Copywriting

How to sell innovative products that eliminate a common gripe and are completely different from other solutions the market has tried

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I have a little treasure chest I call the “Horror Advertorial Swipe File.”

This swipe file collects 25 horror advertorials I’ve written in the past, which were responsible for millions of dollars in sales to cold Facebook and YouTube traffic of random ecom products, from dog seat belts to kids vitamins to shoe insoles.

I also have outlines of 6 common “horror advertorial” structures found in this swipe file, which I realized and formalized only after writing dozens of these advertorials.

These structures are broken up by the kind of product that’s being promoted and the kind of market problem, for example:

* Everyday need – innovative product that eliminates a common gripe – completely different solution to what they’re currently using

* Acute, annoying problem – science breakthrough packaged into technology

* Unaware of ongoing problem – no good solution – finally a good solution

I even followed one of my own advertorial structures recently when writing up the case study of the $31k auction I ran last month. (I followed the first structure above, of the everyday need and the innovative product that eliminates common gripes with previous solutions like launches, webinars, and sales calls.)

Yes, ecom advertorial structures can be a a great fix for writing boring and literal (version 1 of my case study) and turning the same into exciting and mysterious (version 2), even if you’re writing an entirely different-seeming format (case study/lead magnet versus cold-traffic advertorial).

I’m telling you this because I’m currently promoting the 1-Person Advertorial Agency, which I claim is the hottest opportunity for copywriters in 2026.

Yesterday, I wrote about the “quality” or lack thereof of the copy that this system produces.

I’m putting “quality” in quotes because the real quality is not whether the copy sounds like AI or not (AI does the heavy lifting, and you then polish), but whether it sells or not – and it sells.

In any case, I got a reply to yesterday’s email from Sam Bradbury-Butler, who is both a reader of this newsletter and the creator of the 1-Person Advertorial Agency system. Said Sam:

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I would say a John Bejakovic level writer is likely to get John Bejakovic level advertorials out of the system. The better you know a market, your skill as a writer and the better the examples you feed it, the better an advertorial you’ll get. There’s also no reason why you couldn’t use a John Bejakovic advertorial as the base structure and rhythm of your advertorial if you have his swipe file (!!)

Since there’s a final layer of editing we do, the final product comes down to the writers judgement and skill. AI lays out the proven pieces, and we come through and polish by hand (which I show in the program).

That said, the biggest benefit of the system isn’t that you can make an AI write better than JB but that you can pump out advertorials of a very high quality fast that have the highest possible chance of making an ecom brand (and YOU) a large amount of dosh on each one.

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I was unclear on the bit where Sam says folks could benefit from having my Horror Advertorial Swipe File, and how that fits into his AI workflow. I asked Sam to elaborate. He did:

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After we’ve done our research and designed our ‘argument’ based on the avatar’s beliefs, we use a proven advertorial swipe to become the ‘blueprint’ for the structure and rhythm of the piece. So if someone was to use one of your swipes as the model for their advertorial, it would follow the same structure but written with the stories and language of the researched market and specifically about the product of focus.

For anyone who loves your Horror advertorial style (me included) it’s a great way to create this style of page and then make it your own.

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When I initially promoted the 1-Person Advertorial Agency last summer, I didn’t include any bonuses, because I figured nothing I had could materially contribute to the already overflowing cup of value included in this offer.

This second time, I have come up with a few bonuses that make it even easier or more likely that you will see success, and quick, if you decide to go the 1-Person Advertorial Agency route.

I am now throwing in the Horror Advertorial Swipe File into the mix. The total list of bonuses, if you invest in 1-Person Advertorial Agency, before 12 midnight tomorrow, Saturday is this:

#1 Horror Advertorial Swipe File, which you can feed to the AI beast so it produces better, or rather, more horrifying advertorials

#2. 26 Rules of Client Management for Copywriters, taken from my Copy Zone guide to the business side of copywriting

#3. Most Valuable Postcard #1: Nota Rapida, which digs into the topic of building long-term relationships with copywriting clients much more deeply

#4. Ghostbuster, Nick Bandy’s 5-stage sequence for reactivating (reanimating?) dead clients or prospective clients

Btw, did you catch the deadline above?

It’s tomorrow, Saturday, at 12 midnight PST.

I have other stuff to get to, and so I’m ending my promo early, even before Sam and company completely close down their order page.

If you want the bonuses above, you will have to act before 12 midnight PST tomorrow, Saturday. Or why not act now, why it’s on your mind? Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

If you have ambitions of copywriting mastery…

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A long time reader and professional copywriter writes in to ask about 1-Person Advertorial Agency, which I claim is the hottest opportunity for copywriters in 2026, and which I’ve been promoting all week:

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John, be honest… is the copy the system spits out for the advertorials any good?

Because compared to your advertorial copy, I don’t know, man.

I looked at the advertorial samples on the sales page, and one of them pretty much reads exactly like AI.

That second-to-last paragraph in the joint pain advertorial especially… it made absolutely no sense.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me being picky.

I just wanted to get your opinion before I consider pulling the trigger.

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Is the copy any good?

I can’t say. I haven’t used the 1-Person Advertorial Agency system myself. But I think the proof is in the pudding.

Does it matter if professional copywriters say it reads like AI?

Or is it more important if it’s making sales to cold traffic, and both the business and the copywriter are making bank?

As for the results of the copy this system produces — the 30% boosts in conversions, the millions of dollars worth of resulting sales, the $49k paychecks — I trust Sam Bradbury-Butler and Thom Benny, the two guys who created this offer. That’s why I’m promoting this to you full-throat.

If you have ambitions of copywriting mastery, I think that’s a noble goal to strive after.

All I will say is it’s much easier to get good as a copywriter if you have successful clients… if you are working on real projects… if you can see sales coming in hourly or minutely… if you have opportunities to test and get results on your tests every day.

Ultimately that’s what this opportunity is about:

Get clients, get results, get paid.

If that’s something that interests you, either so you can take your ample earnings and chill in your ample free time, or so you can take your client relationships and use them to turn yourself into the next Gene Schwartz, here’s where to get at this opportunity, before it closes in a few short days:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

Will the advertorial opportunity get saturated?

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Yesterday, I started promoting 1-Person Advertorial Agency, which I claim is the hottest opportunity for copywriters in 2026.

Today, I made some sales. I also got some questions. Here’s a layup:

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My furry little mittens are intrigued, enough to make me interested in creating a lucrative side hustle so I don’t have to rely on overtime from work to pad my pay packet. I am not working in the business or copywriting space but if this works for beginners then I think it would work for me. My question though, is do you think this would get saturated given places aren’t capped?

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“Will it get saturated” is a natural question to ask with any “hot” business opportunity, even a niche one like this.

The glib answer is to do some back of napkin math:

There are an estimated 280 million ecommerce businesses worldwide. Even if only 1% are a good fit for this (it’s likely more), and if a staggering 1,000 people end up buying and applying this program (probably way less), there will still be 280 clients to go around for everybody who gets in on this opportunity.

That’s all probably true and even an underestimate. But who was ever persuaded by numbers? For sure not me.

So lemme tell you a better way to look at this situation, meaning my way to look at this situation.

The real opportunity here is not to get dozens or hundreds of clients, and to keep hunting after more and more clients.

The real opportunity here is that advertorials that increase front-end conversions are a way to get your foot in the door with two or three really good long-term partners, who are able and willing to pay you hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars over the long-term.

I speak to this from experience. Five+ years ago, I was actually writing lotsa advertorials for ecommerce clients.

The results were just like the sales page for 1-Person Advertorial Agency claims:

Dramatic boosts in conversion rates and ability to scale on cold traffic. A lot of demand.

All in all, it was fine work, and well paid, even though it took me 4-5 days to do what can now be done in 45 minutes.

But even at the nice rate I was getting paid per advertorial, the vast majority of the money I made with those clients, and in fact the vast majority of the money I’ve ever made from copywriting — I’m guessing over 90% — came via commission-only emails I wrote to the buyers’ lists of those clients.

You don’t have to write emails if you don’t want to.

My point is simply, once again, to get yourself into a place where “saturation” becomes completely irrelevant to you, because you have formed a tight and codependent bond with a few clients. Once you’re making them and yourself a lot of money, you really don’t care what everybody else might be doing because your clients/partners would never think to go somewhere else.

To help you get there, I have decided to add in a few bonuses to the already overflowing cup of value that’s included inside 1-Person Advertorial Agency. Specifically:

#1. 26 Rules of Client Management for Copywriters, taken from my Copy Zone guide to the business side of copywriting.

Inside Copy Zone, I put the section on Client Management before Client Acquisition. As I explain in there:

“It might seem like we’re jumping ahead. But in my copywriting career so far, the biggest mistakes I’ve made and the biggest opportunities I’ve squandered were not due to being ignorant of some secret technique for client acquisition. Instead, they were due to choosing the wrong clients.”

#2. Most Valuable Postcard #1: Nota Rapida, which digs into the topic of building long-term relationships with copywriting clients much more deeply.

#3. Ghostbuster, Nick Bandy’s 5-stage sequence for reactivating (reanimating?) dead clients or prospective clients. As Nick says on the sales page for Ghostbuster:

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I’ve been ghosted after:

* The client replies

* I reveal my rates

* The client sends a job offer

* The client funds the first milestone

* And even AFTER getting paid and receiving a review from the client!

And it really doesn’t matter how good of a salesperson you are, or how amazing your first message was. People. Just. Ghost. It happens to everybody. But it doesn’t have to KEEP happening.

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… and while Ghostbuster can certainly help you turn interested but ghosty prospects into actual clients, it’s even more valuable in that last case, where you’ve already done some work for a client, it went great, and then they ghost you for reasons of their own (it happens).

That’s all if you get 1-Person Advertorial Agency.

Like I said, there’s a sales page for that offer, but rather than send you there, I’ll send you to an email-style advertorial, a piece of sales copy masquerading as content, which I wrote about this offer yesterday, and which will allow you to get a good idea if this offer is for you or not:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-son-of-sams-1-person-advertorial-agency/

Announcing: Son of Sam’s 1-Person Advertorial Agency

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Today, you can get your furry little mittens on the 1-Person Advertorial Agency, which I believe to be the hottest opportunity for copywriters in 2026.

The background:

Sam Bradbury-Butler is a rare beast, an actual, living freelance copywriter who is doing GREAT, both in 2025 and even in these few days of 2026.

Sam’s been working with various ecom clients over the past few years. He has made millions for them by producing (rather than writing) advertorials, and he’s getting PAID as a result.

How paid?

This January 1st, just 11 days ago, Sam got paid over $49,900…

… for one month’s work, or rather, for one month’s results…

… for just ONE client. And Sam’s got a buncha clients.

How Sam does it, and how you can do it too, is what you can find out on the sales page below.

It lays everything out in gruesome detail.

In short, 1-Person Advertorial Agency is a copywriting-business-in-a-box, and it shows you, step-by-step, with nothing held back:

* How Sam gets advertorial clients who have never heard of him before, without flexing his portfolio or client results…

* How he stamps out advertorials that convert on cold traffic, in as little as 47 minutes (AI does the heavy lifting, Sam double checks and polishes)

* How he swings performance deals rather than retainers (performance deals = more money, less workee)

… and, most important, HOW YOU CAN DO THE SAME. I mean that.

The classical business opportunity pitch is always, “… with no experience needed!”

Well, as you can see on the sales page below, that’s actually true here.

One zero-experience dude named Maceo took Sam’s advertorial printing press and made his first $100k as a copywriter.

Another zero-experience dude named Tom took this system and, within 4 hours, produced an advertorial that increased conversions for an ecom business by 30%.

As Sam himself says:

“If I had no case studies and zero clients… I would spend the next 30 days using this system to write an advertorial every day for brands I liked and send it to them offering to test it free of charge.”

Of course, if you do have some experience, it won’t hurt, and who knows, it might even help. In fact, if there were one thing that can lure me back into copywriting, this 1-Person Advertorial Agency might turn out to be it.

This is only the second time this program is being made available.

I promoted it the first and only other time it appeared, last August. Back then, it was only open with 30 spots, and it sold out in something like 12 hours after I wrote about it to my list.

That’s to say, this is a legit untapped opportunity, which not a lot of people know about, but which you can properly benefit from.

If you wanna find out more about it, or better yet, get started with it today:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

Taking credit for your rock star clients’ results

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A few days ago, I was on a call with “Rebelpreneur” Gasper Crepinsek.

