Insight Marketing

I watched 3 hours of MTV for you

by

I was reading a comment thread recently where MTV was mentioned, and somebody asked, “What’s MTV?”

If you were a child of 80s, as I was, you know.

If you were not a child of the 80s, it’s hard to overstate the cultural importance that MTV had in the 80s and 90s.

MTV originally stood for Music Television, nominally the first-ever TV channel showing only music videos, but really, a source for kids to find out what was cool before there was social media.

A few days ago, on August 1 to be exact, somebody uploaded to YouTube the recording of the first three hours of MTV broadcasting.

The date was significant, because it was exactly 45 years since the original broadcast, which happened on Aug 1 1981.

Over the past week, I watched all 3 initial hours, bit by bit, and because I always need stuff to write emails about, I took notes that pertain to business. Lemme tell you the most interesting things I found, grouped into 3 points:

#1. Even on day 0, so little of MTV programming was actually music videos.

MTV eventually became accused of showing more reality TV than music. But they didn’t show a lot of music even at the start.

Instead, there were lots of commercials… a good-looking “VJ” talking at you while sitting on top of a desk… music-related news segments.

As I’ve written before, even the most entertaining kinds of entertainment, music in this case, become dull after a bit and require a regular change to a different form of entertainment.

#2. Much of the content was actually advertising for MTV itself.

There were segments encouraging you to call your cable company to get MTV if you don’t have it yet (which soon became the “I want my MTV” ad campaign).

There were ads for merch that would encourage you to watch more MTV and spread the word (a poster, an “MTV dial sticker” because I guess TVs had dials?).

But most important were short clips that hammered home the positioning — the uniqueness and significance of what MTV was. “TV used to be called a wasteland,” the clips said. “That was before MTV.”

#3. MTV got going before they were “ready.”

The production was barebones and by today’s standards amateurish. They didn’t have enough advertisers. And hard as it might be to imagine today, MTV had a shortage of music videos to play on day 0.

A bunch of artists appeared multiple times with different songs.

Many of the “videos” were actually concert clips.

Some of the videos that they did show then…. could not appear today, at least without being censored. Consider the following line from Elvis Costello’s Oliver’s Army, which appeared uncensored around hour 2:

“Only takes one itchy trigger

One more widow, one less white nigger”

And yet, in spite not being “ready” on day 0, MTV went from a marginal cable channel to international arbiter of youth culture, as well as a multibillion-dollar business, against a $20m initial investment.

You can take from this email what you need from it.

I’ll just end on that last point, about being “ready.”

You can get going today, even if you’re not “ready.”

The fact is, nobody is ever ready, and you won’t ever be ready, not really, because the world is a complex and changing place, and your ability to prepare for that is limited.

So might as well get started today, and adapt tomorrow, and profit the day after.

My thing is writing emails like this, about stuff that interests me, and somehow making money in the process.

If you like, you can make it your thing as well. You don’t need my help to get started, but in case you want it, I have something to help you here:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Last call for Age of Insight

by

This is the last email I will send before the end of my 36-hour-only offer of my Age of Insight training. About that:

A few days ago, I was walking around in the blazing heat and trying to avoid sunstroke, when an insight hit me right on the head.

This insight was very meta, because it was actually about the topic of insight.

I’ve long been looking for a definition of what “insight” is. While I got pretty close to it on occasion, I never found a definition that I was 100% satisfied with.

I’ve got it now. I’ll even tell you what it is. Unfortunately, you won’t find it insightful or very useful. Here, try it out. The essence of insight, in three words, is:

1. New

2. Cohesive

3. Explanation

So? Are you enlightened? Are you gonna go out and start creating insightful content or sales materials with my amazing TRUTH above?

I doubt it.

You will probably forget all about what I just told you, as soon as you close this email, just how your readers will forget when you tell them YOUR TRUTH, without making the presentation of that TRUTH feel insightful.

For the TRUTH to pierce your readers’ indifference and reactivity, you need to not just know what insight is. You need to know to create it in your content and marketing.

That’s what I show you how to do, and tell you how to do, inside the Age of Insight training.

I haven’t sold Age of Insight since 2022. After today, I have no plans to sell it again as long as Spain holds the World Cup.

If you wanna get Age of Insight, my advice is to get it now. For more details:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-age-of-insight-for-36-hours-only/

People are buying

by

Yesterday, I announced that, for 36 hours only, I will be once again selling Age of Insight, my training on how to generate the feeling of insight in your audience.

I had no idea if I’d have any takers on Age of Insight, since this is an offer I created four years ago, and haven’t been promoting or talking about to my list since.

But takers there were. I followed up with some of them last night to ask what made them buy Age of Insight. Here are their whys, in their own words.

First, from tech founder, coach, and former nuclear engineer Erik Gross:

===

My entire business I’m building is about helping software engineers and architects change the way they think so they can do better work, get noticed on the job, and make more money.

In other words, I am selling insight.

So I figured there was something valuable to learn here – something that could apply both to my marketing and to my work in serving my people.

===

(Erik raises a good point. I keep advertising insight as a marketing tool, and it is that. But it’s just as valuable as a teaching tool, to get people to accept concepts and then actually apply them.)

Second, from DTC copywriter Ben Carter, whose copy has made $21 million in tracked sales:

===

You sent an email a couple of years ago

(Literally, I just checked; 2024.)

That email has stayed with me.

“When Orcs Were Real.”

Your email, and the piece which inspired it, cemented the value for me in being able to write insightfully:

When Orcs Were Real is a logically-absurd piece of writing, and yet each time I return to it it’s utterly compelling all over again. I find this phenomenon both confounding and fascinating.

Writing this way is also a skill I’d like for myself.

Interestingly, when I looked up your email you mentioned you still think about that piece too (when you wrote it).

Do you still find yourself thinking about when orcs were real from time to time?

===

(I talked abut When Orcs Were Real in Age of Insight back in 2022… and I still think about it! Earlier this year I in fact asked ChatGPT to fill me in on the science. ChatGPT was skeptical. I guess the fact that the idea won’t leave my head after years is proof positive this insight stuff works, not only change minds but to make the change stick.)

Finally, from Robin Timmers, the “largest copywriter in the Netherlands”:

===

I have 5 why’s, actually:

1. I had a great experience with every single offer I bought from you. They are always unique, insightful, and full of unique insights I can’t get anywhere else.

2. I enjoy consuming your offers.

3. Vasilis’ testimonial.

4. I am a crack junkie for copywriting/persuasion wisdom.

5. I think I actually want to try my luck in the US DR space, so this might give me an edge.

===

(No shame in being a crack junkie for persuasion wisdom. At least that’s what I tell myself, because I am a junkie for that stuff as well.)

Age of Insight is available for sale through the end of today, until 11:59pm PST.

If you’d like to buy it, or if you’d like to see the fantastic testimonial I recently got about it, which Robin refers to in his 3rd why above, here’s where to go now, while there’s still time:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-age-of-insight-for-36-hours-only/

Announcing: Age of Insight for 36 hours only

by

Starting today and lasting for 36 hours only, I am selling my Age of Insight training.

Age of Insight shows you how to generate the feeling of insight in your audience, with the ultimate goal of generating a feeling of satisfaction in your belly as you watch $$$$ pile up in your bank account.

I don’t normally sell Age of Insight, but I decided to do so today, because a few days ago, I got a pretty fantastic testimonial about it from Vasilis Apostolou.

Vasilis is a former Agora copywriter, who then went on to work with A-lister Parris Lampropoulos, to mentor copywriters himself, and to write copy as an inhouse copywriter at another big DR brand.

Here’s what Vasilis wrote inside my Skool group a few days ago:

===

I’ve bought almost all John’s trainings. The one that has made the most money for me and my clients is one he no longer promotes.

The training I’m talking about is Age of Insight.

Seriously, nothing boosts your copy’s persuasive power like giving your readers a new insight.

You can sell stuff without a big idea or a unique mechanism if you deliver a new insight.

Recently, one of my sales letter passed $1 million in sales. This letter starts by giving readers a new insight. More specifically, insight type number 2 from John’s training. (So consider this post a thank-you to John.)

Also, I’m coaching a bunch of creative strategists who work for 8- and 9-figure brands. When I review their work, I often notice that the creatives that scale are those delivering new insights. Usually the winning creatives use insight type number 1.

There’s also an insight type number 3. Which is harder to pull off but it might be the most effective. In fact, the idea that landed me a job at Agora as a newbie copywriter was an insight of that type. (At the time I didn’t know of John, so I just developed this idea instictually. But now that I’m aware of this type of insight, I can develop these ideas more often)

Anyway…

If you want to make more money from your marketing – or make your content more interesting – beg John to start selling Age of Insight again.

===

When I first sold Age of Insight, I sold it for $300. It’s a price I am honoring still, and to make it even easier to take me up on it, I am offering you a zero-punishment payment plan during this 36-hour window, only $100 today and two more monthly payments of $100.

The deadline to get Age of Insight is tomorrow, Friday, 11:59pm PST. If you wanna get in before this rare and priceless opportunity disappears:

https://checkout.bejakovic.com/age-of-insight/

Turns out I’ve had a tough life

by

I was cruising along the Daily Mail website today, looking for something to pique my jaded interest.

Sure, there were stories about Harry and Meghan, about David and Victoria, about Brad and Angelina. Yawn.

But then, right as I was losing hope and nearing the end of the page, my eyes lit up. The headline read:

“Are you a Flat Earther? You’ve probably had a tough life! People who have experienced hardship are more likely to believe conspiracy theories, study finds”

As the tagline on my website can attest, for much of my life, I’ve had sympathy for Flat Earthers.

And now that the article pointed it out, I realized that, why yes, I have had a pretty tough life:

My parents divorced before I can remember… the country I was born into broke up amid civil war around the time I was 10 years old… my mom and I fled to America, where we were alone and for years pretty poor… during this vulnerable time, I moved around from state to state and school to school 5-6 times in 2-3 years… I developed epilepsy in my teenage years… I once twisted my ankle bad while playing badminton.

So yeah, pretty tough.

On the other hand, I’ve also had a pretty easy life:

I’m white, male, and with an IQ north of 101… my parents were both well educated and pushed me to get well educated also… aside from that initial onset of epilepsy at age 16, I haven’t spent a single night in a hospital my entire life… even though I’m lazy and careless by nature, and though I’ve made many dumb mistakes in my life, things have magically worked out for me, and I have long been living a life that many people envy.

So yeah, pretty easy. And had that Daily Mail headline read…

“Are you a Flat Earther? You’ve probably had a privileged life! People who are born smart, talented, and beautiful are more likely to believe conspiracy theories, study finds”

… I might have convinced myself that my easy life and privileged background explain my sympathy for Flat Earthers.

There is subtle psychology at work here.

It’s the psychology of generating the feeling of insight.

I’ve long been fascinated with the topic of insight, because insight feels fun when you experience it… and because it’s one of the most powerful, most effective ways to change people’s minds, and to get them to go from A to B, in a way they feel like it was all their own idea.

Maybe you can see how that can be useful for marketing, sales, and business.

I once put together a training about the most insightful things I had figured out about generating the feeling of insight. I used some of that even in the name of the training, which I called Age of Insight.

I recently got a brilliant testimonial for the Age of Insight. And while I don’t normally sell Age of Insight, I decided this brilliant testimonial was an occasion to do so. So I will be selling Age of Insight tomorrow for 36 hours only. (I’ll also share the testimonial then.)

I’m letting you know all this today so you can set your alarm, take time off work if you need to, and make sure to check my email or emails as they arrive tomorrow.

Meanwhile, just so you know I’m not fooling when I say I have sympathy for Flat Earthers, here’s a personal confession:

https://bejakovic.com/why-i-can-no-longer-be-a-flat-earther/

Turns out, I was right about the best kind of infotainment

by

A few months ago, I wrote an email with the subject line, “The BEST kind of infotainment, for me, now.”

In that email, I said the kind of infotaining content that’s working best for me now is not not funny stories… nor personal reveals… nor pop culture references… nor rants and raves.

Instead, the best kind of infotainment for me now is “What’s working for me now,” and its flip side, “What’s not working for me any more.”

After I wrote that email, there was some chatter in other newsletters to the effect of, “Yeah but that’s because John writes to an audience of sophisticated marketers and marketing-savvy biz owners. The same is NOT true for the vast majority of other niches.”

Well, about that.

Yesterday I saw a post titled “The Great Blogging Collapse” by a guy named Daniel Stanica.

Stanica did some research.

Back in 2022, he took a look at 100 money-making blogs, spanning fields like blogging, recipes, travel, DIY, parenting, health.

Today, in 2026, Stanica looked at those same 100 blogs again. Did they grow, shrink, or disappear?

And yes, before you raise your hand, his post is mainly about blogging and about success as measured by SEO traffic.

Still, the conclusions he reached in comparing 100 successful online properties in 2022 and 2026 sound reasonable to me, and align very much with what I said above.

So what happened to the 100 successful 2022 blogs in 2026?

According to Stanica:

1. “The median successful blog lost 85% of its Google search traffic.”

2. “More than half of the blogs experienced catastrophic declines.”

At the same time, a small number of blogs maintained or became more successful. Looking at the commonalities among them, Stanica sums it up in four points:

1. Firsthand experience (“I made/tested/went”)

2. Owned audience

3. Real product

4. Brand search (people search for your name)

To me, that first point, about firsthand experience, sounds exactly like what I talked about when said “what’s working for me now.”

Combine that with the remaining 3 points, and it pretty much sums up what I’ve found to work and what I do with this newsletter.

It’s something that worked in 2016… that’s working in 2026… and that is highly likely to work still in 2036, even with the development of AI… and the great blog collapse… and the impending shortage of sulfur in the world.

If you’d like to find out more about how I and a small group of forward-thinking marketers and business owners are surviving and even thriving in 2026, and probably 2036:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Writing a novel is child’s play

by

How do you write a novel?

According to Nobel-prize winning writer Harold Pinter, writing a novel is child’s play.

You just need a starting point, says Pinter. You look around and describe what you see. After that, it’s all downhill.

For example, if you happen to be in the middle of the 1974 movie Accident… which features a scene involving a middle-aged Oxford professor, his wife, and his two children, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the yard of their countryside house… then you start with that.

As one of the characters in Accident (a cynical novel author) tells another (a naive student), you just describe what you see:

Middle-aged professor… wife… children… Sunday afternoon.

Except, says Pinter via his character in Accident, you can go further. (This is possibly where Pinter sweeps his Nobel-prize winning talent under the rug.)

For example, you can notice that the wife is pregnant.

You can spot subtle signs the professor is having an affair with a girl at Oxford.

You can even claim that he’s reached the age where he can’t keep his hands off girls at Oxford.

And there you go. That’s the start of your novel, or really, your screenplay, because that’s also what Accident is about.

Like I’ve written already, I’m in Bologna this entire week.

The reason is that there’s a movie festival going on, which shows curated old movies I’ve never heard of or seen before.

One of these movies is Accident, which was written by Pinter, and which I saw yesterday, in a sweltering hot theater, with a few hundred other movie nerds who were fanning themselves and wiping off their faces with handkerchiefs, and not out of sympathy for the philandering Oxford professor.

I don’t know why I started out by telling you about novels. The fact is, this email is about movies.

Movies movies movies.

I like ’em old, I like ’em young, I like ’em arty, I like em trashy and popular.

I’ve worked movies into my emails (Accident in this one)… into my books (The Sting in my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc), into my courses (Top Gun in Daily Email Fastlane), and into my offers (Harry Potter for my current promotional event).

Speaking of, today is the last day for my Hogwarts of Influence offer.

I came up with the the idea of Hogwarting this offer because in one of my most popular courses, Most Valuable Email, I already use a Harry Potter movie to make a point. Specifically, I make the comparison between the Most Valuable Email trick I teach inside that course to the Wingardium Leviosa spell from the Harry Potter movies:

“Just say the phrase — ‘make the ‘gar’ nice and long” — and with a swish and flick of your wrist, you can make any email rise into the air and levitate.”

The Hogwarts of Influence offer is disappearing later tonight, at the witching hour, 12 midnight PST.

If you want to find out all I’m including inside the various levels of this offer, before the movie runs out and the theater is locked up, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/core-promise-pwyw/

4 words that tell you what people will do or want to do

by

If you must know the four words, I’ll save you from scrolling and just tell you right away. The four words are:

“I’m not going to”

There. You’re done. You don’t need to read more. But, if you like, do read more, and I’ll give you a bit of context to make sense of these words.

A couple weeks ago, I got a message on LinkedIn (yes, LinkedIn, I have a profile there that I never check) from a dude who was reading my “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, etc.” book.

I saw that he buys houses for cash. We got into a bit of a conversation. I asked him if, while dealing with house sellers, he has found any little persuasion tricks or deeper psychological principles, along the lines of what I share in the 10 Commandments book.

He had a bunch, including the following:

“When a person says ‘I’m not going to’ it usually means whatever they say after that, they’re going to do or want to do.”

He didn’t give me any examples, but I had heard an example just earlier that day. I had been listening to a call by marketer Travis Sago. Travis was talking about a campaign he ran to sell a bunch of spots for, I believe, an $11k program.

Travis’s strategy was to announce the price early in the campaign. People were shocked at how expensive the program was. One guy apparently wrote in to say, “Have you lost your everloving mind?”

Travis worked his magic during that campaign.

That “everloving” dude ended up buying on the final day. And when he did, he wrote Travis to say, “You know it’s funny, I told myself this morning I’m not going to do this.”

When you think about it, it’s obvious that when people say, “I’m not going to,” they are actually going to, or at least they want to.

Otherwise, why would the thought of doing the thing even be in their head? Even more so, why would they need to try to psychologically guard themselves against the thought by telling themselves and others that it won’t happen?

This is part of a bigger psychological principle, and one that you can use to communicate more effectively and influence people on a day-to-day level, whether you want to buy houses for cash, or to make people laugh, or even to win an election.

I cover all that in Commandment VI of my 10 Commandments book. Speaking of, here’s what the dude on Linked wrote me initially about that book:

“Hi John, I’ve almost finished your book (10 Commandments) and just wanted to say it’s delightful and I appreciate the menagerie of experts you drew on! Thank you”

If you haven’t gotten your copy of my book yet, here’s where you can find it waiting for you:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

[Psych Psundays] Metaphors for the brain

by

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

It’s as easy as ABC

by

Maybe you’ve heard?

Google and Meta are now on trial for creating apps that are addicting to children.

No?

You haven’t heard?

Well I have heard. Or rather, yesterday I read an article about it.

I have little to say about the actual substance of this case, since I have neither children nor any apps, but I thought something else in the story was very interesting.

Trial lawyer Mark Lanier, who is representing the plaintiffs, was using all kinds of sticky messaging strategies. A few examples:

1. “They don’t only build apps; they build traps.”

2. “They didn’t want users, they wanted addicts.”

And my favorite…

3. “This case is as easy as ABC. Addicting the Brains of Children.” [Lanier also had some toy blocks to spell out ABC]

I looked up this Lanier guy.

Turns out he’s one of the biggest trial lawyers in the US. He’s represented plaintiffs against big corporations like Johnson & Johnson and Merck, and has been able to win ~$20 billion in damages for his clients.

And get this. In an asbestos damage trial, Lanier used the same ABC strategy as in the recent Meta and Google trial:

“This case is as easy as ABC. Asbestos, breathed in, causes cancer.”

My point for you today is as easy as ABC:

Aphorisms. Boost. Conversions.

(Particularly if you can get them to form an “ABC” acronym.)

If you’re interested in more ways to make your message sticky and persuasive, I have a book recommendation for you.

It’s a book I’ve read only once but that has been immensely sticky in my head, in part because the entire message of the book is summed but up in an easy-to-remember acronym (you’ll have to read it to find out).

I think this book is so important if you thrive or starve by how well you persuade people that I have repeatedly said I would include it in the first-semester required reading of my mythical AIDA School.

In case you’re interested in getting your hand on the ABC’s of effective messaging:

https://bejakovic.com/sticky