Curiosity

The curiosity mistake

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Yesterday, I wrote an email about a course I bought via the “dark marketplace” for courses.

There was some valuable and potentially profitable point in that email, but it didn’t matter much.

Because almost all the responses I got, and I got a hobuncha, said something like the following:

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I’m sure you’re getting plenty of replies like mine, but I can’t help it… what’s the course??

Not planning to buy it, just plain ol’ curiosity. It’s so weird thinking in 2025 that there’s still info that can’t be accessed immediately with just 2-3 clicks…

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I didn’t share the name of the course yesterday and I won’t share it today.

Like I wrote in my email yesterday, I bought the course without knowing anything about it, based on a recommendation alone.

I can’t recommend it to others since I haven’t received it or gone through it yet. In fact, I can’t say anything more about it other than what I have, aside from its name. But what are you gonna do with that?

Legend says that near the end of his career, direct marketer Gary Halbert quizzed a protege. Halbert asked, “The best way to get a prospect’s attention is to appeal to…”

The protege thought for a moment. “Their sense of self-interest,” he said.

“No!” said Halbert, and he whacked the protege on the wrist with a large wooden ruler. “The right answer is, their sense of curiosity.”

True true.

Now here’s the valuable and potentially profitable point of this email:

Another legendary marketer, John Caples, found that pure curiosity headlines always and dramatically underperform pure benefit headlines in terms of sales.

Sure, curiosity headlines got the attention, just like Halbert said. But Caples found that benefit headlines got the money. The best performing of all were headlines with both a benefit and an element of curiosity.

All that’s to say, idle curiosity isn’t worth much, not unless you can channel it into something else.

I’m telling you this if you’re trying to sell, and I’m telling you also in case you are not.

But on to sales, specifically of my new 10 Commandments book.

I’ve tried to make this book intriguing and curiosity-baiting up to 11. I mean, that was the whole idea behind talking about con men and pickup artists and such. But as I say at the close of the book:

“Of course, the real question is, what are you going to do with this stuff? Learning new techniques is nice, as is getting an a-ha moment, a new insight into something profound about yourself. But none of it matters much unless you put it to use and somehow apply it in your life. Will you do that?”

I hope you will. The book contains simple but powerful ideas to make you more effective in communicating, whether you want to sell, negotiate, or even seduce. If you’re curious, and if you’re looking to benefit, here’s where you can find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

My missing Olympic gold medal

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I have never won an Olympic gold medal. Frankly, the world doesn’t care, and neither do I. But contrast that to yesterday’s events in Paris:

Novak Djokovic, a 37-year old tennis player, who has won every other major tennis tournament multiple times but never the Olympics, finally won an Olympic gold medal.

The odd thing:

Unlike other tennis tournaments, the Olympics doesn’t pay any money, and it doesn’t carry any ranking points on the pro tour.

And yet, yesterday, after this purely symbolic win, Djokovic said it was the “biggest success in his career.”

The mass mind seems to agree, or at least the tiny portion of it that 1) follows tennis at all and 2) doesn’t hate Djokovic beyond repair.

Following the match, millions of people on the Internet were discussing Djokovic’s crowning achievement… every major newspaper has written the story up… and TV stations around the world are showing highlights, including Djokovic’s emotional reaction after the win.

Again, I would like to contrast this to my own tennis career.

I have not won a single tennis tournament, even at the most local and recreational club level, in spite of 30+ years of on-again, off-again tennis dabbling.

And if I were to announce today that I still do not have an Olympic gold medal in my trophy closet — which is 100% true, in the same way that I do not have a Wimbledon trophy or the platter from the Banja Luka Challenger — then the most likely reaction will be the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance, or maybe the white noise of a ceiling fan blowing overhead.

In other words, nobody cares that I haven’t won this year’s Olympic gold medal in tennis. Nobody cares that I will most probably never win it. Like I said, even I don’t care.

But it’s kind of curious when you think about it.

Why would a missing gold medal be a blot on Djokovic’s incredibly successful tennis career to date… but not a blot on mine?

Ponder on that for a moment, while I artfully pull out the the following quote:

“Someone who knows the state capitals of 17 of 50 states may be proud of her knowledge. But someone who knows 47 may be more likely to think of herself not knowing 3 capitals.”

It’s the same psychology — 3 missing state capitals, 1 missing Olympic medal.

And since this is a newsletter about effective communication, let me get to the point:

It’s also the same psychology if you are trying to get people curious and invested in reading more of your message, so you have a chance to guide them to where you want.

You can find all this discussed in full detail in chapter 2 of the book below. You can also find step-by-step instructions for using this information to make your message intriguing and fascinating, even if it’s dry and boring now.

All inside chapter 2 of the book below, which is one of my favorite books about effective communication.

If I ever create my AIDA School, with a curriculum all about persuasion and influence, this book will be part of the required reading for semester 1.

But you can get a head start, today, right now. In case you’re curious, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/gold

Valuable but quite elitist business practices

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Last week, I got a notification telling me about a new subscriber to this newsletter.

​​A familiar name. A familiar email address. A guy named Ian, who is a good friend of a good friend of mine, named Sam.

I guess Sam and Ian were hanging out in real life. My email newsletter came up somehow. And Ian, who is a social worker and has nothing to do with the shady but fraternal underworld that is the direct marketing industry, decided to sign up.

Then yesterday, Sam, who also reads these emails, forwarded me a text message thread between him and Ian:

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Ian: I don’t have $100. What is the Most Valuable Email Trick?

Sam: If you get it for free will it be as valuable?

Ian: Hmmm that’s right. Most valuable to whom? Maybe to John as he is pocketing the $100.

Sam: Quite elitist to charge for this knowledge

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I agree. And here’s another quite elitist practice:

I recently started, or rather restarted, a valuable daily habit. I call it “between the lines.” It goes like this:

1. Look at all the emails I get from readers and customers over the past 24 hours.

2. Paste them into a Google Doc.

3. Go through and ask myself, “What is really going on here? What’s really behind these words this person wrote me?” Then write down the answer in a comment on the side.

I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now.

Lots of interesting stuff pops up.

Other times, I’m just reminded of what is truly fundamental — simple stuff you can’t do without, and vice versa, simple stuff you can build an entire business around.

For example, one “between the lines” comment that I keep writing over and over in my Google Doc is that people really buy because of 1) curiosity and 2) trust.

I guess you can make sales just by doing one of trust or curiosity, by amping up the other. But if you increase both, results multiply.

And so all your marketing, at least all of your email marketing, should really be oriented to building up trust. Or curiosity. Or ideally, both.

Of course, you still have to sell something that people can somehow justify to themselves.

I doubt I will ever sell my Most Valuable Email to Ian and frankly I wouldn’t want to. I’m not sure how he would profit from it aside from satisfying his curiosity.

But perhaps you are a marketer or copywriter. Perhaps you want to write emails like this one, or LinkedIn posts, or whatever. In that case, perhaps I’ve gotten you a bit curious about my MVE trick, and built up trust via these daily emails to make you want to buy.

Yes, if you buy, it will be valuable to me. But it can also be valuable to you, and much more than the $100 you will put into my pocket.

If you want to see what the Most Valuable Trick is all about:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Secret lineage to mysterious gurus

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I got in the cab. I was in front, copywriter Vasilis Apostolou and business guru Barry Randall were in back.

There were lots of conceivably smart and valuable questions I could have asked Barry. I could have asked for a business tip. I could have asked for connections to partners. I could have asked for mindset advice.

But I was not so disciplined. Instead, I turned around and said:

“Hey Barry. Today when Parris Lampropoulos got on stage, he said that he and you and Toe Cracker all have the same coach right now. But he didn’t say who. If it’s not a secret, who is it?”

Would you like to know who the mysterious coach is behind these legendary 8- and 9-figure copywriters and marketers?

Well I’m not surprised.

Yesterday I sent out an email, promoting my Most Valuable Email training, along with a 24-hour disappearing bonus. The disappearing bonus had 3 parts:

1) A freely available resource with several valuable marketing ideas
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2) One specific idea that caught my eye in that resource, and my advice on how to implement it today

​3) The man behind this resource, who I have only written about once before, but who has influenced my thinking on a deep level

Yesterday’s email was a big success. It made me more sales of MVE in a single day than I have had since the last day of the initial launch, last September.

Since the disappearing bonus was open to anyone who bought MVE previously (and not just last night), I also got dozens of responses from previous buyers.

The number #1 specific thing people said was they wanted to know part 3) the mysterious man behind the resource, who had influenced me so deeply.

So that’s my conclusion:

People are curious about secret lineage to mysterious gurus. And you can use that to drive action.

That disappearing bonus has now fully disappeared. The mysterious guru who influenced me will retreat to the shadows.

But if you’re curious about my lineage to several other gurus, you can find that inside my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Bonus — this book doesn’t just tell you the name of each guru.

​​I found out the name of Barry Randall’s coach. And I got nothing from it — because the guy hasn’t written a book, doesn’t have a newsletter, doesn’t tweet. Unless you have $20k per month to join his mastermind, his name alone won’t do you any good.

​On the other hand, my little 10 Commandments book gives you a bunch of specific and valuable answer to questions about business, mindset, and marketing. All from some of the most smartest, most successful, and most influential people in this space that I’m in. All available here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments