Copywriting

People lie, so what good is a survey?

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A couple days ago, I sent an email surveying my readers whether they would be interested in a paid mastermind all about publishing, growing, and monetizing a newsletter.

I got a few dozen responses saying, yeah… why not… sure… maybe… can’t wait… keep me in the loop… it depends… absolutely!

Now what?

What do I do with this feedback?

The classic direct response argument is that only sales count and that talk is cheap, because people lie, both to themselves and to others.

No doubt there’s some of that always going on. I know it from living in my own skin.

Lots of times I have good intentions that never turn into anything… I feel enthusiasm that peters out… I provisionally agree to stuff, only because I know I will never be called upon to deliver it.

So again, what does that mean for my proposed newsletter mastermind?

Well, I’ll tell you a secret:

That survey from a few days ago was not really the first bit of data I collected on this mastermind idea.

First off, there’s my own interest in the topic of publishing, growing, and monetizing a newsletter, which is high, and which I use as barometer of what others might be thinking, since I’m not all that unique.

Second, I’ve seen hundreds of other people starting newsletters over the past year or two. New services, websites, and quite a bit of money are flowing into the space.

Third, I see interest whenever I do write an email about my health newsletter, about growth strategies, about monetization plans I have.

Fourth and finally, there’s an anecdote involving Kira Hug and Rob Marsh of The Copywriter Club.

As I wrote yesterday, I agreed with them a couple of weeks ago to do a presentation at their live event, happening in London next week.

I came up with a few different proposed ideas for that presentation.

One was “Building a newsletter brand in your spare time,” all about my experiences building my health newsletter this year.

Kira voted for that one — because, as she said, it’s a personal interest. She would like to create a newsletter brand herself.

My ears perked up at that. I filed it away as another bit of data supporting the fact that newsletters continue to be a hot opportunity.

In spite of Kira’s personal interest, the newsletter presentation idea didn’t win out, because another topic — writing for insight — seemed to be more in line with what Kira and Rob’s event is about.

So insight is what I will be presenting about in London next week.

But if you are there, I’m happy to talk off-stage about anything — insight, that time I tried to kiss George Soros, or newsletters, if that’s your particular obsession. It certainly is mine, and so I will be creating that newsletter mastermind, most likely starting in January 2024.

But more about that soon.

For now, The Copywriter Club London event happens next Wednesday.

​​I realize that’s a tight deadline and not much warning.

But in case you can make and want to make it, here’s how to get yer ticket so you can join me there:

https://bejakovic.com/tcclondon

I’ll be in London next week, maybe you’d like to join me

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I’ll tell you about London in just a sec, but first, here’s an important question:

What’s your mental image of how the year looks like?

Is it a line, a calendar, a circle?

And if it’s a circle (the way it is for me), then where do the months go? Is summer on top or winter? Do the months flow clockwise or counterclockwise?

Two weeks ago I did a podcast episode with Rob Marsh and Kira Hug of The Copywriter Club.

Podcast episode over, Kira said as a throwaway, “I know it’s a long shot, but since you’re in Barcelona, we have an event in London at the end of this month. And in case you’d like to present something…”

I got excited and immediately said yes.

I gave them a couple of possible presentation ideas, and we agreed my presentation would be on the topic of insight, specifically about one repeatable, powerful way to create feeling of insight in readers.

I thought about that yesterday because I came across an article titled, “This is what the year really looks like.” It reported on a survey that basically asked the questions I asked you up top.

Some 75k people participated in the survey voluntarily… hundreds of thousands read and shared the resulting article online… and the article keeps going viral, on its own, every few years, even though it was originally published in 2018.

Why? How?

My claim is that it’s because the questions and the article manages to stir up the feeling of insight. So that’s what I will be talking about in London next week.

Now a disclaimer:

I am a terrible self-promoter, and am at best a very shoddy businessman, at least as far as this newsletter is concerned.

I did that podcast episode. I agreed with Rob and Kira to go to their event in London and present. But I didn’t ask to promote the event to my list — because… who knows why.

