Business Of Copy

A lesson for con men, car salesmen, and possibly, client-hungry solopreneurs

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A while back, I was listening to a fun episode of the James Altucher podcast.

James was interviewing the world’s most successful gambler, Billy Walters, who has won hundreds of millions of dollars by betting on sports. For the past 36 years straight, Walters has had a winning gambling record.

There’s apparently glamour associated with sports betting, which I wasn’t aware of. As a result, much of Walters’s story focuses on that.

But what I found curious is that, even before Walters became a successful betting pro, he was an unsuccessful betting amateur. He used to bet and lose millions of dollars of his own money, which he earned as a first-rate car salesman.

How do you make millions of dollars selling cars, back in the 1970s, in Kentucky?

Walters managed it because, as he said, “I did things that most people weren’t doing in those days.”

“Like what?” James Altucher immediately asked.

Walters obliged:

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Well, every customer I sold a car to had a criss-cross directory. I got the identification of all of their neighbors. I would contact them either directly or I would send them a postcard and introduce myself and point out to them that I’d sold Mr. Smith his car, and who I was, and we were running a sale, and I would encourage them to come down.

Every customer I sold a car to, I turned into a referral source. I paid them a referral fee, a substantial referral fee.

I stayed in touch with them. I created personal relationships with them.

I would go to the local newspaper each day. People would have their cars, and they’re listed. ‘For sale, take over the payments.’ Well, they weren’t going to start walking. They wanted to sell their car because they could no longer afford it. So I would bring them in, sell them a less expensive car, take their car in trade and then reduce their payments.

When there was nothing else going on, I would just pick up the phone and start calling people with the same prefix as the area of Louisville I was working in. I would just cold call people.

​​And sometimes they’d slam the phone on me, but sometimes they’d get into an easy conversation. I would introduce myself, tell them that we’re running this sale, tell them where we are located, and as a result, I sold a lot of cars and made a lot of money.

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This brought to mind something I read in The Big Con, all about the world of con artists back in 1930s and 40s.

A top roper — a con man who had to go out into the world and bring in the marks — was asked what it takes to be a first-rate con man. He replied:

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I couldn’t say what you must have to be a good roper, but I can tell you some of the traits you better not have. Never permit yourself to be bored. If you gander around you will always find some mark you can trim. But some heel-grifters think it is smartly sophisticated to appear languid or condescendingly wise. That is really stupid. Tie into any mark. He may have it in the jug.

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I’m sure you don’t want to be a con man. And you probably don’t want to be a car salesman.

But you might be a copywriter, or designer, or coach, or you have another business that depends on a steady flow of client leads.

Cold calling works, as a last resort.

But Billy Walters above gave you four other great recommendations to keep you from being bored, long before you have to resort to cold calling.

And the bigger point is:

The trick to winning this game, that game, and pretty much every game, is to stay busy. Not to put on a stupid air of appearing languid or condescendingly wise.

​​And if you’re staying busy, you might as well do things that are known to work.

Maybe you’ve heard that having your own email newsletter works wonders for business.

​​Maybe you’ve even heard that doing it daily is better than doing it weekly or monthly.

But did you know that daily emailing can also keep you from being and looking bored, ever again?

In case you don’t have a regular email newsletter, or you’re not writing daily, and and you want a simple system for how to write effective emails, keeping you busy day in and day out, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

10 pieces of Bejako advice to a newbie copywriter

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A new subscriber to my list wrote in today to ask:

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how would you approach copywriting & marketing if you had to start from scratch. or if, let’s just say your brother (if you have one) asked you he wants to learn copywriting and marketing. what would you tell him? what would you tell him in terms of getting clients (it seems this is a whole phd education on itself)?

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That’s not unlike asking how I would approach a career in computer programming if I had to start from scratch.

​​But even though I have literally hundreds of posts on my website that are relevant to answering this question, I decided to entertain this reader and so create a single resource to point people to in the future.

So here are 10 pieces of Bejako wisdom for newbie copywriters:

1. The 5-year rule: It will take months and more likely years to get consistently good and make good money from copywriting. Unless this is a job that you imagine you will be okay doing every day for at least the next five years, then don’t get started at all.

​(​By the way, this bit of advice isn’t unique to copywriting — I apply it to every complex project or undertaking I’m considering.)

