to think, holy mackerel, this is something really different.”

The two performers went for milk and cookies after the show (no joke). And over time, Danza ended up considering Kaufman a pretty close friend, and an amazing performer.

And in case you’re wondering:

I am not saying that you should allow yourself to get hosed down to win over trolls.

But I am saying that remaining emotionally detached in the face of various haters can be transformative. To you and to them both.

In the short term, once your troll or hater empties out his provocation hose and still finds you unfazed… well, it’s a win for you.

And who knows? In rare cases, maybe the troll will even become converted, and decide to give you a second, less hateful look.

But easier said than done, right? Because, like me, perhaps you find it hard to stay emotionally detached.

In that case, you might want to take a page from the book of Andy Kaufman:

Invent a character and play him in real life.

It doesn’t have to be a completely different character, either. It can be somebody who looks like you… lives your life… shares your experiences… but is still different enough where it counts.

Maybe ​you can’t picture what I mean. So I’ll let Andy Kaufman illustrate.

Below, you can find his most bizarre, moving, and provocative appearance on television. Try to decide where reality ends and the character begins.

But before you go watch that, I want to say something serious. I have an email newsletter. I put so much work into it. But almost nobody is signing up. It breaks my heart. I know this sounds cliche… but would you sign up to it, please?

The secret of the weasel

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I was talking to a girl once and she said, “What do you think, if I were an animal, what animal would I be? What animal do I remind you of?”

The fact is, she reminded me of a bear — in all the best ways. But I couldn’t say that.

​​I tamped it down and said she made me think of a lioness.

“Hm ok,” she said. “Do you wanna know what animal you remind me of? But wait, I don’t know the name in English.” She went rooting around her phone.

“This!” she finally said with a big smile. “So cute it is!”

I looked at the picture. My animal doppelganger was staring back at me with dark, beady eyes. I started to laugh. It was a weasel.

The girl, who was not a native English speaker, just shrugged. For her, the story ended there. I’m sure she’s forgotten all about it since.

But I knew the double meaning of the word “weasel” in English. And so, my brain lit up and I laughed. I wrote down this story as soon as I could, and here I am, telling it to you now, a few years later.

And in case you’re wondering what my point is:

Many people will tell you that the secret to good emails is so simple. Just talk about what happened to you today. Then milk it for some sort of a lesson and presto! Immediate influence.

I disagree.

For the vast majority of people, myself included, I think this “bland breakthrough” style of emailing is a terrible approach.

Because except for a few rare storytellers, those types of emails rarely come together to surprise and delight. They rarely light up the reader’s brain the way my brain lit up at being (favorably) compared to a weasel.

Instead, all you get is the girl’s reaction — a shrug, and on to the next thing.

Maybe you don’t see the distinction I’m trying to make. So let me give you an example of an email that turns the light on.

It comes from one of the bonuses I’ve been putting together for my now-ended Influential Emails training. This bonus — “My 12/4 Most Influential Emails” — includes my 12 most influential emails, as well as 4 emails by other marketers that influenced me the most in my copywriting career.

The example I want to give you is one of these “other” emails. It was written by Ben Settle and it’s been stuck in my head for years.

I asked myself today why this email had such an impact on me.

​​I came up with two things. I won’t spell out what they are, but I will tell you I worked both of them into this email that you’re reading. Plus you can also see them in action in Ben’s email at the link below.

And in case you’re wondering whether it’s really worth your time to click and read another email right now… let me put it this way:

If you could write something today… and have it stick in other people’s minds so strongly that they share it and promote you to their own attentive audience, even years later… do you think that could be valuable to you?

If you say yes, then take a look here:

https://bensettle.com/blog/the-secret-of-the-beer-thief/

A quick and valuable moral about storytelling

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Today I’d like to tell you a fable and before you run away…

​​I want to highlight that this fable can be very valuable and worthwhile to you. At least if you write regular emails or if you tell stories to persuade or sell. So let me jump into it:

A rooster was pecking his way through the manure. Click — his beak hit on something hard. “Why, it’s a diamond,” said the rooster. “Such a precious thing. To somebody else, it might be worth a fortune. But it does me no good. I’d much rather have a grain of barley instead.”

And the moral is:

Impractical, luxury items are foolish. They offer no help when your stomach is empty.

Agreed? Agreed.

Except…

Perhaps the moral is this:

The finest, most valuable things are wasted on those who cannot appreciate them.

Umm… who’s right?

You probably know this already, but a single story can have many morals. So why not use the story many times in many ways?

I’m telling this to you as much as to myself. Because I’ve written over a thousand of these emails to date. Some of them contain great stories that I “spent” to illustrate a specific idea. Silly.

So the moral is:

If you write regular emails or if you have to persuade or sell to earn your barley… then start collecting your stories. Even the ones you’ve told before. You never know how you will be able to use them in the future… to impress a new moral on set of roosters who finally appreciate your value.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another story and another moral. Well, the story might be the same. In any case, if you’d like to hear more from me, sign up to my newsletter here.

What ARGs and QAnon can teach us about marketing

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Two days ago, I sent out an email with a simple engagement device:

I promised to give away a story with a marketing moral, in exchange for people writing in and telling me their zodiac sign. (Virgos came out on top, by the way. And pisces. So few aquarii.)

I got inspired to do this by hearing Dan Kennedy say he’s been making his own engagement devices simpler and simpler with each passing year. “Send us a piece of paper with a big black mark on it… and you win!” (Even so, I had a few birds-of-paradise write me to say, “I don’t do horoscopes. Can I still have the story?”)

This is part of a general trend.

“Reduce friction,” many high-level marketers will tell you. Tell stories that are as widely appealing as possible. Make your writing as simple as possible. Echo your prospect’s values back to him as clearly as possible.

Well, that’s one way to do it.

But I read interesting article today about the exact opposite way. The article was written by Adrian Hon, who is a successful game designer who has influenced the lives of millions of people.

Hon compared his own field, augmented reality games, with the allure of QAnon and the world of conspiracy theories. The conclusions were these:

1. “But there’s always been another kind of entertainment that appeals to different people at different times, one that rewards active discovery, the drawing of connections between clues, the delicious sensation of a hunch that pays off after hours or days of work. Puzzle books, murder mysteries, adventure games, escape rooms, even scientific research – they all aim for the same spot.”

2. “Online communities have long been dismissed as inferior in every way to ‘real’ friendships, an attenuated version that’s better than nothing, but not something that anyone should choose. Yet ARGs and QAnon (and games and fandom and so many other things) demonstrate there’s an immediacy and scale and relevance to online communities that can be more potent and rewarding than a neighbourhood bake sale.”

3. “The same has happened with modern ARGs, where explainer videos have become so compelling they rack up more views than the ARGs have players (not unlike Twitch).”

The point I take away from this is that people will get fanatically involved in things that require work, struggle, and uncertainty. Because it creates a thrill. And it gives them a feeling of agency.

Second, you can now make a world for your prospects that’s more stimulating and more real than any experience they’ve had before.

And third, if you’re a really calculating type, you can have your cake and eat it too. Because if you set out to create an experience for the engaged, rabid core of your audience… the people who play along with your complex and challenging world-building… well, the passive-but-profitable remainder will still follow along.

But why am I spoon-feeding you these ideas?

Perhaps you are the kind of person who gets what I’m talking about.

Maybe want to discover and experience some things yourself.

In that case, here’s the link to Hon’s article. It’s not a recipe for world-building. But is an entry point into Hon’s world. And it might be just the type of thing to help you crack this puzzle one day:

https://mssv.net/2020/08/02/what-args-can-teach-us-about-qanon/

The magic “red clause” — get others to fight on your behalf

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The entire direct response industry emerged out of the sea of patent medicine. And much of what people keep figuring out about persuasion today was first discovered in the late 19th century by men looking to sell more nerve tonics, seaweed cakes, and soothing lung syrups.

What I’m telling you is that it’s worth reading about these patent medicine men, so you don’t have to reinvent their strategies yourself. For instance:

Some time around the turn of the 19th century, a man named Frank J. Cheney stood up, piece of paper in hand, at a meeting of the Proprietary Association of America.

​​The Proprietary Association represented the interests of hardworking snake oil hucksters, quacksalvers, and nostrum men.

Cheney, for example, was the proprietor of Hall’s Catarrh Cure, and would eventually become the president the Association.

That day, Cheney stood up to show off a special advertising contract he had been using. It contained what was later called the “Magic Red Clause.” This helped Cheney fight government interference and win, over and over again.
​
It worked like this:

Like all patent medicine men, Cheney advertised heavily in local newspapers.

So he started putting a clause in his advertising contracts in big red letters. “This contract shall become VOID in case of HOSTILE LEGISLATIVE CHANGE.”

And one time, when a local legislator threatened Cheney with an unfavorable new law, Cheney simply wrote 40 newspapers, his advertising partners.

“Look at that big red clause in our contract,” Cheney wrote. “If this new law passes, I’m afraid our contract will be void and we must stop doing business together.”

Sure enough, by the next week, all 40 newspapers had published articles critical of the new law, and Mr. Legislator had to pack it up, tail between his legs.

My point is straightforward. Have the media in your back pocket and sic them on your enemies whenever you feel threatened.

And if you don’t yet have the media in your back pocket, then spend large amounts on advertising until you do.

My point might be straightforward. But perhaps you find it impractical.

Perhaps you have neither power nor money to get others to fight your battles for you.

The point still stands.

It might not be obvious how it stands. So I’ll tell you another story, equally momentous, in my email tomorrow. And I hope all things will soon be clear, like a bottle of Liquozone.

Wanted: Specialist digital marketers (risque niche)

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Amberly Rothfield ended up homeless at age 18. So she found a job working a phone sex line.

Phone sex paid $15 an hour, three times the minimum wage in Texas at the time.

Still, it didn’t take much math to realize her employers were alienating 95% of her breathy labor into profits for themselves.

But Rothfield is entrepreneurial. She found an online platform that catered to phone sex freelancers.

She set up a profile, and by working on her SEO and thumbnails and specializing as a female dominatrix (“calling guys losers, cuckolding, and blackmail fantasies”), she became the top account on the site.

She was now making between $600 and $900 a day.

But all that was still nothing compared to what was to come.

Because in 2016, OnlyFans launched. It spread like wildfire. Within just a few years, an estimated 10.2 billion women created accounts on the site.

But Rothfield had something better in mind.

She was already a digital sex success. And she realized she could use her experience to help other women get better exposure for their breasts. So she became an OnlyFans marketing consultant.

Result?

Today, Rothfield is booked solid for months in advance, giving advice on topics like positioning, pricing, and sales funnels.

Unsexy? Yes. But she makes about a half million dollars a year.

Take a moment. Let the astronomical significance of that settle in.

Because how many digital marketing consultants are out there? More than the stars in the sky.

And how many of those myriad consultants are booked months in advance and make a half million dollars a year? About as few as the stars you can see above New York City on a typical night.

So what’s the conclusion?

Well, I guess there are many lessons you could draw from the story of Amberly Rothstein.

One possible lesson is the value of specialization.

And if you’ve been itching to find a shortcut to success and specialization seems appealing, then you’ll be glad to know that as I’ve been writing this email, another 100 million OnlyFans accounts have been created, and they all could use some marketing and copywriting help.

Maybe you’re wondering if I’ll also be jumping on this OnlyFans opportunity and creating competition for you.

The answer is no. Not because I have any particular problem with the niche. Or because I am particularly committed to some other niche.

Rather, it’s because the few times I tried consciously specializing during my copywriting career, it all came to naught. And personally, I feel I’ve learned my lesson. If you’re curious about that, then baby, ooooh, we can talk all about that tomorrow… yeah… at just $4.95/minute.

Just kidding. It will be free. But really tomorrow. Sign up here if you don’t want to miss my sexy call.

How to win an argument by not really trying

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About 20 years ago, when I first read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, I came across a clever aphorism.

“You cannot win an argument,” wrote Carnegie.

That’s stuck with me ever since, even though it goes against my argumentative nature. The fact is, I like to debate and argue and show people how I’m right and how they aren’t.

Except, like Carnegie says, you cannot really win. You cannot argue people over to your way of thinking. And even if you do get them to admit that you’re right and they’re wrong, you’ve gained nothing except their hatred.

So most of the time, when I find I’m about to let the debating crow out of its cage, I bite my tongue and I stuff the ugly black bird back where it belongs. I smile. I nod. And I think to myself, “Boy, how wrong you are. But you won’t hear it from me.”

This is an improvement over losing friends and alienating people. But it’s hardly a creative and productive way to deal with new ideas.

There’s gotta be something better, right?

Of course. It’s just that I wasn’t clever enough to think of it myself. But I came across this better way to win arguments in an interview with billionaire investor Howard Marks.

Marks was asked what early advice helped him become so successful. He said there wasn’t any investing advice that did it.

Instead, it was just an attitude, and he’s not sure where he picked it up. He illustrated it by describing how he deals with his longtime business partner:

“Each of us is open to the other’s ideas. When we have an intellectual discussion, neither of us puts a great emphasis on winning. We want to get to the right answer. We have enormous respect for each other, which I think is the key. When he says something, a position different from mine, my first reaction is not, ‘How can I diffuse that? How can I beat that? How can I prove he’s wrong?’ My first reaction is to say, ‘Hey, what can I get from that? What can I take away? Is he right? Maybe he’s right and I was wrong.'”

“Yeah, yeah,” I hear you saying. “Enough with the high-sounding billionaire lessons. Why don’t you get off your preachy pony and give me some ideas for how I could money? Like today?”

Well I never… the ingratitude!

Honestly, this intellectual humility thing was my idea for you to make money. But you are right. It might take some time to bear fruit.

If you want to make money today, then I don’t have much advice to give you. Well, none except what I wrote up a few years ago and put inside my Upwork book.

“Upwork!” you now say. “I’ve tried it! It doesn’t work. It’s a cesspool.”

You may be completely right. I certainly won’t argue with you.

But if you want to see what I have to say about success on Upwork, and what you might be able to take away from it and maybe even make money from, today, then here is my Upwork book, still available for some uncertain time on Amazon:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork

The opportunity of the lucrative lead gen business

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Today I’d like to suggest you are not really in the business you think you are in. Or at least you shouldn’t be. Here’s what I mean:

A few days ago, I flew Turkish Airlines. I was pleased to see they offer free WiFi on board. Well, free in exchange for signing up for their frequent flyer program, Miles&Smiles.

Miles&Smiles. No doubt.

Because I found out today that frequent flyer programs are really the heart of how airlines make money.

For example, Delta’s frequent flyer program is worth $26 billion, according to an estimate last year by the Financial Times. At the time of that estimate, all of Delta as a company was worth $19 billion.

Did you catch that math? Let me break it down, step by step.

Delta is not really in the business of getting you from Tulsa to Truth or Consequences. That part of Delta — planes, stewardesses, Bloody Mary’s — was worth -$7 billion last year. Yes, negative seven billion dollars.

Delta’s real business is doing lead gen for banks. Delta manufactures points. It sells these points to banks. The banks then use the points as incentives to get you to use their credit cards. That business is worth $26 billion.

Of course, Delta is not unique in this. Other large airlines work the same way. And it’s not just airlines either.

AAA and AARP offer low-cost membership programs in exchange for some nice perks and services. But how they really make money is lead gen for other industries. AARP was even started by an insurance company.

You could make the case that magazine and newspaper subscriptions are more of the same.

My point for you — well, I told you my point right at the start. So instead of beating a dead horse to water, let me just announce my new frequent reader loyalty program.

It’s called Insights&More.

Insights&More will offer rare behind-the-scenes footage of me, sitting in a cavernous Airbnb in Istanbul and writing this email.

It will also offer points, which you can trade in for mentorship, coaching, or sales funnel optimizations.

And finally, Insights&More will include free access to our suite of virtual lounges. Eat all the virtual croissants you like, and mingle with other classy and influential people who read these emails regularly.

Applications to become an inaugural member of Insights&More are being accepted now. Simply follow the instructions here and then let our customer service team know why you think you’d be a good candidate.

Oh. One last thing.

If you happen to own a bank or other large institution that profits from the hope and movement of human beings, get in touch. I have a business proposal I’d like to run by you. It could be beneficial for us both.

Announcing… an email training with a new name

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We all make mistakes. I made one yesterday.

That’s when I made an offer for a new training I called Invisible Email Manipulation.

But as I lay in bed last night, bed sheets pulled up to my eyeballs, staring at the ceiling in the dark, I realized…

It was the wrong name.

For one thing, Invisible Email Manipulation is a mouthful.

But more important, Invisible Email Manipulation doesn’t sum up what’s unique about these emails. Or the unique stuff this training will reveal.

Unique? Yes, unique. But not necessarily new. As somebody smart figured out approximately 25 centuries ago… there’s nothing necessarily new under the sun.

These emails I write are not sales copy. At least not in the way that sales copy looks when it goes to a cold, skeptical audience.

At the same time, these emails are not plain content either. Even when I don’t sell.

Instead, these emails are an alloy of DR ideas and content — along with a few of my own subtle ingredients. It’s a mixture that gets results that neither of sales copy nor content could get alone.

And as I realized last night, and as you might know already, there’s a name for this style of writing. The name comes from Dan Kennedy, who brought to light and identified so much in this industry.

Dan calls it “influential writing.” As distinct from “copywriting.” And that distinction informed my new name for this training:

Influential Emails.

The ultimate goal of Influential Emails is to get you writing influential emails for yourself… or your brand… or your clients.

Because if you do, good stuff happens. Such as the following:

1. You influence your prospects, and you get them to open up their minds to new ideas you want them to believe.

2. You create positioning and authority and even traffic by words alone. Even if you got no status to start… or no markers of expertise… or no bright feather boa to draw attention to yourself.

3. You sell stuff, while sidestepping the stubborn reactance more and more of us feel when we notice a smiling persuader reaching his hands into our personal space.

Maybe you don’t believe me influential emails can do all this. Or maybe you just don’t believe that Influential Emails can do all this for you.

I’ll try to change your mind in the coming days with a few more emails. The offer to join Influential Emails will be open until next Sunday.

In the meantime, you can find the sales page below. It’s still very minimal. Like the initial release of Google Chrome… it will magically upgrade itself to full functionality throughout the next week.

But if you want to check it out… or you want more details on what’s included in the offer behind Influential Emails… or if you’re even ready to sign up now… then try this link:

https://influentialemails.com/

People don’t know what anything is worth

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Imagine you’re starting a new business as a cat and dog photographer. So as the first step, you head to Amazon to check prices on DSLR cameras.

Hm. That Canon EOS Rebel you’ve been eyeing is priced very reasonably.

In fact, the price on Amazon is cheaper than at the specialized photography equipment website… and at your local brick-and-mortar photography store… and even at Walmart.

But here’s the trick.

I didn’t know about it until today — maybe it won’t be news to you — but of course Amazon gets its own back.

According to an analysis by Boomerang Commerce, Amazon dynamically reduces prices of its most popular items to make you think you’re getting a good deal.

That’s why something like a popular DSLR camera is cheap on Amazon.

But at the same time, Amazon dynamically jacks up the prices of less popular items — cables, lenses, carrying cases — that you are likely to buy with your main purchase.

End result?

You feel you’re getting a deal. Meanwhile, Amazon sits there quietly, with that trademark smirk on its face.

“Meh,” you say. “That’s nothing special. Businesses have a right to manipulate their prices however they want to maximize profits.”

I don’t dispute that.

My point is simply — well, actually, it’s not my point. It’s the point from the people at The Atlantic. They made the video I watched today, which clued me into this Amazon pricing stuff. And the video summed it up like this:

“People used to think the Internet would usher in this new age of transparency for pricing. But really it’s just given retailers new ways to manipulate the same old fundamental bias: People don’t know what anything is worth.”

Marketer Rich Schefren likes to say that marketing is getting people to value your offer.

I used to think that means sharing enough information for your prospect to see what your offer is truly worth.

But people don’t know what anything is worth. No amount of information will help them see the “true” value of your offer.

When you understand this, then Rich’s koan takes on a whole new level of urgency and meaning.

Suddenly, positioning becomes the most important decision you can make.

Because if you can put yourself into a marketplace of one… and given that people don’t know what anything is really worth… well, then you can manipulate the prices of your own offers how you like. And you don’t even have to be sneaky like Amazon about it.

So how do you get yourself into that magical marketplace of one? That’s something I write about on occasion in my email newsletter. If you’d like to read what I write about it the next time, sign up for my newsletter here.