Over the past couple years, Gasper built an online brand teaching people AI. He’s still doing that, but this year he is going broader, using his background as an ex-Boston Consulting guy to help people build actual and sustainable businesses online.

I helped Gasper launch a $1k+ offer last month.

We worked on it together for a couple weeks, then Gasper went out and sold it to three people in his audience in a matter of days. He then started delivering the actual offer.

Result: One of Gasper’s clients already closed his own sales and is making money as a result of working just a few weeks with Gasper.

About that, Gasper said, “He’s attributing it to me, but I told him, ‘It’s all you.'”

My message to Gasper on our call, and maybe to you now, is to take credit where you’ve earned it.

Sure, it’s smart to sell to people who would succeed with or without you. When they do inevitably succeed, there’s a glow on you as well.

That doesn’t mean you can’t take some of the credit, and legitimately.

Even if somebody is an absolute rock star, you can inspire them… you can push them a bit… you can guide them through a process so they get results faster, sooner, easier, more enjoyably than they might have done otherwise.

In Gasper’s case, his client might have done something similar in another 3 or 6 months. But because of working with Gasper, he’s got another, say, $5k in the bank, today.

That’s pretty much what my situation is with Gasper as well.

The dude was succeeding and would have succeeded more, one way or another, with or without me.

But I helped him come up with a simple, attractive offer that, from the looks of it, will be his main, high-ticket, backend money-maker for the coming year. (Gasper says, “It’s crazy how much people like it,” meaning the offer).

Is having a $1k+ offer, which you can readily sell to your list, something that interests you?

If so, hit reply and let me know.

You can’t buy anything here. But if you do reply, I’ll give you a 1-page overview of the process that I guided Gasper through, so you can go do it yourself if you like.

Where to buy crack

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A few days ago, I saw a video on YouTube that has since been taken down, I’m guessing because of the provocative topic.

The video was by a former crack addict, now turned sobriety coach. The title of it was something like:

“I am a crack addict, I can find crack anywhere”

The dude told a story to illustrate:

He used to have a white collar job (tech sales, “always the next easy thing”). At the same time, he was also a crack addict as his true primary occupation.

One day, his boss and he flew to a sales conference in a new town, I believe Orlando.

Sales conference is fine. But the real question was, where to buy crack in this new town, and quick?

The dude couldn’t just ask other sales conference attendees. “Hey are you from here? You know a good place to buy some crack?”

But he did get the info, and from the other conference attendees, and immediately.

Of course he didn’t ask directly.

Not only would he be compromising himself, but more importantly (crack being his primary occupation and interest) he wouldn’t actually find out where to buy crack.

The other conference attendees couldn’t verbalize the answer, either because they would find the question personally threatening or offensive, or because it’s something they had never thought about, because “where to buy crack” is not the way they think about their city.

So what did the guy do?

Simple. He asked, “Hey are you local? Where should I NOT go? Which part of town am I likely to get knifed or gunned down in?”

As the dude tells it in the now-deleted video, within 15 minutes, he had taken a cab, bought a crack pipe, and was smoking. This led to a three-day crack binge, getting fired from his tech sales job, and a shameful flight back home, sitting next to his former boss.

And now, you know where and how to get crack if you ever find yourself in a new town. But if you’re not planning to travel anywhere new, let me point out how this is also relevant to you right where you are.

Forget about the crack for a minute. Put that aside.

Instead, think about trying to sell your offer.

I’ve heard sales described as “the process of getting the truth on the table.”

How do you do that, though?

You can ask, of course:

“Are you overweight by 40lbs or more?”

Sometimes that can work. But in many cases, it won’t — either because people find the question personally threatening or offensive, or simply because it’s something they had never thought about, because it’s not the way they think about their situation.

Maybe the crack-finding parallels are becoming clear now.

The fix, in both cases, is to ask your leads about symptoms. People might not know they have the problem (or in the case of crack, opportunity). But they sure do know the symptoms, and much of the time, they are willing to tell you.

Over the past few weeks, I have been helping a few folks who have email lists and who had previously tried offering coaching to their audience, only to hear an orchestra of crickets. I’m helping them package up said coaching into $1k+ offers that are easier to sell and deliver.

The kind of asking-about-symptoms I just told you about is a part of this process.

Is having a $1k+ offer, which you can readily sell to your list, something that interests you?

If so, hit reply and let me know.

You can’t buy anything here. But if you do reply, I’ll give you a 1-page overview of how this process works, so you can go do it yourself if you like.

What Hysterical Hulks can teach you about procrastination

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See if you can spot the pattern:

1. On Feb 8 2006, a woman in a village at the northern reaches of Canada was watching her son and his friends play hockey.

This being close to the polar circle, a polar bear appeared, which was later found to weigh 320kg aka 507lbs.

The woman jumped in front of the bear to allow the kids to get away. She tried scaring the beast but that didn’t do much, and so the two of them got into a life-and-death wrestling match.

The bear seemed to be getting the upper hand, but the woman was holding her own.

Meanwhile the kids ran and got help from a local hunter. The hunter got his shotgun and “neutralized” the bear.

The woman got away with only light injuries. She was later awarded Canada’s Medal For Bravery and got a Gold Star for her bear-handling skills.

2. In 2012, a 22-year-old woman lifted a BMW off her father, who had been working under the car when the jack collapsed. The BMW weighed over 1500kg.

3. Back in the 1990s, a man pulled over on the highway when he saw a wrecked car with a man trapped inside. He ripped off the metal doors off with his bare hands to get the other guy out.

These a just a few examples of what is known as “hysterical strength.”

Hysterical strength can’t be reproduced in the lab, and doesn’t happen all that often in the wild either. But it does happen.

Michael Regnier, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, was the door-ripping Hulk in anecdote 3 above.

Based on his own experiences (the door ripping, and as a competitive weight lifter, and as professor of bioengineering) Regnier claims that most people can lift six or seven times their body weight, though most of us struggle to deadlift even a small fraction of that at the gym.

What changes in situations of hysterical strength?

It’s not adrenaline pumping through the body. Adrenaline supports better muscle use, yes, but it doesn’t increase the tetanic force, meaning how much a muscle can contract.

Rather, it’s believed hysterical strength is all down to the brain.

Our brains normally restrict maximum muscle exertion to maybe 60% of actual muscle capacity. Elite athletes can through training get that to around 80%. Hysterical Hulks apparently get pretty close to 100% of what their body is capable of for a few dramatic moments.

The brain hinders us like this to keep us safe.

The brain has many ways to keep us from going down dangerous and uncertain paths, even ones that we could survive or in theory even thrive in.

In my own brain, this connected to something I read long ago, which has had a big impact on me over the years. Cal Newport, the author of books like Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You, once had an interesting theory about procrastination. He wrote:

“The evolutionary perspective on procrastination, by contrast, says we delay because our frontal lobe doesn’t see a convincing plan behind our aspiration. The solution, therefore, is not to muster the courage to blindly charge ahead, but to instead accept what our brain is telling us: our plans need more hard work invested before they’re ready.”

Yes, there are tactical ways to beat small-scale procrastination, to “blindly charge ahead,” and I will be talking about those in the coming days and teasing what’s worked for me personally.

But what Newport is advising above has been my best way of dealing with serious, long-term procrastination on any sizeable project that I knew needed doing.

And it’s my advice to you tonight.

If you find yourself procrastinating… get yourself a new plan you can believe in.

How do you do that? I will have more on that tomorrow.

Once upon a time in Ohio

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Lean in so I can tell you a story I myself only heard today:

This story features a cowboy named Gary Halbert, who, as you might know, was one of the legendariest direct marketers to ever terrorize the Wild West.

The story actually takes place before Gary got into direct marketing and copywriting. I’m guessing it happened in the 1960s, in Gary’s home state of Ohio.

In those ancient days, Gary was a salesman, selling postage machines.

The company Gary worked for, Pitney Bowes, divvied up the sales area so that each salesman got to handle a certain number of zip codes.

Whenever the company hired an additional salesman, they would shrink the area of sales that each existing salesman had, in order to give the new guy a few zip codes, and to keep everyone balanced.

Each time this happened, four or five separate times, the existing salesmen bitched and moaned and felt like they’ve lost something in having their area of sales reduced.