2. There’s no “one thing.” Copywriting and marketing are really a collection of different principles and techniques you have to understand and master to some extent, preferably to a high extent.

3. Books: The best way to learn if you have dedication (see point 1 above).

4. Ads and working funnels. The best marketing is out there for free. Look at it critically. Try to deconstruct it consciously, and write down what you see. Patterns will soon start to emerge that you won’t see if you simply look at advertising like a consumer, or worse, if you dismiss it by saying, “I could do this” or “I’ve seen this described in a book.”

5. Get real practice, as soon as you can, preferably today. “Real practice” does not mean hand copying sales letters or writing mock ads for made-up products. You have three options. Get a job, get a client, or start your own project. No need to restrict yourself to just one of these options, by the way.

6. Start an email list today even if no one is reading it but you. Write about what you’re learning and apply it within your emails.

7. You will have to pay one way or the other. In one case, you will have to pay in time and money (the freelance route, which means buying your education in drips and drops via courses or coaching or ongoing mistakes that nobody corrects for you for too long).

In the other case, you will have to pay in freedom that you’ve sacrificed and in having your productivity arrogated by an employer (the route of getting a job, and working for somebody who knows what they are doing and can teach you and correct your errors).

8. The golden ticket is not to be a copywriter but a marketer who either 1) guides client businesses to make more money and gets paid accordingly, or 2) eventually takes his skills and runs his own business.

​​That said, copywriting is a kind of Trojan horse that can help you do either of those more easily. If you have this understanding at the start and if you take it seriously, it will make your path easier and more lucrative.

9. If after everything you have read so far you still want to become a copywriter (or better yet a marketer), then the sooner you get started, the better.

​​This is not a field in which you have to study for years before you can have the authority to actually do any work — though it might take you years to figure out the various elements (point 2 above) and have them click in your head.

10. Read my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters book if you haven’t yet, and consider re-reading it if you have read it once already. It lays out several of those fundamental principles and techniques (point 2 above) and exposes you to a handful of the top people in this field, many of whom have written informative and very affordable books (point 3 above).

Here’s the link to get started:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Insurance against bad clients, present and future

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Three days ago, after I announced that I’d let Arnold Schwarzenegger shortcut his way into my coaching program, I got an reply from a long-time reader and customer, with a sad but familiar story:

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I was lucky with a sales letter I wrote. I made a proposal. Their board loved it. When I actually wrote the piece the attorneys tore it apart. Can’t do this. Can’t say that…

I felt like walking away from it because I knew their ideas wouldn’t work. But they were still excited. I should have walked away, but it paid pretty good, and if it sold this gig would bring a lot more work. I didn’t walk away. I needed the money. It bombed. Not one response.

Fortunately for me, my contact said, “At least we know this type of advertising won’t work for us.”

I thought, “No. Your attorneys won’t let it work for you.” But I said, “You’re right, who would have thought it would have done so badly?”

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I say this story is sad but familiar because in the past all those things happened to me as well.

​​I got to working with clients I should never have worked with. I stayed with bad clients because I needed the money and because of the promise that it would bring future work. I had clients, or people working for them, rip up my copy, replace it with their own, and then tell me that what I wrote didn’t work.

The guy who wrote me the above message wanted to know if I had ever had business insurance as a copywriter. You know, to protect myself in these kinds of situations, when my copy produces zero sales, and the client has a team of lawyers.

The fact is, I never did have business insurance as a copywriter.

What’s more, I figure the way to deal with above situations is not after the fact, with insurance, but proactively, by choosing the right clients and by setting the right expectations.

It’s not an easy thing to do. But it’s not immensely difficult either. There are different ways you can go about it. But if you ask me how, my recommendation is to check out Steve Raju’s ClientRaker.

Steve’s process will help you both 1) choose the right clients, and 2) set the right expectations with those clients.

​​You can think of it as an investment — insurance against any bad clients you have now, or might be tempted to take on in the future.

Registration for ClientRaker closes in just 8 short hours, at 8pm CET/11am PST. And in fact, the first ClientRaker training will happen later today. If you’d like to get in while there’s still time:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

Can you win client work in obscure niches like board games, candlestick makers, and glassblowing studios?

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During the last Insights & More call on June 29th, an Insights & More member named Jordan mentioned he was trying to offer services to clients in the board game industry. But he was struggling to get conversations going.

I planned to write an email this morning about Jordan’s struggles, since they tie into the offer I’m currently promoting, Steve Raju’s ClientRaker training.

But it turned out even better than I planned because Jordan wrote me just last night in reply to another ClientRaker email:

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I’m just about to pull the trigger on this one

My main concern is that I target obscure niches like Board Games, Crystal shops and Travel Agencies (big PWM on those) but I don’t really know if the system will work on those.

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Can ClientRaker win you clients in your chosen pet industry, regardless of how small and obscure and very probably hostile to marketing that industry might be?

Can you use ClientRaker to win clients in the board game industry? Or among crystal shop owners? Or ship chandlers? Or tea house stewards? Or rare book sellers?

I have no bloomin’ idea. Maybe you can. Or maybe you can’t.

And yet I still believe that, if a pet niche is what you’re trying to go after, you should get ClientRaker, and it will be well worth it if you only do what it says.

ClientRaker has two steps. Step one is to pick out your target client, then whip the AI until it comes back half an hour later, cowering and exhausted, with your shiny, new, and effective positioning to attract that target client.

Step two is to actually track down and connect with those clients in an easy and low-stress way, so they get exposed your new positioning, and so they reach out to you.

But it doesn’t have to go from step one to two.

As Steve says himself in the training, you can go in opposite direction also.

You can first track down, or try to track down your target clients, using the info Steve gives you in ClientRaker. Very quickly, you can make sure your target clients are actually there, and have actually signaled they have problems and are looking for solutions.

If you do find them, then you go back to step one.

And if not, if there’s actually nobody there for you to serve or nobody who wants to be served, well, then you’ve saved yourself weeks or months of what would otherwise be fruitless and frustrating toil.

Is that worth the $297 Steve is asking for ClientRaker during this run? Yes, but that’s not only reason why you should get it.

There was a time when I was young and cheap. I would have wriggled and squirmed to give $297 to save myself hours or days of frustration and waste.

“Sure,” I might have said then, “it would be great to know in a half hour from now whether this market is a good one to go into… but $297, that’s a lot of money! And I’m quite cheap!”

Today, I am older and less cheap. I make those decisions in an instant. And I say, “Absolutely, hours or days of my time, plus weeks of opportunity cost, are worth $297 to me, or actually much more.”

But again, I know that argument wouldn’t have sold me 10 or 15 years ago. And maybe for you too, savings of your precious time are still not something you can get excited by.

So let me tell you why ClientRaker is still a good investment, even if it turns out that your pet industry is not actually a good fit for the services you offer.

And that’s the fact that there are bound to be other industries, adjacent to the one you have currently focused your sights on, which will be a good fit. For board games, that might be the collectible card industry. Or the puzzle industry.

Or it will turn out you have more than one pet interest or passion — board games AND crystal shops AND astrolabe manufacturers.

One of those will be a good fit, and ClientRaker can get you clients in that industry. In fact, in part one of ClientRaker, Steve goes through the process of figuring out different potential markets you could target, again using AI.

Why AI again? Don’t you already know what your pet industries and obscure interests are?

This goes back to the core point I made at the start of this promotion.

All of us go through much of life with blinders on, focused exclusively on one idea, the one that’s right in front of us right now, which currently has our attention, even though the world is much bigger and richer than what we can see at this very instant.

It takes a lot of discipline and work to rise above that for even a brief moment.

Or it takes an external system, which isn’t restricted by your own blinders, and which works in spite of your own maniacal focus on what you know and want right now.

ClientRaker is one such system, and a fantastic one. Both because of the care and thought Steve has put into it, and because of the real results it’s been getting him.

ClientRaker is open for registration now. But the doors will close soon, this Wendesday at 8pm CET/11am PST. In case you’d like to get inside before then:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

Most people get zero results from anything, but that doesn’t have to be you

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Valuable marketing idea:

If there’s a killer objection to what you’re selling, it can be smart to raise that objection right in your headline.

If that valuable marketing idea is true, then I screwed up. In fact I am three days too late.

I started promoting Steve Raju’s ClientRaker course three days ago.

​​ClientRaker is a paint-by-numbers approach to getting high-quality, long-term clients using AI in just the next 28 days.