And then, only two days ago, Rob wrote me to say they have a few seats left over, and I could promote it to my list if I like.

The fact is, I do NOT like the idea of promoting this London event to my list. Because it’s now too close to the date, and that exposes me as being a bit incompetent.

But that’s not really a great reason to keep you out of this event in case you would like to attend, and are actually close enough geographically to be able to get to London by next Wednesday.

In case you’re interested, you can find the full details below, including the dates, times, prices, and my handsome mugshot photo:

https://bejakovic.com/tcclondon

Reader succeeds in provoking me with a backhanded compliment

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Yesterday, a reader succeeded in provoking me with a message that started with a backhanded compliment — how my Most Valuable Email course is ‘good’ but not ‘WOOOW.’

The hackles stood up on the back of my neck as I read this.

If you’d like to be provoked also, read through my reader’s message below, and then I’ll tell you something simple but powerful about influence:

===

I’m stopping by with a purpose: to finally give you my impression of MVE.

Look… The first time I read all the content, I found it “good”.

I’m not going to deny that, although I found the idea original, I hadn’t found the hook that made me say “WOOOW”.

Two weeks went by, and I found myself going around in circles to write some emails and improve my list engagement, and I decided to re-read all the MVE content.

…

I admit I have no idea what was going on in my head the first time I saw the course.

This is one of the best courses I have EVER bought.

I probably read it without much thought – the way one reads newspapers in the morning – and didn’t see how much value it had.

And I am writing this email to you after:

1. having carefully studied MVE, and
2. Having put it into practice and seen the results.

I paid $100 for this course. However, if it had cost me $500, I would have paid for it anyway (I really still can’t get over how effective and unique it is).

Even though MVE’s sales page states well everything the training comes with…

I believe the course contains MUCH more at a deeper level, and its results are better than what you state on your sales page.

Thank you for this. I understand that it is something I paid for and that is the “price”, but beyond that, I feel that selling this product is a service you are doing that is worth 10 times what I paid.

I have had good results in my newsletter, and just now it has grown more than expected and I have built an audience that I feel comfortable with – and I owe that in large part to MVE.

===

Maybe you yourself feel provoked or at least disappointed now.

Maybe you feel I’ve bait-and-switched you by promising you some genuine drama, and instead I’ve sneaked in a testimonial for one of my courses.

If so, let me work to make it up to you:

The reader who sent me the above message, Jesús Silva, “got” me with his opening.

I started off reading his email thinking, “What a jackass. Why would anybody take the trouble to write me and say something I’ve worked hard to create is ‘good’ but not WOOOW.”

By the end of Jesús’s message though, I thought this is the nicest testimonial I’ve ever gotten for MVE.

I asked myself why.

After all, I’ve had many people write me with very positive and even grateful reviews of MVE.

Why did this one impact me more?

Perhaps it’s obvious.

It’s that bit of emotional roller coastering… the swing from “‘good’ but not WOOOW”… to “one of the best courses EVER” and to thanking me for selling this course.

In other words, the second half of Jesús’s message is very flattering. But on its own, it wouldn’t have the impact that it had on me when prefaced by the hackle-raising opening.

So the point I have for you today:

There’s great power in emotional contrast.

From negative to positive… from humiliated to triumphant… from arrogant to nice… from alarmist to optimistic.

Emotional contrast is simple. But it can move people who cannot be moved otherwise… and it can can create a much stronger reaction than a one-sided appeal ever could.

But back to that “good but not WOOOW” MVE course:

I’ve raised the price of MVE dramatically since Jesús bought. Rather than the $100 I charged Jesús, I now sell MVE for $297. That’s three times as expensive. It’s a shameless price hike on the level of Martin Shkreli.

But if what Jesús says is true, MVE is still a good deal and is still underpriced, even at this new higher price.

And I can tell you I wouldn’t sell MVE at this new price if I didn’t think the education inside is worth much more, if only you only read the content thoroughly and then put it to use, growing your influence, list, and even marketing skills, faster and further than you might ever think possible.

The MVE trick takes all of one hour to learn, though you might want to go through the content twice to get it on a deeper level.