In reality, says Gary, each time the salesmen had one of their zip codes taken away, the salesmen actually did BETTER, not worse. They made more sales BECAUSE their area of sales was reduced.

How is this possible?

Stuff like… The salesmen spent less driving and more time selling. They gained better knowledge of local conditions. They developed better relationships with prospects there. They followed up more instead of reaching out to new leads. And so on.

The lesson is clear enough, except… it could never apply to you and what you’re doing, right?

In my Daily Email House community, I heard tell of different folks who are looking to start credible-sounding new businesses:

A direct mail agency. New shopping cart software. A personal trainer business.

Each of those is credible-sounding in the sense that it can succeed, as evidenced by many other such businesses on the market.

At the same time, each of those is much more likely to succeed, or at least to survive the first year, if you narrow down and get more specific about the market you will be working in.

You can slice and dice your market in lots of ways. You might wonder how and which tiny and specific segment to choose?

My answer is to go all the way down to a single prospect. Pick somebody you feel sure you can help… and who you are therefore most likely to sell because of your conviction.

After all, if you cannot sell a specific customer on your proposed solution, and if you cannot solve a particular and definite problem that customer has, then with all due respect, what hope do you have of selling and solving problems for a bigger, more complex, more nebulous group?

I’ll have more to say about this because in 2026, in fact in January, I will be helping folks create and sell their first $1k+ offer.

For now, lemme just tell you I heard that Gary Halbert story earlier today, in a podcast by Dean Jackson and Joe Polish.

As you might know, Joe runs the biggest and (according to him) most successful mastermind for direct response entrepreneurs. (He heard the story above from Gary Halbert directly.)

As for Dean, he’s a legend in the direct marketing space, particularly online.

If you’re doing Internet marketing today in any form, odds are you are using ideas and techniques Dean invented, which have been percolating down through a series of gurus who learned from Dean or from people that Dean taught.

In the podcast I listened to today, Dean and Joe talk about 8 “Profit Activators” that all successful DR businesses are ultimately built on. (The topic of today’s email is Profit Activator #1).

Highly recommended listening:

https://www.morecheeselesswhiskers.com/podcast/268

Read this if you’re stuck with a “hammer selling” brain

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I’m an old, old man. Let me tell you just how old:

I was the washing dishes this morning — my way of staying off the computer right when I get up — when I felt my back start to seize up.

This has happened to me a few times before in my life, always when I was doing some sort of quick movement, usually when it was cold.

Today was the first time it has happened just on its own, while I was behaving myself and in fact elbow-deep in hot water.

(Maybe it’s because I’ve been going to the gym a lot these past days. And when not at the gym, I’ve been doing yoga at home, and yoga, from what I’ve experienced, is an excellent way to get cramps and pull muscles and cause joint injuries.)

In the past, when my back seized up, it was extremely painful, and usually took days to fully resolve itself.

Today I managed to intercept it early.

I stopped what I was doing. I straightened up. I breathed deep. I went to lie down on the floor a bit. I put my back against the radiator in the bathroom to try to get muscles to unspasm. I even went to the pool a bit later and swam for a half hour, which seems to have helped things.

As a result, my back hasn’t been nearly as bad today as in the past when this happened.

But I can still feel it a bit, and when I sit or turn, I get the sense that my back is just waiting to fully seize up.

I will be traveling back to Croatia tomorrow, five hours on various airplanes. I’m hoping to avoid traveling in extreme pain whenever I turn or bend or straighten up.

Do you have any suggestions for me to cure my spasmy back muscles? Anything at all? I’m willing to entertain whatever you can propose.

In other news, yesterday I asked people for new offers they are planning to launch in 2026. I was curious about the offers themselves, and also curious about how people are going about defining these offers.

I got a buncha responses.

Here’s one that caught my eye.

A reader kicked off by telling me he will be launching “a group coaching membership with a 1:1 coaching offer built around it (adding email coaching and *maybe* calls).”

This reader went on to say what this shiny and elaborate hammer is intended for:

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The market is people over 40 who are feeling the effects of age, from less energy, aches and pains, unwanted flab, and such things.

[The reader explained how hard it is to differentiate yourself in that space, or to say anything really new. He concluded with:]

The whole fitness space is the definition of a saturated Stage 5 market, and that’s true even when you dig into several layers of niches and sub-niches.

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In the words of Byron Katie:

Is that true?

Can you be 100% sure that it’s true?

Like I wrote above, right now I would entertain any kind of cure for my almost-but-not-quite seized back.

I wouldn’t really look at the testimonials or endorsements or credentials of the person suggesting it to me… I wouldn’t be concerned about it being a new mechanism… I wouldn’t care whether I have a relationship with the person who’s offering help.

In other words, I, a person over 40 who is feeling “the effects of age, from less energy, aches and pains, unwanted flab, and such things” would be willing to listen to pretty much the first person who would come and promise to have a solution for my highly specific health issue.

I don’t know if “almost-but-not-quite seized back” is a good market to go after.

But it seems like talking about this could at least make for an effective ad… or an email hook… or maybe an Agora-style bonus to give people along with a free trial of the “group coaching membership with a 1:1 coaching offer built around it.”

That’s it. That’s all I got for you today.

I think the marketing and sales implications are clear.

The only thing that might not be 100% clear to you is how to dig up such “layers of niches and sub-niches” where the riches lie in your market.

For that, I’ll direct you to my group and community, Daily Email House.

Inside the group, you can ask questions and I can chime in with comments and occasional answers, and sometimes further questions.

In case you’re having a hard time getting out of “hammer selling” brain and into the frame of solving present pains of the market, here’s my cure for that:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Dude quietly bows out of Monetization Mastermind

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This past summer I created an invite-only group called Monetization Mastermind. To start, I invited a small group of list owners I have done affiliate deals and list swaps with. The idea for the group is to make more such partnerships possible.

Initially, the group featured mainly list owners who sell courses around copywriting or email marketing, since that’s what kinds of offers I’ve promoted a lot in the past.

Over time, the group has grown, either by my invitation or by recommendation of the people inside. As a result, the profile of people inside has gotten more diverse, and has gone beyond course creators in the copywriting space.

So far, everybody who has joined this group has stayed inside, though some participate more and some less. But now I have the first person who has left the group. It happens to be one of the first people I invited inside the group. Two days ago, this dude wrote me to say:

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I think I’m going to quietly bow out of Monetization Mastermind. I’ve been making an effort to network outside of copywriting groups and focus on a different audience. While I appreciate what you’ve built here and have tremendous respect for you and the folks in here, I need to put my energy elsewhere.

Thanks for putting it together. You’re doing a lot of good here. I appreciate you letting me be a part of it.

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I don’t know the full details of this dude’s business.

On the one hand, it’s a tried and true strategy to take yourself and your offers to a new market, particularly one that is willing to pay you more.

On the other hand, based on what little I know of this dude and his business, my diagnosis is that his is an issue of offers.

Specifically, I think it comes down to a classic mistake, one I see others making all the time, and one I have made myself plenty of times too.

Internet Marketer Travis Sago, who is either unable or unwilling to speak other than in metaphor, calls this mistake “selling the hammer.”

The alternative being, selling the birdhouse, or the patio deck, or the chicken coop.

As Travis says, “Nobody is ever just buying a hammer. There’s an outcome they’re looking to get with that hammer”

Do I hear you groaning, or are you rolling your eyes right now?

I mean, this is really just that old chestnut about how nobody wants a quarter-inch drill, but a quarter-inch hole, except with other hardware, right?

Right.

But people find it surprisingly difficult to apply this super obvious and familiar lesson when it comes to their own hammers, ones that they have spent weeks or months designing and sourcing and forging.

Folks keep selling the hammer for years, or for as long as they stand, making new versions and crowing about the latest improvements… until they either wise up and start promising birdhouses and patio decks and chicken coops… or until they quietly bow out of the market, because their hammers are just not selling enough.

This got me curious.

Are you planning to launch an offer in 2026, an offer you need to be a success?

If so, I’m curious what offer you’re planning.

And I’m curious how you came up with your plan.

If you like, hit reply, unburden yourself, and tell me about your upcoming offer.

I’m not promising anything but to listen and maybe to ask some follow up questions.

But who knows, sometimes that can be the most valuable thing you can get, and can lead to insights that can make all the difference when you make the intimidating decision to actually go live.