That’s a big promise. Big promises are worthless if they are not believed. If there’s a killer objection in the way.

And the killer objection to Steve’s ClientRaker is… where’s the money?

So far, Steve has used his trainings to line up a bunch of high-end meetings.

He fired all his copywriting and marketing clients in January, took a 2-month vacation, came back home, decided to reposition himself as an AI expert, and within two weeks, already had high-end meetings lined up using this system he is teaching now.

I explained before how Steve’s targeting whale clients like Big Pharma and international organizations — slow-moving beasts that take months to digest information and make a decision. Hence no money yet, though if the money does come, it’s likely to be big.

​​These are the waters Steve is hunting in, and since he has other sources of income, he is not in a hurry.

“That might be okay,” you say, “but what about…”

Yep, I know. As I mentioned in that very first email when I started to promote ClientRaker, Steve already taught his system last month to a small cohort of people from his own list.

If ClientRaker works so well, where are the results? Where are the high-quality clients, and more importantly, where’s the money that this system is really meant to produce?

Steve followed up with the people from his previous ClientRaker cohort. The results were predictable. A ton of glowing reviews:

“Amazing session.” “My mind is blown.” “I had several epiphanies.”

The fact is, nobody from that first cohort has actually put Steve’s system into action, even now, more than a month later.

I’ve been selling trainings, courses, and books for a few years now. My estimate is that only 5% of people will ever do anything with the info they buy. And only 2% will actually use it as it’s meant to be used.

If that’s been you so far, then you can stop this kind of self-defeating behavior whenever you choose, including right now.

​​​​You might be surprised to find that it really wasn’t anything hard. You might even start to wonder at all the other people who have some invisible and imaginary chain around their leg, which keeps them from doing what you just did.

Like I said, Steve’s system is paint-by-numbers. It’s got AI baked into it — the whole point is that you don’t have to work beyond pressing the toaster lever down a few times and waiting for results to pop up. Do that, and you will get clients. And if you don’t, Steve’s got a guarantee. From his sales page:

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If after 30 days, you can show me you’ve done the small amount of setup required, and you are putting in the minutes of work required each day to fill up your pipeline…

And you still haven’t met with a prospect you are excited by…

Then I’d be happy to give you your money back.

No point going through life and not being happy.

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30 days… minimal work… no risk… big upside. Or an invisible and imaginary chain that you can cling to, because it’s familiar. The choice is yours:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

“Too many single moms” in my Facebook DMs

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Due to some client work I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been forced to go back into the cobweb-laced haunted house that is my Facebook account.

Each time I tip-toe my way along the creaky floorboards there, I see dozens of new friend requests pasted on the walls, all from people I don’t know from Adam’s off ox.

Occasionally, I go on binges of approving those friend requests.

Last week, I logged in and saw a message from a guy with an Italian name, whose friend request I must have approved some time earlier. My new friend wrote:

“Thanks for accepting my request man, I appreciate that! I noticed you’re into personal development. I have a quick question if you don’t mind.”

Personal development? I replied to say, sure. And I went about my day.

Since I don’t have any notifications enabled anywhere, I forgot all about it until I logged in to Facebook a few days later. And there was my friend’s quick question:

“Are you currently using online dating apps?”

That escalated quickly. ​​With just 7 words, this Italian stallion was quickly nearing “unwelcome pest” territory.

​​I replied with a professional and elegant “no.”

I thought that would be the end of it. But I was wrong. The next time I logged in, a follow-up was waiting for me:

“Too many single moms or not matching with the type of women you truly desire?”

At this point, like a hot 24-year-old girl who has lost interest in a boring Tinder chat, I stopped replying. But I did check his profile. It turns out he sells some kind of service to get you matching with the type of women you truly desire.

This got me wondering. Even if this guy’s presumptuous marketing approach is successful in hooking somebody, who is he gonna get?

A long-term, devoted customer or client?

Or somebody who will ghost him at the very first turn in the road?

My guess is the second.

That’s not a game I ever want to play, and not one I advise to you either.

A sale is never just a sale, and a client is never just a client.

My advice is to think actively about the relationships you build, the long-term potential of those relationships, or if you like, the lifetime value. That’s really my biggest and most valuable conclusion after having worked with hundreds of clients, many of who paid me $100, a few of who paid me $100k or more.