If you’d like to get started with that now, so you can start profiting today rather than weeks or months later, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

How I’m building a sales page in publick

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Two days ago, I released my Simple Money Emails course for the world to buy, even though the beast doesn’t have a sales page to promote it.

And you know what?

People did buy, even with no sales page.

But I bet more people would buy in the future if I actually were to have a proper sales page, one that explains the value of this course… and that answers questions prospects might have… and that assures them they are not being “had” but are in fact making a smart decision.

The trouble, as I wrote two days ago, is that I’ve been waiting for months for this sales page to magically write itself… but that hasn’t happened.

So I had an idea, which is just to write the sales page piecemeal, in publick, one email at a time.

I’ve done this once before, for the Influential Emails training I put on two years ago. It started out with just a headline, the details of the actual offer, and a “BUY NOW” button. I fleshed it out every few days, using stuff from my daily emails.

It ended up working great. Why not try it again?

So this morning, I took the core of my email from two days ago, about the actual SME offer along with a testimonial, and I put that onto a fresh page on my site. I added in a headline and the barest bit of deck copy.

Done. For now. ​​

In the future, I might write an email about how this course is unique… address objections I get from people… talk about how it’s taken me a good number of years to distill my experience into the simple idea at the core of this training… position myself against alternatives out there… hit you with some tear-jerking motivation copy to get going now… and all that can then be fitted into my existing minimal sales page, one block at a time.

If you’re curious about what’s actually inside the Simple Money Emails training, you can find it at link below. ​​And if you need a bit of an extra reason to click, here’s what Paul Morrison, who has helped marketing legend Ken McCarthy put out 11 of his most recent books, had to say about SME:

===

I’m glad you wrote this email soliciting feedback for your course. I’ve been meaning to send you a testimonial ever since first going through it.

Put simply, this course is probably the most straight-forward and practical approach to writing emails I have yet to come across.

I valued it so much that I printed the pages out and keep them next to my desk for regular study.

(As a point of comparison, next to your course, on my desk, are Ben Settle’s Skhema Book, and Daniel Throssell’s Email Copywriting Compendium — I’m sure you likely have both of those courses yourself — and I now consider these three documents my personal “email writing bible”.)

For anyone who is struggling to actually get started writing emails for their biz (especially daily emails) I think Simple Money Emails takes the cake, and I couldn’t recommend it enough.

===

If you wanna see a sales page being built in publick, or better yet, if you want to buy Simple Money Emails so you can start writing daily emails for your business, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

It might be fantastic and refreshing, but it ain’t got a sales page

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I’ll admit it right away:

The world has not been crying out to buy my Simple Money Emails course.

This past summer, I launched it as a special offer via an ad in Josh Spector’s newsletter. Many of my readers got it back then.

I haven’t advertised it or offered it since, because I’ve been waiting for the sales page to write itself.

But the sales page refuses to do any writing. And I have little interest in doing its job for it. I have lots of more exciting, more promising things I can be doing.

Things were at this impasse until a couple days ago, when I got the following email from a reader:

===

I subscribed through Josh Spector’s newsletter and thought The Simply Money Emails Course was fantastic and refreshing.

Of the many different courses (free and paid) that I have taken, Simple Money Emails is the only course that has taken me from being a complete email copywriting newbie to feeling ready to take on client projects after completing the course.

As for my feedback on the course I’d say it is very detailed and meaty even though it looks like a short course initially. What tied everything together is the video interview you did with Igor and I’d say for future versions of Simple Money Emails I’d like to see more video content for visual learning (and faster consumption)

I haven’t gotten through the swipe files yet but I think they’re the cherry on top and I definitely will use them as a base or inspiration for the emails that I am going to write for my clients.

===

The fact is, I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from people who have gone through Simple Money Emails already.

And so from today on, I’ve decided to make this course available to buy, even without a sales page.

(I will deal with the sales page issue in a possibly exciting way starting tomorrow.)

For now, I will just tell you what’s inside my Simple Money Emails offer:

1. My Simple Money Emails training

​​Since 2015, I’ve written close to 2,000 daily sales emails. I’ve used them to successfully sell info courses, live trainings, high-ticket coaching, supplements, software, ecommerce products, even pet supplies.

​​In this training, I distill all this experience to give you a simple, repeatable, 1-2 process, which almost anyone can use, to write daily emails that make sales today and keep your readers coming back tomorrow.

2. Simple Money Email Swipes

​​This is a swipe file containing 51 of my simplest, most effective money-making emails. These include all the emails I reference in the core SME training, plus many more — all highlighted and marked up to show you the relevant ideas or concepts in action.

3. Quick & Dirty Emails That Make Money

​​This is a presentation I gave 2021 to Igor Kheifets’s $97/month mastermind. I talked about my experience writing daily emails to two large lists made up of ecommerce buyers — which were each making $4k to $5k in sales with each email, day after day. In many ways, this training was the forerunner to the complete Simple Money Emails training.

4. 9 Deadly Email Sins

​​Over the past year, several successful business owners and course creators have paid me multiple thousands of dollars to critically look at each email they were sending and give them my feedback.

​​This training sums up the 9 most frequent pieces of copywriting feedback I’ve given in these exclusive coaching situations, along with examples of actual copy I critiqued. I sold this training for $100 when I put it on live, but it’s yours free as part of Simple Money Emails.

5. The price for Simple Money Emails, parts 1-4 above, is $197.

If you decide you’d like in, you can buy Simple Money Emails here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

… and if not, that’s okay. I’ll be back tomorrow, teasing and demoing the ideas from this course without spelling them out. Perhaps in time you will figure it all out. Or if you have no time to be teased and you’d like to get going now, well, the link is above.

Here’s something interesting you haven’t thought about before

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This morning I was chewing on a carrot — I’m trying to eat more vegetables — and to distract myself, I put on a standup comedy routine by Larry David, the writer behind Seinfeld and later the star of Curb Your Enthusiasm. David opened his set by saying:

===

You seem like a very nice audience. I’m wondering, in case I break into some Spanish or French, may I use the familiar “tu” form with you people? Instead of “usted”? Because I think “usted” is gonna be a little too formal for this crowd. I feel already that I’ve established the kind of rapport that I can jump into the “tu” form with you.

===

Larry David’s brand of humor is awkwardness. He always hits a snag on social interactions that others handle smoothly. He has to verbalize and negotiate things that others do subconsciously or nonverbally. That’s why his opening above illustrates the following point so well:

Comedians assume familiarity in their sets.

Why familiarity? Because being familiar is a precondition to being funny.

Comedian Bill Burr opens his “Why Do I Do This” special — my favorite — by saying, “It’s nice to be here. I didn’t do shit today. I didn’t. I’m a loser man. I just sat around watching TV and all that type of stuff. Let me tell you something…” Only then does he launch into his actual set.

You might wonder why I’m killing the joke in this way.

It’s because the same applies to you, at least if you want to influence other people, to sell your products, your services, or your ideas.

Comedians assume familiarity. So do pick up artists. Hypnotists do something similar that suits them, and that’s to assume trance.

The result is that their audiences, targets, and subjects, follow.

So that’s my suggestion for you too:

Figure out what goal you are trying to lead people to. Then figure out what the preconditions are for that.

And then, just act as-if. Assume that the preconditions are true.

Do it with enough conviction — not like Larry David, but like Bill Burr — and people will fall into step with you. This is as true of sales and copywriting as it is of comedy, magic, and seduction.

Speaking of seduction:

If you think you might learn a thing or two from me about influence, then consider my Copy Riddles course.

​​I break down the seemingly simplest type of copy — sales bullets — along dimensions you might not have ever thought about.

​​The result is you go from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence quickly… and then with a bit of practice to unconscious competence, where you simply own these copywriting skills, cold.
​
​In case you’re interested:

​https://bejakovic.com/cr/

How Edward Bernays manipulated me, and how he might do it again

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I once wrote an email with the subject line, “How I manipulated you, and how I might do it again.”

