Copywriting

Do you have a new plan for copywriters to get clients?

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Do you have a new plan for copywriters to get clients?

If so, I’d like to promote you.

One thing that always gets a good response from my list is a new plan for copywriters to get clients. A few examples:

* Using AI-generated advertorials to get ecom clients (the 1 Person Advertorial Agency, which I promoted back in January)

* Using direct mail to get and deliver on revshare deals (Doberman Dan’s offer, which I talked about last month)

* Using Instagram outreach to get email copywriting clients (copywriter Logan Hobson once gave a presentation on this for members of my Daily Email House community)

* Going into a secret cave that nobody knows about and coming out with a legit DR job, up to and including a copy chief position (more on this soon)

So lemme ask you…

Do you already have an offer about an exciting new plan for copywriters to get clients?

If so, I’d like to promote it.

Do you not have such an offer, but you have a cool way of getting clients that’s working well for you?

If so, I can help you turn what you know into an offer, and make that sweet “zero delivery” money, and become a bizopp guru (ok, we can skip the last part if you really hate the idea).

Do you neither have an offer nor a new plan, but you know somebody who does?

If so, I’m happy to pay you a finder’s fee for putting me in touch with that person.

In any of these cases, hit reply, and let’s talk. Thanks in advance.

 

10 personal stories I’ve told in my emails

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A few days ago, I was on a Zoom call with a business owner who reads these emails. He said how he likes reading my newsletter because I lead such an interesting life — “all these podcasts, all these amazing books, all these movies, dates, and traveling and all that. Like, wow.”

That surprised me. I can tell you the inside view of my life. It does not appear very interesting.

In fact, maybe you’ve noticed I almost never write emails that share genuine personal stories any more. (The exception is small status-building snippets, like the one at the start of this email.)

There are two reasons why I almost never write personal story emails any more:

1. I just don’t think I lead a very interesting life, and I don’t want to subject you to trivial anecdotes, pumped up to seem like they are something fun. (Seinfeld did it way better than I ever will.)

2. I have been writing this newsletter for 8 years, and I feel I’ve told every interesting story I ever had. In other words, I’m bored by my own stories, and so I’m projecting that you will be bored by them too.

This, of course, is one of the classic blunders, which can cost you millions of dollars if you do your own marketing.

The fact is, most business owners get bored of their own marketing way sooner than their market gets bored.

It helps that the market isn’t ever fully paying attention, and that it’s also a “moving parade”:

New people are constantly coming in. Old people are walking out. The upshot is that the stories (and marketing) that you’ve used a thousand times before are still fresh and interesting to a thousand people in your market.

So let me take my own advice, and share with you some personal stories I’ve already shared in this newsletter. Here’s a menu. Maybe you will find one or two items intriguing enough to click through and read:

1. ​The time a car fell in front of me out of the sky​

2. ​The time I had an honest-to-goodness religious epiphany on a bridge​

3. ​The origin story of how I became a writer, going back to kindergarten​

4. ​The time I almost approached the woman who was most probably “The ONE” but fortunately didn’t​

5. ​The time I had an epiphany at a gym that wasn’t religious but was more insightful and long-lasting than just about anything else in my life​

6. ​The time the “license plate game” made me think that manifestation is real, and that I can do it​

7. ​The time I spent 45 minutes waiting outside my own apartment building because I forgot my keys at home and even though I had an extra set hidden somewhere in the building, I was too shy or something to ring my next-door neighbor and ask to be let in ​

8. ​The time a reader unsubscribed and wrote that I’m “simply too dumb to be helped”​

9. ​The time I gave my girlfriend-at-the-time a nice gold necklace for our anniversary, and she started crying, and not out of happiness​

10. ​The time I attacked a wall with a butter knife, severed two tendons in my right hand, and spent three months in recovery, which was only partial​

So there you go. 10 personal stories, all true, and maybe even interesting enough to be worth retelling.

But maybe you’ve been a reader of my newsletter for a while? And maybe you remember me telling some other personal story? If so, write in and let me know. I’ve almost certainly forgotten the story you remember (I struggled to come up with the list of 10 above). I’ll appreciate you reminding me.

[Psych Psundays] Metaphors for the brain

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Another week, another issue of my new Psych Psundays series. A few responses I got to last week’s issue:

#1. “Pswell pstuff, John!”

#2. “This felt very personal…”

#3. “Hi John, the Psych Psunday series is fantastic. I had already read about Daniel Kinahan and his father because I’m a big fan of investigative journalism and books written by former police officers, journalists, and prosecutors who fight these criminals. I agree with everything you wrote.”

That’s encouragement enough for me. So let’s mush on.

This morning I listened to an interview with Jason Stacy, who is the performance coach of Aryna Sabalenka, the current no. 1 female tennis player in the world.

Stacy took some audience questions. One woman, very blonde and with very white teeth, asked:

“My question is, when your body is tired, but your goal is bigger than your comfort, what is the mental switch that elite athletes use to keep going?”

What caught my attention is the use of the word “switch.” It’s such an innocent-sounding word, but it exposes the prevalent metaphor we use to think about the brain, which I claim is neither useful nor pleasant.

That unpleasant and unuseful metaphor is that the brain is a machine, or more specifically a computer, or more specifically still, a buggy computer.

I don’t know exactly where this metaphor comes from.

A bit of research today told me that people have been comparing the brain to the new technology of the time for centuries.

In the age of mechanical automatons, Descartes wrote that the brain is like a hydraulic machine.

In the age of electricity, the brain was compared to a telegraph relay.

In the age of computers, John Von Neumann wrote The Computer And The Brain, about the similarities and the differences between brains and computers.

Now, in the age of big data, brains have been metaphorically reduced to “prediction machines.”

The problem is, at the same time, we’ve had people like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky doing research on just how good humans are as prediction machines.

The result of Kahneman and Tversky’s research is prospect theory, which says that predictions or statistical evaluations done by human brains are consistently and predictably wrong.

In this view, human brains are prediction machines that aren’t all that good, or like I said earlier, they are buggy computers.

It’s not a not a very pleasant way to look at yourself.

What about useful?

Jason Stacy, Aryna Sabalenka’s performance coach, answered the very blonde, very white-toothed woman’s question about the one mental switch of elite athletes with a chuckle and a shrug. He said, “There’s a problem in the world these days where everyone is waiting to feel good to do something versus doing something to feel good.”

Stacy’s advice was to take action, consistently, even if it’s the smallest, most miserable bit of action at the start.

In other words, here’s a performance coach, in an actual measurable and competitive field, coaching at the very highest level, telling you that the “mental switch” ain’t really there to be flipped, and that what you really need to do is to grow and adapt over time.

For the purposes of this email, that’s all the proof I need to tell you that computer metaphor of the brain is not only not pleasant, but it’s also not useful.

But we all crave understanding and we crave simplicity. If the brain is not a computer, even a buggy computer, then what is it? Or at least, how can we think about it in a pleasant and even useful way?

For that, I would like to point you to a book I read last year.

This book doesn’t explicitly spell out a metaphor for the brain, but it makes the case, through various fascinating case studies, that the brain is — shockingly — not a machine but a living thing, an organ or perhaps an organism, like a tree or a climbing vine.

There are no switches to be flipped inside.

But over time, the brain grows and adapts to its environment, in alignment with its goals and the constraints put on it. Also, unlike a machine, which comes pretty much finalized out of the factory, the brain is capable of growing and adapting throughout its life.

Maybe I’m not selling the book well or this metaphor of “the brain as a climbing vine.” I won’t try to sell either any better right now.

All I will tell you is this book is one of the most influential books I’ve read over the past few years because it’s 1) fun, 2) inspiring, and 3) practical. And the idea of the brain as being a living and adaptable thing, rather than a buggy computer, is much more pleasant and more useful to me personally.

If you’re interested in psychology and neurology, and if you want some practical and inspiring takeaways, I highly recommend this:

https://bejakovic.com/doidge

Glossary of 1-1 follow up

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The past few days, I’ve been telling you about Nick Bandy’s system for reactivating leads and deals that have gone silent, called Ghostbuster Sequence.

If you open up Ghostbuster Sequence, you might find yourself confused by the unfamiliar follow-up jargon. I don’t want you to be confused. I really don’t. So let me give you a glossary that defines some of the terms you’ll see inside:

Stage 1: Conversations that have been dead for 2 weeks or more. For conversations like this, send Nick’s “Stage 1” message and proceed to Stage 2.

Stage 2: Conversations that have been dead for less than 2 weeks. In Princess Bride terms, these are “mostly dead” conversations. There’s a big difference between “mostly dead” and “all dead.”

Meme Warfare: A strategic graphical assault on your dead (or mostly dead) prospect, designed to get them to crack a smile and make it easy for them to reply.

The “Jim Camp Nuclear Option”: A 7-word message to send prospects after multiple previous followups have failed to produce a response. (Nick attributes this message to marketer Travis Sago. I happen to know it goes back to negotiation coach Jim Camp.) Says Nick, “It works TOO well.”

The “Negative Reply Pivot”: A message to send high-value prospects who explicitly tell you “NO.”

Educated assumptions: Statements to send your dead (or mostly dead) prospects that break the pattern of constant follow-up questions.

“Mr. America” technique: Nick doesn’t call it this inside his Ghostbuster Sequence. Instead, he calls it “Stage 7.”

I think my name is distinctly better. It comes from the following story from the book Mr. America, about health publisher Bernarr MacFadden:

“With his marriage to Mary officially over, Macfadden had captured headlines by taking a new bride. Johnnie Lee McKinney was a forty-four-year-old health lecturer and former interior designer when she met the seventy-nine-year-old publisher — a sturdy, vivacious blond Texas beauty molded in Macfadden’s preferred silhouette. Theirs was a whirlwind courtship. He attended one of her talks in Manhattan, then hounded her into a lunch date at the New York Athletic Club. After a wholesome meal, the two proceeded to Johnnie Lee’s apartment, where the vigorously amorous Macfadden demonstrated his usual distaste for small talk by unzipping his trousers to reveal what Johnnie Lee called ‘the most exquisite sex organ I had ever seen on a man.’ Johnnie Lee declined her date’s unspoken offer — as well as his shouted proposal to marry her immediately—” though she did end up marrying MacFadden and his exquisite sex organ within the month.

Maybe you find that story crude. Don’t worry. Nick’s take on this technique is anything but crude. In fact, Nick’s use of this technique is professional and yet effective, and can work not just at the start of a courtship, but after everything else has failed to produce a response.

Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence goes up in price from $54 to $97 at 8pm EST tonight. If you’d like to get it before then:

https://bejakovic.com/ghostbuster

P.S. If you do get it before the deadline, forward me your receipt. I will personally send you a bonus of equal real-world value, My Secret of the Magi. It sells for $54 on my site right now, and tells you the biggest secret I’ve learned about opening up (not following up on) conversations that lead to business partnerships.

Doubles your clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates

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Today I’d like to tell you about a special deal on a plug-and-play mechanism that doubles your clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates.

To be honest, this plug-and-play mechanism is very likely to more than double your clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates.

But I didn’t want to scare you or get you suspicious by making outrageous promises right out the gate, like saying that this plug-and-play mechanism triples, quadruples, or quintuples your clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates.

Would you like to know what I’m talking about?

F.U.

I mean, Follow-Up.

(What did you think I meant?)

The fact is, if you have any kind of a way right now to start conversations with possible clients, or affiliate partners, or list swap deals, or dates, then I am certain you have had prospects and leads who have dropped off somewhere along the way.

That is normal.

What is not normal, or is at least a little bit odd, is that email marketers and email copywriters who will happily lecture you on the importance of emailing daily, of regular followup, when done behind the cover of a broadcast email software, are repelled and horrified by the idea of sending a direct 1-1 message to reengage a prospect who has dropped off or has failed to respond.

The fact is, business owners are busy. Business owners are forgetful. Business owners are lazy (yes, it’s absolutely true).

If a business owner you’ve been talking doesn’t reply to you, odds are excellent it has nothing to do with you or your proposal or offer. Odds are also excellent that they will eventually reengage if you keep following up with them, and they might even be grateful to you.

And yet, people don’t follow up.

I mean, will you run off right after you read this email and follow up with all the disappeared clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates you’ve talked to over the past 6 months or a year, before the conversation went cold?

I’m guessing not. Why is that?

I have my own theory. If you like, I’ll share it in a subsequent email.

But not today. Today I have for you the best deal in the history of 1-1 followup deals, which will soon disappear.

I’m talking about Nick Bandy’s Ghostbuster Sequence.

Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence is a set of 6 simple, plug-and-play templates to follow up with lapsed, forgetful, or disappeared prospects for clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates.

These templates are proven (check out the sales page below). More than that, they also provide a certain psychological buffer to the intimidating act of 1-1 followup. Here’s what I mean:

1. Simply send what Nick gives you inside Ghostbuster Sequence.

2. If it doesn’t work, put all the blame on Nick and his templates.

3. If it does work, tap yourself on the back for a job well done, and take all the credit.

4. Whether it works or not, move on to the next lapsed prospect, and repeat the process.

Do this and I guarantee you, you will be a richer man or woman for it, and very soon.

Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence currently sells for $54, which is close to criminally underpriced.

On Thursday, the price will go up to a slightly more reasonable $97.

That’s what I meant when I said this great offer is disappearing. And to give you a little bit of a gentle extra kick before it does disappear, I’ll throw in a bonus of equivalent real-world value.

If you get Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence before this Thursday at 10pm EST, when the price will almost double, then I will also add in my Secret of the Magi, which tells you just one thing:

The biggest lesson I’ve personally learned about opening up conversations that can lead to business partnerships (and possibly dates).

(I learned this lesson through extensive cold emailing of business owners a couple years ago. Read all about it in the Secret of the Magi.)

With the Secret of the Magi, you can open a steady stream of conversations to either profit from directly, or to feed into Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence in case the conversation goes cold.

Secret of the Magi currently sells on my site right now for $54, the same price as Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence, at least before the price of Ghostbuster Sequence almost doubles.

But why pay more?

If you want a plug-and-play mechanism that doubles your clients, affiliate partners, list swap deals, and possibly dates, meaning Ghostbuster Sequence… and a way of opening such conversations to start with, meaning Secret of the Magi… here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/ghostbuster

P.S. Forward me your receipt from Nick and I will get you access to Secret of the Magi. I don’t have a better way to handle this right now.

Unstable copywriting clients

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“Hi Rob, Here’s the invoice for May. Take a look and see if everything looks kosher on your end. Thanks, John”

I sent that email out in June 2021.

I had been working with a dropshipping syndicate. When I say “syndicate,” I mean it was a few young American guys, living in Thailand, who had decided to band together to do dropshipping on an industrial scale.

They were running a dozen funnels for a dozen products, bringing in at the high point 2,000 new buyers per day, and I’m guessing making millions for themselves per year.

Starting in 2019, these guys had hired me to write copy for all the front-end stuff for all their funnels — ads, video scripts, advertorials, landing pages.

For the previous year or so, since early 2020, I was also writing daily emails to their list of about 200,000 buyers, on comission only.

The front-end copy paid me a paltry $150/hr. The back-end emails, after I finally convinced the guys to let me write them for free, on comission only, paid me much much more, the most money I’ve ever gottne paid as a freelance copywriter, money that’s stil sitting in my bank today.

“Hey Rob, Following up on this, not sure you saw it. I checked my account just now and didn’t see this invoice paid. Thanks”

That was a bit later in June 2021. Rob never replied to me. He also never paid my invoice.

I did in the end manage to get paid one last time, by writing to one of his partners, who informed me that the business was shutting down. I never found out why.

I did hear from Rob years later. He wasn’t doing dropshipping any more. He now had a new low-footprint business, buying and flipping land. He wanted to know if I was interested in writing copy for him again. I wasn’t. Also, I checked just now. That new business has also shut down in the meantime.

Here’s my point:

If somebody has no employees, no office, no expensive and custom equipment, no contracts to fulfill, and in general no obligations, what’s keeping them going if things ever get bad, sad, or even just boring? The answer is, nothing.

That’s why it’s a better long-term bet to sell to, say, dentists, who are tethered by a million hooks to their businesses, than to, say, dropshippers, who can decide from today to tomorrow to close their laptops and go work as a land flipper or to maybe roast coffee for a living.

Of course, it’s nice to make a quick cash grab by working where the money is churning right now. (It’s what I was able to do with the dropshipping guys while it still lasted.)

But isn’t it nicer to have a long-running cash grab, one that doesn’t just last for a few months or a year, but one that lasts for three years… five years… 15 years?

I’m telling you this because I’m now promoting an offer by Doberman Dan Gallapoo. I wrote about the full details yesterday. In a nutshell:

Dan is putting together a small group of copywriters and helping them profit from the confusion, uncertainty, and chaos in the market right now.

Dan’s system involves working with profitable businesses, which have been around for years and have large customer database, employees, and often, physical stores.

You can call these “Lindy” clients, as in “Lindy Effect,” which says that things that have been around for a while are likely to stick around.

Dan’s method of finding such clients, and delivering sales for them, is equally Lindy:

Direct mail.

I won’t try to sell you on direct mail or Dan’s system in this email.

Instead, I suggested to Dan that we create a free pop-up group to share more info about this opportunity.

The idea being, this free pop-up group would be a place for a few good folks to get to know Dan… to find out more about how he gets clients and delivers results with direct mail… and see if it’s something they would want to take on with Dan’s guidance, mentorship, and help.

Dan agreed with me. So we are creating this free pop-up group.

Would you like to join us?

RSVP

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I have an invitation for you. Here’s what’s happening:

I’ve been talking to Doberman Dan Gallapoo.

As you might know, Dan is a legit A-list copywriter. As in, he’s been hired by clients like Agora not just to write for them… but to start entire new divisions for them.

Once upon a time, Dan actually roomed with Gary Halbert. He’s one of the five or so people in the entire world that Dan Kennedy will pick up a phone call from, any time.

Since 2011, Dan has been writing and publishing a paid print newsletter about marketing, The Doberman Dan Letter. It’s read by the “who’s who” of the DR space.

Dan runs his own direct response businesses, and he still works with clients and partners with other business owners on revshare deals.

He gets these deals whenever he wants, by doing something no other copywriters today are doing, at least none that I know.

Every economic crisis or so, Dan puts together a small group of copywriters and helps them profit from the confusion, uncertainty, and chaos in the market.

The last time Dan did this was during Covid.

With the Iran war leaking out globally, and the AI bubble getting ever larger and ever more taut, right now is a time of proper uncertainty and stress.

Sure enough, Dan is putting together his group again.

He asked if I would help him promote it. I said yes.

If you’re a copywriter, here’s what is basically on offer here:

* Security in an uncertain time

(Dan’s system involves working with profitable businesses, which have been around for years and have large customer database, employees, and often, physical stores. This is not about trying to write emails for some fly-by-night dropshipper who will be here today and gone tomorrow, while you wait to get paid for the work you did last month.)

* Income that’s not capped or tied to your time

* The “one-eyed man” advantage in the land of the blind

* A ready pool of prospective clients, and a unique mechanism to get the attention of those clients and turn them into gigs fast

* A unique mechanism to make money for those clients in a straightforward way, which doesn’t require daily emailing or writing millions of new ad creatives each week

As for those two secret mechanisms, one to get clients, and the other to make money for those clients… they are actually the same:

Direct mail.

Yes, Dan uses direct mail both to get clients, and to deliver for those clients.

The fact is, direct mail never went away. It’s even growing, with smart online-first DTC brands and high-ticket coaching businesses rediscovering direct mail and bumbling their way through it.

You can do the same. Or you can profit from the experience of a master who’s been doing it for decades, at the highest level, and who makes his living by doing exactly what he is offering to personally help others do.

This opportunity is big and new and probably unfamiliar to you.

I have zero hope of trying to sell it to you in this email.

Like I said, I’ve been talking to Dan.

I suggested we create a free pop-up group to share more info about this opportunity.

The idea being, this free pop-up group would be a place for a few good folks to get to know Dan… to find out more about how he gets clients and delivers results with direct mail… and see if it’s something they would want to take on with Dan’s guidance, mentorship, and help.

Dan agreed with me. So we are creating this free pop-up group.

Would you like to join us?

Who else wants to finally put an end to their prospects’ behavioral problems for good?

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… including leaving your sales page without buying… not reading your copy carefully… not taking you up on your upsells… demanding refunds… and more?

Today I started working with a business owner who has a sizable email list and a cold traffic funnel that’s driving buyers to his list.

Our deal is that I’ll help him monetize his email list better.

As a first step, he asked me for some ideas on how to improve the sales page for his cold traffic funnel.

Why not? After all, the more people we get on his email list, the better it will be for everyone long term. (I’m getting paid partly up front, partly a share of increased sales we get from emails.)

The sales page is doing well, a 3.6% conversion rate. It features the proven old headline formula:

“Get [the good] without [your main objection]”

How to improve on this?

Here’s one idea:

Earlier today, I watched a video by a very successful but very underground marketer. He shared a quick case study.

Once upon a time, he had dog training info biz — various offers to help owners teach their dogs to obey, to be house trained, even to do fancy tricks.

It didn’t work. 1 person in 666 actually bought.

This marketer put a popup survey on his sales page, asking people why they are leaving without buying. People replied:

“My dog is aggressive towards other dogs…”

“My dog chews up our furniture…”

“My dog pulls on the leash…”

“My dog nips at stranger’s heels, AND IT DOESN’T SEEM THIS IS WHAT I NEED.”

The marketer says:

===

Of course all these problems were covered in our book and in our videos. We just doubled down on it, made sure that they were extra covered, extra well… added those to the sales copy… and made the headline something like:

‘Who else wants to finally put an end to their dog’s behavioral problems for good… including digging, barking, chewing, aggression, pulling on the lead, and more?’

All of a sudden it went from 1 in 666 people buying, to 1 in 90 were buying. And then eventually, with a bit more tweaking, we got it to 1 in 60 buying, and then on some search phrases as many as 1 in 10 were buying.

===

You’re probably not selling dog training info. Also, it sounds like this was search traffic, whether organic or paid, and that might be different from other kinds of audiences.

Still.

1 in 666 buying… to 1 in 60 buying. That’s like an 11x improvement in sales. By talking first and foremost about the present pain rather than about future gain. It’s worth a test.

That’s my public service announcement for you. I have nothing really to promote to you today.

So let me remind you of my Copy Riddles program.

The first two rounds of that program deal with this most fundamental topic, of promises, warnings, pain, and gain… and how to use that to keep prospects from ignoring you, leaving you, and not buying.

If you’d like to find out more about Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time

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Today I’d like to recommend a book to you, not just to buy and hoard, but to actually read and apply.

A bit of background:

I myself have a book, my charmingly titled “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, etc.”

I regularly go on Amazon to check on that book — how it’s selling, if there are any nasty new reviews, if it’s maybe reached bestseller status.

As I’ve been doing this, over the course of weeks, months, years, and decades, I’ve been seeing a curious book pop up in the in the “Customers Also Bought” section. The full title of that book I’ve kept seeing:

“The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time: A Fable About Persuasion”

As I tend to do, I went snooping. I found the guy who wrote the book. Turns out he’s got an email list and he writes interesting daily emails about, well waddya know, persuasion.

After a few months of lurking on this guy’s email list, I actually replied to one of his emails. We started chatting. We got on a Zoom call and talked. We got chummy.

Somewhere along the line, Neil, for that is the name of the dude behind the Most Powerful Sentence Of All Time, picked up and read my 10 Commandments book.

I decided to pick up and read his book as well.

And that, dear reader, is the short version of how I got to where I am right now, sitting on my couch, wearing my Garfield pajamas, writing you to recommend Neil’s Most Powerful Sentence Of All Time.

I’m recommending it to you for one very simple reason:

Neil’s book is a recipe book for what copywriters call the “Big Idea.”

In copywriting land, where I used to live for many years, everybody will tell you about the importance of the Big Idea.

The trouble is, nobody can tell you what the Big Idea really is, or how to get one.

There’s a lot of handwaving.

Occasionally, there are some criteria thrown out, like “interesting,” “easy to understand,” “convincing,” “useful,” none of which is particularly easy or useful.

Sometimes, people (myself included) just give up altogether and tell you to come up with 100 ideas, and to throw them to the lions’ den of your market. If any of the ideas survives, why, it must be the Big Idea.

In short, nobody really has a recipe, a process for coming up with a Big Idea, or for shaping and polishing some kind of a promising but rough hunch into a clear and precise sentence that is immediately interesting, easy to understand, useful, convincing etc.

Well, nobody except Neil. And he gives it to you in his book.

Btw, Neil’s book is written as a parable.

Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of parable with talking bears or rabbits. This parable features people.

But it is written as fiction. And because of that, it’s likely to suck you in and make reading about this important topic both enjoyable and memorable.

Let me wrap this up.

French chateau owner and Madison Avenue copywriter David Ogilvy once wrote:

“Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.”

If you don’t want almost all your future campaigns to pass like a ship in the night, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mostpowerfulsentence

Ancient A-list secrets to coming up with new hooks for old offers

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In my Daily Email House community, I have a thread titled, “What can you teach?” It’s a thread inviting people to share their bit of expertise, which we could turn into a training for the community or possibly even into a product.

A few days ago, a new member chimed in to say what he could teach:

===

I can teach anyone to write stories that sell in less than 30 mins even if they’ve never written a story in their life before.

I did live workshops a few years before and taught this method to 35 people and they ALL wrote stories in less than 30 mins. Some even got clients.

I’d love to know what everyone thinks about such an offer and I’d really appreciate if you could offer some pointers.

===

Here’s my pointer:

“Write stories that sell” is a promise that has been made a million and one times over the past few years, by a million and one people, myself among them.

That’s not to say that writing stories that sell is not a valuable skill.

But in order to sell it, at least to an audience that isn’t already in love with you, you’ll need to adapt it in some way so it sounds new.

In other words, if you’re selling some evergreen and familiar hammer, you need a new hook, a new way to package it up, a new way to make it sound different from the things people have already become deaf to.

How do you do that? Well lemme give you an example:

I have this course, Copy Riddles.

I have sold hundreds of copies of Copy Riddles in the past. But over the last couple years, I haven’t been promoting it too much.

There are different reasons for that:

Copy riddles is expensive ($999)… it’s evergreen (like I said, a bad thing for sales)… and on top of all that, I’ve lost interest in teaching copywriting stuff to would-be copywriters, and have moved to things like email marketing and offers to people who have stuff to sell.

BUT—

Copy Riddles remains filled with ancient wisdom from A-list copywriters.

This ancient wisdom includes dozens of secret techniques to repackaging existing, old-hat info, which gets ignored, inside shiny and sexy new giftboxes, which sell.

The reason why these secret techniques were developed is that copywriters typically have no control of the offer they are promoting (eg. they cannot control the stuff inside the giftbox).

That’s why these A-listers were forced to simply work with words and hooks, and to really do some persuasive wizardry (eg. to come up with more and more elaborate wrapping paper and decorative bows, in order to make the repackaged info appear irresistible).

And now, if you have an offer, or if you want to create an offer, you can benefit from the A-list copywriters’ wisdom, without being hampered by their copywriting limitations.

You can use these ancient A-list secrets to come up with incredible and yet irresistible new hooks for your existing (or planned) offer.

If necessary, you also have the leeway to actually adapt your offer, so it matches and pays off whatever exciting new hook the A-list secrets produced for you.

And the best part?

Since your aren’t just doing this as a copywriter working for a client, but as an offer owner who’s selling his or her own offer… YOU get to collect all the profit and reap all the benefit of repositioning your offer into something that the market wants right now.

When you think of it like that, then maybe the $997 investment in Copy Riddles doesn’t seem so impossibly high.

In any case, if you’re interested in finding out more about these ancient A-list secrets, and how you get get them, not just to hold in your arms, but to imprint in your brain and to have at your fingertips when you next need them, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/