And on that note:

Until this Wednesday, I am promoting Steve Raju’s ClientRaker training.

ClientRaker is all about finding high-quality, long-term, devoted clients. Without sliding into anybody’s DMs, without embarrassing yourself, and without offending or annoying people who are no prospects of yours to begin with.

In case you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

If you want more clients or if your current clients are morons, scammers, or just plain cheap

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I have an offer for you today. If you want new clients, more clients, or better clients, then my suggestion is to get this offer. I endorse it fully, 100%, horns-to-hoof.

If I were still looking for copywriting clients, I would be busy applying the info inside this offer right now, instead of being here telling you about it.

You can buy this offer at my affiliate link at the end of this email. But first, read on for the background, and why I endorse this offer from alpha to omega:

Last month I exchanged some emails with Steve Raju. Steve is a copywriter and a direct response marketer. I knew from before that he’d been one of the coaches inside Stefan Georgi’s Copy Accelerator thing.

Steve wrote me that he had recently put on a training about how to get clients — using AI.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh great. Another AI course to heave onto the dogpile.”

A bit later, Steve and I got on a call. He was telling me about how he uses AI to figure out his prospects’ problems and to develop his messaging in a quick and foolproof way.

Fine. I figure that with a bit of work, with or without AI, I could do the same. But fine.

And then, in a kind of “Of course everybody knows this bit” manner, Steve told me how he actually uses all this AI-generated stuff.

Over the next few minutes, as my jaw gradually made its way further and further down towards the floor, Steve outlined how he how goes on LinkedIn… clicks here… clicks there… uses one little trick to find the exact right prospects who are currently in heat… a second little trick to wave his bloody, species-specific bait in front of them… a third little trick to make sure the prospects amble into his trap… and a fourth little trick to make sure the trap springs on them in such a way that they willingly reach out to him — yes, they come to him — and ask if maybe he can help them.

Steve felt all this LinkedIn trickery was obvious, and was just an add-on to the sexy AI stuff.

But to me, this “real world” stuff was magic, and his way of connecting with the right clients on LinkedIn was something I would never figure out myself.

I also suspect it was this which really gave Steve the results he has had with his system.

Consider the following:

Steve fired all his copywriting and marketing clients this past January, pretty much just because he wanted to.

He then took a two-month vacation back home to the UK (he lives in Vancouver normally).

UK vacation over, he got back to Vancouver, scratched his chin a bit, and said, “Well, now what?”

He then started applying the system he told me about, and within a couple weeks, he had lined up calls with the likes of:

* The global innovation lead for a pharma giant that takes in $40 billion per year

* The world’s no. 1 company for performing complex clinical trials

* The United Nations subject matter expert on A.I.

Steve’s current thing is repositioning himself as an AI expert to these kinds of whale, mammoth, brontosaurus clients. Huge, slow beasts. That might sound intimidating to you, or like the kind of thing you might not even want.

I’ve watched Steve’s training in full now. It’s fantastic.

And I can assure you that even if you are not interested in capturing $40 billion pharma whales as your new clients, you can also use Steve’s method to position or reposition yourself in such a way that you catch $120 million ecommerce marlins… or $80 million SaaS tunas… or simply lean and fast $20 million info-publishing bonefish.

The first live training of Steve’s course, which is called Clientraker — James Bond reference — will happen next Wednesday, July 19.

Between then and now, I will write more about Steve’s course, and nudge you, sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, towards Steve’s sales page.

If you are currently hungry for client work… or nervous because your current clients might leave you tomorrow and you have zero idea how you might replace them… or if you are flush with client work — but at least a few of those clients are morons, scammers, or just plain cheap… then I strongly advise you to get Steve’s training, watch it live as he delivers it it, and implement it the minute he stops talking.

Or don’t. But others will.

In case you’re convinced already and you want to sign up:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

The next era for freelancers, full-time writers, and solo creators

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I woke up this morning, the sun shining into my eyes, an eager French bird chirping outside my window because it was almost 7am.

I groaned and realized it’s time to get up and get to work. In a few hours’ time, my friends, still asleep in various bedrooms around this cave-like Paris AirBnb, will wake up too. And by then, I will have to have this email finished.

I can tell you now, it won’t be easy.

I struggled during the night with a comforter that was too hot, a mosquito that wouldn’t shut up, and the effects of the first glass of alcohol I’ve had in months. The result is I’m tired this morning, and my brain is more foggy than usual.

“Let me read some stuff on the Internet,” I said. “Maybe that will help.” And lo — the email gods rewarded me with an article full of valuable and relevant ideas I can share with you today.

The article came from Simon Owens, somebody I’ve written about before in these emails. Owens is a journalist who covers the media landscape in his Substack newsletter.

Two interesting bits from Owens’s article:

1. The recent collapses of new media companies like Buzzfeed and Vox have left thousands of journalists, writers, and clickbait creators without a job. It’s not unlike the situation in the direct response space a few years ago, after Agora got into legal trouble and it put a chill on the whole industry.

2. The owners of media outlets and info businesses are realizing that freelancers just aren’t worth it. From Owens’s conversation with one such business owner: “Not only were they expensive to hire, but he also had to waste a lot of time editing their work so it met his quality standards.”

So if traditional employee-based companies that pump out content are failing… and if entrepreneurs are starting to realize that freelancers are a bum deal… where does that leave us?

You might say it leaves us with the creator economy — with all those unemployed journalists, writers, and clickbait creators going out and starting their own Substack or TikTok or OnlyFans.

​​Maybe so. But it’s harder to make that work than your Twitter feed might make you believe. From Owens’s article again:

“I’m on record as being an optimist about the future of the Creator Economy; I think we’re at the very early stages of an entrepreneurial media explosion. But at the same time, I’m a realist about how damn hard it is to launch and build a sustainable bootstrapped media business, especially as a solo operator. Not only can it require years of financial runway, but it’s also difficult for a single person to juggle a variety of tasks that include content creation, marketing, and business development.”

So? Where does all this really leave us?

Owens says it leaves us in a brave new world of partnerships, cooperatives, and jointly-created products. He gives examples of how each of these is already being done by people who create content and have an audience, and who are trying to monetize that content and audience, beyond just the work they can do themselves.

If you are running or want to run an info publishing businesses, or your own creator studio, then Owens’s article is worth a read. It might give you an idea that might mean the difference between failure and success in what you do.

And if you are currently a freelancer, or even a full-time employee at a marketing-led business, then Owens’s article is worth a read also, if only for an uncomfortable but possibly life-saving glimpse into what the future might bring unless you adapt.

In either case, if you are interested, here’s the link to Owens’s piece:

https://simonowens.substack.com/p/the-next-era-for-bootstrapped-media

I made $1,100 so I decided to spend $6,000 more

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Two weeks ago, I was talking to copywriter Vasilis Apostolou, and he told me of a direct marketing conference that’s happening in May in Poland.

The conference is small but features some people I very much respect, foremost among them A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos and marketer Matt Bacak.

I asked Vasilis how much it costs to get in. He told me. I groaned.

$3,000 just for the ticket. And then there’s travel, a place to stay, plus 3-4 days lost from work.

This past Thursday, I got on a podcast-like interview with Jen Adams from the Professional Writers Alliance. Last December, I wrote some articles for PWA about my 10 Commandments book, and I got paid $1k for those articles. I got paid an extra $100 for this podcast-like appearance.

​​Getting paid $1,100 is a nice way to do self-promotion – but it’s not enough.

Last summer, I paid $1,200 for the Dig This Zoom calls. I found out about the PWA writing opportunity through the Discord channel for people who bought those Dig calls. So far, I’ve made back $1,100 of that $1,200 via this PWA thing. That means I still have $100 to make up somewhere.

I’ve written before how I have made back all the money I’ve paid for specific copywriting and marketing education.

​​Tens of thousands on coaching with Dan Ferrari… thousands on newsletters and books with Ben Settle… $297 for the Parris Lampropoulos webinars back in 2019. That last one, by the way, is my most winning investment. When I add up all the extra money I can directly trace back to Parris’s training, I estimate it to have been about a 300x return.

The thing is, all those returns turned out to be unconscious, after-the-fact, well-would-you-look-at-that results.

​​But I’ve since told myself not to make this into a matter of coincidence or luck. I’ve since made it a matter of attitude. I now put in thought and effort to make sure any investment, regardless of how small or large, has to eventually pay for itself.

That’s an outcome that’s impossible to control if you are buying stocks or bonds or race horses. But it’s quite possible to control if you are buying education, opportunities, or connections.

I will see what happens once those PWA articles get published and once interview goes live. Maybe one of those PWA people will join my list, buy something from me, and pay me that missing $100. Unless I can track $100 of extra sales to that, I will have to think what else I can do to make those Dig Zoom calls pay for themselves.

Likewise with that Poland conference. ​I decided to go. I budgeted $6k total for it — actual groan-inducing cost plus opportunity cost.

​​In other words, I will have to figure out a way to make the event pay me at least $6k. And I set myself the goal to have it happen within the first seven days after conference ends. I’m a little nervous about achieving that, but to me that signals that it’s possible.

So now I have three calls-to-action for you:

1. If you are planning to be there in Poland in May, let me know and we can make a point of meeting there and talking.

2. If you somehow already got on my list via PWA, hit reply and let me know. I’m curious to hear what you’re up to and why you decided to join. And if you’re thinking of writing a book like my 10 Commandments book, I might be able to give you some inspiration or advice.

3. If neither of the above applies to you, then my final offer is my Copy Riddles program. It costs $400. If you do decide to buy it, I encourage you to think of how you can make this investment directly and trackably pay for itself, and then some.

You might wonder if that’s really possible.

​​It is.

​​So today, instead of pointing you to the Copy Riddles sales page, let me point you to an email I wrote last year about a Copy Riddles member named Nathan, who doubled his income as an in-house copywriter, and who credits Copy Riddles for a chunk of that increase. ​​In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/how-to-bombard-copywriting-clients-with-extra-value-at-no-extra-effort/

Going where no one has gone before?

by

I have this unfortunate flaw in that I wake up every day, thanks to some internal alarm clock, which always rings earlier than I want.

Today it was 6am. I sat around in the dark for a while and then, at around 7, I went out for my morning walk.

At 7am on a Saturday in Barcelona, two worlds overlap.

I walked down the street, turned a corner, and saw a flash of naked ass. A girl was pulling up her leather pants, on the curb next to a small tree and some recycling containers. I guess she had just peed. Her friend stood guard but was facing in the wrong direction, away from where I and a few other people were coming and witnessing the shame. Pants up, the two oblivious girls staggered off drunkenly towards home.

That world, of people who hadn’t yet gone to bed by 7am, is one world.

I kept walking and the beach opened up before me. And the second world, the world of early-rising people, was already busy at work there.

A woman was holding her dog on a leash and yelling at her other dog to stop fooling around because it was time to go home. Two boys were kicking around a ball in the sand. And in the water, thanks to the large and rolling waves — not a common sight in Barcelona — there were some surfers.

Maybe you’re wondering whether there will be any hard “point” to today’s email. The point is this:

Down by the concrete pier that juts out into the Mediterranean, there was a clump of maybe a half dozen surfers. They were all bunched up. The waves were steady there and every 30 or so seconds, one of the surfers would catch a wave.

Meanwhile, further away from the pier, there was another surfer by himself. Every few minutes a small wave crested where he was waiting. The surfer would make an effort at catching it, but it was too small. As far as I saw, he never caught a wave, but he made a show at it.

And then further still, in the middle of the beach, there was yet another solitary surfer. He was bobbing up and down as the sea swelled underneath him. But he didn’t even have a wave to pretend to catch.

I think my point is clear, but if not:

It’s good to be different and distinct. It helps people make up their minds quickly about you. But if you rely on natural forces for motion — waves, money, desire — then you want to put yourself in a place where those things are moving.

It might seem clever and easy to go where nobody else has thought to go. Maybe you will get lucky. More likely, you will just bob around stubbornly in the cold water, while others, just a few feet away from you, have all the fun.

That’s most of my motivational message for you for today. And then there’s still the following promotional material:

My offer for you today is my Copy Riddles program. As I have said before, this program is really about going where the waves are:

– It’s about a proven way to write winning copy that’s been endorsed by A-list copywriters like Gary Halbert, Parris Lampropoulos, and Gary Bencivenga

– It features a bunch of examples from sales letters written to perennial markets, including finance, health, and personal development

– It gets you working alongside some of the top copywriters of all time who, whether by instinct or by design, knew how to tap into human desire where it was flowing

If any of that moves you:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/