​​That email was all about the strategic use of inflammatory words — like “manipulated” — to get people reading stuff they might not read otherwise.

Well, Edward Bernays manipulated me, and I guess he manipulated millions of other people, too.

Right now, I’m reading Bernays’s book Propaganda. It’s been in print for the past 100 years, and it’s still discussed today, though I suspect few people who discuss it have ever read it.

Why do people know and discuss Propaganda? Because of that title. Propaganda. It’s like manipulated. On the one hand repulsive, on the other hand fascinating.

Imagine that Bernays had titled his book Public Relations — which is really what his book is about. Would we be talking about it today, much less reading it?

The answer is no. The proof is that Bernays did in fact write a book called Public Relations. Result?

Propaganda: 2,700+ reviews on Amazon
Public Relations: 74 reviews on Amazon — and I bet most of those only came via Bernays’s Propaganda fame

All that’s to say, hooks matter. And unless you hook someone right away, then all the other thousands of words you might have written won’t matter much.

But you knew that. It’s the oldest bit of advice traded around the copywriting bonfire.

What you might not know is how to write a great hook. How to make it sensational and inflammatory — propaganda for the rest of what you have to say.

About that. As Daniel Throssell wrote recently:

​The skill of coming up with a great hook, and the skill of making it sensational, are almost exactly the same as a tiny, mechanical, supposedly “niche” copywriting skill you probably do not yet possess.

​​But it’s a skill you can find out more about, and even acquire quickly, via the following page:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Jim Camp, plagiarist

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Last week, Ben Settle sent out an email in which he quoted a reader who said the following about negotiation coach Jim Camp:

“… his whole system for the most part comes from Dave Sandler and he never gives him credit, ever that I’ve heard. Now I realize he has done many things to make him an expert but he has never anywhere I’ve heard even mentioned Sandler.”

Ben is a big Jim Camp fan, and has infected many of his readers, me among them, with Jim Camp’s authority.

Ben shrugged off his reader’s comment, and said he had never heard of Sandler.

​​Neither had I. But I looked Sandler up. He was a sales trainer and he died in 1995.

I found a book of 49 of Sandler’s “Timeless Selling Principles.” Most of the rules line up very well with Camp’s system. And some line up exactly.

​​Take a quick look over the specific language in the chapter headings and summaries below, and you’ll see that Jim Camp was in fact taking a lot from Sandler. ​​From the book:

* “Don’t spill your candy in the lobby” [Camp swapped in “beans” for “candy”]

* “The best sales presentation you’ll ever give, the prospect will never see” [taken word-for-word]

* “The bottom line of professional selling is going to the bank” [Camp said “bottom line of negotiation…”]

* “You must be comfortable telling your prospect that it’s OK to say ‘No.’ You must also be comfortable hearing and accepting ‘No.'” [Camp used this pretty much word-for-word, and summed it up with the title of his book, Start With No.]

In that Ben Settle email, Ben wrote, “If you learn something that’s not common knowledge from a particular source it’s good to give credit.”

I’ve read and listened to Camp a lot, but I’ve never read or heard Camp credit Dave Sandler. I’ve heard him mention Peter Drucker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, even Gloria Steinam, but never Sandler. (I checked just now, and Sandler is credited once, among 20 other mentors, at the end of Start With No.)

So now what? Is Jim Camp really a plagiarist? Or did he at least snub an influential mentor by not crediting him enough?

It might be interesting for the gossip, but on a practical level, I couldn’t care less.

As I wrote a long time ago in this newsletter, I’m less interested in attribution than in ideas that work.

Jim Camp’s system works. I know because I’ve used it and seen it work.

But is it really Camp’s system? Or Sandler’s system? Or somebody else’s who came before Sandler? Or some amalgam?

Instead of agonizing over those tough questions, I would like to give you a better, easier question to ponder:

Do you remember any of Sandler’s points above?

​​The real value in this email is those five points, not a dogpile on the topic of whether Camp gave due credit or not.

And yet, I doubt one person in a hundred will remember any of Sandler’s ideas above from this email… while many will remember that I wrote an email with the subject line, “Jim Camp, plagiarist.”

No judgment there. Such is the human brain — wired for human action and drama. You can gripe about it and fight it without effect, or you can simply accept it and work with it.

As I wrote once before, it’s your choice whether you want to be subtle or savage in how you work with it.

What is not your choice is how people’s brains work, and what kinds of messages they respond to.

​​And the most condensed and powerful type of message that people respond to… well, you can read more about that here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Why I don’t write to my “old self”

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“… the 30-oared ship of Theseus, the Athenians constantly removed the decayed part of her timbers, and renewed them with sound wood, so that the ship became an illustration to philosophers of the doctrine of growth and change, as some argued that it remained the same, and others that it did not remain the same.”

It’s become popular online advice to say, “Write to your old self.” Solve the problems that you yourself had two months or two years ago.

I believe I first heard Rich Schefren say this years ago, but it’s become widespread since.

I don’t do it this way. I don’t write to my old self. Two reasons why:

First, find it hard to move forwards while looking backwards — it gives me seasickness.

Second, I frankly don’t remember who I was two years ago, any more than I can guess who I will be two years from now.

Instead, what I do, and what you can consider doing too, is to write to myself today. I write about what I find interesting, motivating, valuable-sounding right now.

For example, in my email yesterday, I wrote about very high-ticket back-end offers. Why? Because I sense it’s something I should be doing today, or at least in the next few months.

Of course, among the ideas I find interesting many have to do with tennis gossip, identifying plants in the wild, or my own health.

I don’t write about those. I make an effort to choose among all the many ideas I find interesting, motivational, and valuable-sounding, and I only write about those that can also be interesting to people who tend to read this newsletter.

Still, the starting point is always what I find interesting, today, now.

In case this idea resonates with you, I can tell you there are some benefits to doing it this way, at least in my mind:

It’s fresher, more honest, less preachy than writing to my old self.

It can be more valuable to readers — because I’m writing based on my current experience and emotions, rather than on fading or faulty memories.

Ultimately, by focusing on ideas that can make me better, rather than what made my old self better, it makes this newsletter better in the long term, and benefits my readers if they stick with me.

Maybe this doesn’t do anything for you. But then again, maybe it resonates with you on some level.

And if it does, and if you’d like to do something similar, then consider using my Most Valuable Email trick. It’s a way to take ideas that interest or intrigue you, play with them, and make them interesting to your readers, too. For more information on MVE:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Pride as proof element

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I was on a call with one of my coaching students recently. He had added some new features to his subscription offer. He was excited and enthusiastic about it, and so he wrote up one of his daily emails to announce it.

I thought this was great, and I told him so.

Not necessarily for the feature or even what it would do for his customers, though that was solid. But the real thing that was great was my student’s excitement and enthusiasm around the whole thing.

My very first big direct response copywriting client was Josh Dunlop. Josh hired me via Upwork in early 2016, some 6 months after I decided to work as freelance copywriter. Back then, Josh had a 7-figure site selling photography courses. I’m guessing it’s even bigger now.

I remember talking to Josh at some point and hearing him say he’s particularly proud of one of his courses. That stuck with me. I put it into an email that sold that course, and it did well. I guess it resonated with his readers too. I’ve been using it ever since.

In his book How to Write a Good Advertisement, Vic Schwab lists 17 types of proof. As far as I can see, “pride in your work” is not among them. But it should be.

People normally cannot judge the quality of your offer before they buy it. They might not be able to judge it even after. But they sure can judge your emotions around what you sell.

​​So if you are proud of what you sell, highlight that, so people know it, and so they have an easier time making up their own minds. Speaking of:

As I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, I’m proud of my Copy Riddles course.

​​I’m proud of the initial concept for the course… I’m proud of the way I managed to carry it out and the learning experience I provided for people who get it… I’m proud of the feedback I’ve gotten, including from people whose jobs and careers have been positively impacted by this training.

Of course, pride is not the only proof element I have to show you that Copy Riddles is a worthwhile investment. For the full presentation, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr