Copywriting

Unstable copywriting clients

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“Hi Rob, Here’s the invoice for May. Take a look and see if everything looks kosher on your end. Thanks, John”

I sent that email out in June 2021.

I had been working with a dropshipping syndicate. When I say “syndicate,” I mean it was a few young American guys, living in Thailand, who had decided to band together to do dropshipping on an industrial scale.

They were running a dozen funnels for a dozen products, bringing in at the high point 2,000 new buyers per day, and I’m guessing making millions for themselves per year.

Starting in 2019, these guys had hired me to write copy for all the front-end stuff for all their funnels — ads, video scripts, advertorials, landing pages.

For the previous year or so, since early 2020, I was also writing daily emails to their list of about 200,000 buyers, on comission only.

The front-end copy paid me a paltry $150/hr. The back-end emails, after I finally convinced the guys to let me write them for free, on comission only, paid me much much more, the most money I’ve ever gottne paid as a freelance copywriter, money that’s stil sitting in my bank today.

“Hey Rob, Following up on this, not sure you saw it. I checked my account just now and didn’t see this invoice paid. Thanks”

That was a bit later in June 2021. Rob never replied to me. He also never paid my invoice.

I did in the end manage to get paid one last time, by writing to one of his partners, who informed me that the business was shutting down. I never found out why.

I did hear from Rob years later. He wasn’t doing dropshipping any more. He now had a new low-footprint business, buying and flipping land. He wanted to know if I was interested in writing copy for him again. I wasn’t. Also, I checked just now. That new business has also shut down in the meantime.

Here’s my point:

If somebody has no employees, no office, no expensive and custom equipment, no contracts to fulfill, and in general no obligations, what’s keeping them going if things ever get bad, sad, or even just boring? The answer is, nothing.

That’s why it’s a better long-term bet to sell to, say, dentists, who are tethered by a million hooks to their businesses, than to, say, dropshippers, who can decide from today to tomorrow to close their laptops and go work as a land flipper or to maybe roast coffee for a living.

Of course, it’s nice to make a quick cash grab by working where the money is churning right now. (It’s what I was able to do with the dropshipping guys while it still lasted.)

But isn’t it nicer to have a long-running cash grab, one that doesn’t just last for a few months or a year, but one that lasts for three years… five years… 15 years?

I’m telling you this because I’m now promoting an offer by Doberman Dan Gallapoo. I wrote about the full details yesterday. In a nutshell:

Dan is putting together a small group of copywriters and helping them profit from the confusion, uncertainty, and chaos in the market right now.

Dan’s system involves working with profitable businesses, which have been around for years and have large customer database, employees, and often, physical stores.

You can call these “Lindy” clients, as in “Lindy Effect,” which says that things that have been around for a while are likely to stick around.

Dan’s method of finding such clients, and delivering sales for them, is equally Lindy:

Direct mail.

I won’t try to sell you on direct mail or Dan’s system in this email.

Instead, I suggested to Dan that we create a free pop-up group to share more info about this opportunity.

The idea being, this free pop-up group would be a place for a few good folks to get to know Dan… to find out more about how he gets clients and delivers results with direct mail… and see if it’s something they would want to take on with Dan’s guidance, mentorship, and help.

Dan agreed with me. So we are creating this free pop-up group.

Would you like to join us?

RSVP

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I have an invitation for you. Here’s what’s happening:

I’ve been talking to Doberman Dan Gallapoo.

As you might know, Dan is a legit A-list copywriter. As in, he’s been hired by clients like Agora not just to write for them… but to start entire new divisions for them.

Once upon a time, Dan actually roomed with Gary Halbert. He’s one of the five or so people in the entire world that Dan Kennedy will pick up a phone call from, any time.

Since 2011, Dan has been writing and publishing a paid print newsletter about marketing, The Doberman Dan Letter. It’s read by the “who’s who” of the DR space.

Dan runs his own direct response businesses, and he still works with clients and partners with other business owners on revshare deals.

He gets these deals whenever he wants, by doing something no other copywriters today are doing, at least none that I know.

Every economic crisis or so, Dan puts together a small group of copywriters and helps them profit from the confusion, uncertainty, and chaos in the market.

The last time Dan did this was during Covid.

With the Iran war leaking out globally, and the AI bubble getting ever larger and ever more taut, right now is a time of proper uncertainty and stress.

Sure enough, Dan is putting together his group again.

He asked if I would help him promote it. I said yes.

If you’re a copywriter, here’s what is basically on offer here:

* Security in an uncertain time

(Dan’s system involves working with profitable businesses, which have been around for years and have large customer database, employees, and often, physical stores. This is not about trying to write emails for some fly-by-night dropshipper who will be here today and gone tomorrow, while you wait to get paid for the work you did last month.)

* Income that’s not capped or tied to your time

* The “one-eyed man” advantage in the land of the blind

* A ready pool of prospective clients, and a unique mechanism to get the attention of those clients and turn them into gigs fast

* A unique mechanism to make money for those clients in a straightforward way, which doesn’t require daily emailing or writing millions of new ad creatives each week

As for those two secret mechanisms, one to get clients, and the other to make money for those clients… they are actually the same:

Direct mail.

Yes, Dan uses direct mail both to get clients, and to deliver for those clients.

The fact is, direct mail never went away. It’s even growing, with smart online-first DTC brands and high-ticket coaching businesses rediscovering direct mail and bumbling their way through it.

You can do the same. Or you can profit from the experience of a master who’s been doing it for decades, at the highest level, and who makes his living by doing exactly what he is offering to personally help others do.

This opportunity is big and new and probably unfamiliar to you.

I have zero hope of trying to sell it to you in this email.

Like I said, I’ve been talking to Dan.

I suggested we create a free pop-up group to share more info about this opportunity.

The idea being, this free pop-up group would be a place for a few good folks to get to know Dan… to find out more about how he gets clients and delivers results with direct mail… and see if it’s something they would want to take on with Dan’s guidance, mentorship, and help.

Dan agreed with me. So we are creating this free pop-up group.

Would you like to join us?

Who else wants to finally put an end to their prospects’ behavioral problems for good?

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… including leaving your sales page without buying… not reading your copy carefully… not taking you up on your upsells… demanding refunds… and more?

Today I started working with a business owner who has a sizable email list and a cold traffic funnel that’s driving buyers to his list.

Our deal is that I’ll help him monetize his email list better.

As a first step, he asked me for some ideas on how to improve the sales page for his cold traffic funnel.

Why not? After all, the more people we get on his email list, the better it will be for everyone long term. (I’m getting paid partly up front, partly a share of increased sales we get from emails.)

The sales page is doing well, a 3.6% conversion rate. It features the proven old headline formula:

“Get [the good] without [your main objection]”

How to improve on this?

Here’s one idea:

Earlier today, I watched a video by a very successful but very underground marketer. He shared a quick case study.

Once upon a time, he had dog training info biz — various offers to help owners teach their dogs to obey, to be house trained, even to do fancy tricks.

It didn’t work. 1 person in 666 actually bought.

This marketer put a popup survey on his sales page, asking people why they are leaving without buying. People replied:

“My dog is aggressive towards other dogs…”

“My dog chews up our furniture…”

“My dog pulls on the leash…”

“My dog nips at stranger’s heels, AND IT DOESN’T SEEM THIS IS WHAT I NEED.”

The marketer says:

===

Of course all these problems were covered in our book and in our videos. We just doubled down on it, made sure that they were extra covered, extra well… added those to the sales copy… and made the headline something like:

‘Who else wants to finally put an end to their dog’s behavioral problems for good… including digging, barking, chewing, aggression, pulling on the lead, and more?’

All of a sudden it went from 1 in 666 people buying, to 1 in 90 were buying. And then eventually, with a bit more tweaking, we got it to 1 in 60 buying, and then on some search phrases as many as 1 in 10 were buying.

===

You’re probably not selling dog training info. Also, it sounds like this was search traffic, whether organic or paid, and that might be different from other kinds of audiences.

Still.

1 in 666 buying… to 1 in 60 buying. That’s like an 11x improvement in sales. By talking first and foremost about the present pain rather than about future gain. It’s worth a test.

That’s my public service announcement for you. I have nothing really to promote to you today.

So let me remind you of my Copy Riddles program.

The first two rounds of that program deal with this most fundamental topic, of promises, warnings, pain, and gain… and how to use that to keep prospects from ignoring you, leaving you, and not buying.

If you’d like to find out more about Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time

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Today I’d like to recommend a book to you, not just to buy and hoard, but to actually read and apply.

A bit of background:

I myself have a book, my charmingly titled “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, etc.”

I regularly go on Amazon to check on that book — how it’s selling, if there are any nasty new reviews, if it’s maybe reached bestseller status.

As I’ve been doing this, over the course of weeks, months, years, and decades, I’ve been seeing a curious book pop up in the in the “Customers Also Bought” section. The full title of that book I’ve kept seeing:

“The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time: A Fable About Persuasion”

As I tend to do, I went snooping. I found the guy who wrote the book. Turns out he’s got an email list and he writes interesting daily emails about, well waddya know, persuasion.

After a few months of lurking on this guy’s email list, I actually replied to one of his emails. We started chatting. We got on a Zoom call and talked. We got chummy.

Somewhere along the line, Neil, for that is the name of the dude behind the Most Powerful Sentence Of All Time, picked up and read my 10 Commandments book.

I decided to pick up and read his book as well.

And that, dear reader, is the short version of how I got to where I am right now, sitting on my couch, wearing my Garfield pajamas, writing you to recommend Neil’s Most Powerful Sentence Of All Time.

I’m recommending it to you for one very simple reason:

Neil’s book is a recipe book for what copywriters call the “Big Idea.”

In copywriting land, where I used to live for many years, everybody will tell you about the importance of the Big Idea.

The trouble is, nobody can tell you what the Big Idea really is, or how to get one.

There’s a lot of handwaving.

Occasionally, there are some criteria thrown out, like “interesting,” “easy to understand,” “convincing,” “useful,” none of which is particularly easy or useful.

Sometimes, people (myself included) just give up altogether and tell you to come up with 100 ideas, and to throw them to the lions’ den of your market. If any of the ideas survives, why, it must be the Big Idea.

In short, nobody really has a recipe, a process for coming up with a Big Idea, or for shaping and polishing some kind of a promising but rough hunch into a clear and precise sentence that is immediately interesting, easy to understand, useful, convincing etc.

Well, nobody except Neil. And he gives it to you in his book.

Btw, Neil’s book is written as a parable.

Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of parable with talking bears or rabbits. This parable features people.

But it is written as fiction. And because of that, it’s likely to suck you in and make reading about this important topic both enjoyable and memorable.

Let me wrap this up.

French chateau owner and Madison Avenue copywriter David Ogilvy once wrote:

“Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.”

If you don’t want almost all your future campaigns to pass like a ship in the night, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mostpowerfulsentence

Ancient A-list secrets to coming up with new hooks for old offers

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In my Daily Email House community, I have a thread titled, “What can you teach?” It’s a thread inviting people to share their bit of expertise, which we could turn into a training for the community or possibly even into a product.

A few days ago, a new member chimed in to say what he could teach:

===

I can teach anyone to write stories that sell in less than 30 mins even if they’ve never written a story in their life before.

I did live workshops a few years before and taught this method to 35 people and they ALL wrote stories in less than 30 mins. Some even got clients.

I’d love to know what everyone thinks about such an offer and I’d really appreciate if you could offer some pointers.

===

Here’s my pointer:

“Write stories that sell” is a promise that has been made a million and one times over the past few years, by a million and one people, myself among them.

That’s not to say that writing stories that sell is not a valuable skill.

But in order to sell it, at least to an audience that isn’t already in love with you, you’ll need to adapt it in some way so it sounds new.

In other words, if you’re selling some evergreen and familiar hammer, you need a new hook, a new way to package it up, a new way to make it sound different from the things people have already become deaf to.

How do you do that? Well lemme give you an example:

I have this course, Copy Riddles.

I have sold hundreds of copies of Copy Riddles in the past. But over the last couple years, I haven’t been promoting it too much.

There are different reasons for that:

Copy riddles is expensive ($999)… it’s evergreen (like I said, a bad thing for sales)… and on top of all that, I’ve lost interest in teaching copywriting stuff to would-be copywriters, and have moved to things like email marketing and offers to people who have stuff to sell.

BUT—

Copy Riddles remains filled with ancient wisdom from A-list copywriters.

This ancient wisdom includes dozens of secret techniques to repackaging existing, old-hat info, which gets ignored, inside shiny and sexy new giftboxes, which sell.

The reason why these secret techniques were developed is that copywriters typically have no control of the offer they are promoting (eg. they cannot control the stuff inside the giftbox).

That’s why these A-listers were forced to simply work with words and hooks, and to really do some persuasive wizardry (eg. to come up with more and more elaborate wrapping paper and decorative bows, in order to make the repackaged info appear irresistible).

And now, if you have an offer, or if you want to create an offer, you can benefit from the A-list copywriters’ wisdom, without being hampered by their copywriting limitations.

You can use these ancient A-list secrets to come up with incredible and yet irresistible new hooks for your existing (or planned) offer.

If necessary, you also have the leeway to actually adapt your offer, so it matches and pays off whatever exciting new hook the A-list secrets produced for you.

And the best part?

Since your aren’t just doing this as a copywriter working for a client, but as an offer owner who’s selling his or her own offer… YOU get to collect all the profit and reap all the benefit of repositioning your offer into something that the market wants right now.

When you think of it like that, then maybe the $997 investment in Copy Riddles doesn’t seem so impossibly high.

In any case, if you’re interested in finding out more about these ancient A-list secrets, and how you get get them, not just to hold in your arms, but to imprint in your brain and to have at your fingertips when you next need them, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

How an ex-copywriter makes $12k/month in a new kind of part-time job

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Makes more in a day than he used to in a week. Started in his spare time — without special qualifications or connections. Works just 15 hours a week. Profit from his experience — begin now — make big money — learn how from this Free Email.

I’ll be honest with you:

I just spent an hour+ reading old “business opportunity” and “new career” ads in Google Books scans of 20th-century magazines.

Reason is I have a legit new career opportunity to clue you in to, and I wanted to get inspiration for how to best tell you about it.

You marketers working your head off for poor pay — You freelancers worried about making ends meet — You copywriters who want to break away from an uncertain job — You ambitious service providers longing to get into a big-paying, uncrowded profession — Listen!

Yep, listen.

I can put you in touch with an ex-copywriter who switched to a new kind of part-time job.

It’s paying him more than he ever made before while working less than he used to.

It allows him to work at home, in his bathrobe, or to take his family for round-the world trips and check in to his job on his laptop.

It’s fascinating work, which he can feel good about.

He’s gained respect and authority.

He gets plenty of leisure time to do with what he wants.

Let This Free Email Tell You How

No up-and-doing man or woman who wants to do more, be more, and have more, can afford to close down this email without hitting reply.

It costs you nothing to learn all about this money-making opportunity. You take not the slightest risk. You cannot possibly lose anything. And you can gain much.

If you’re a copywriter or other breed of marketing freelancer… if you already have clients, but you find the career prospects unstable, or the work underpaid or uninteresting, or the clients too demanding… then hit reply to this email and express your interest in this mystery new career opportunity.

I can put you in touch with the ex-copywriter I am talking about here, so you can profit from his experience.

The simple act of replying to this email may bring you bigger success and greater financial independence than you perhaps think possible.

Pirates, waddya gonna do

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Last week, Mercure and Svet Dimitrov, both members of my Monetization Mastermind group, ran a course launch.

The day after the launch ended, somebody who “bought” the course pirated the content and made it available for sale online.

Svet and Mercure investigated the offender!

And they found who done it!

“Now I got you, you son of a bitch!”

It turned out to be some girl in Illinois who had her credit card info stolen and who had no idea about the course.

In other words, nothing to do, nowhere to go.

I had almost the identical thing happen to me during a promo of Copy Riddles back in 2023.

The only difference was that I didn’t find Copy Riddles immediately for sale online. Instead, I found out about it when I got a chargeback a couple weeks after the promo.

Also some clueless girl from the heartland of America who had never heard of me or my Copy Riddles course.

I went to check the account associated with the name on my website, where the course is delivered. I saw a Ukrainian IP and all course pages cleanly swiped within 2 minutes after login, I’m guessing by a bot.

Waddya gonna do? I know what I did. I shrugged and put it out of my mind.

For this and many other reasons, I have long ago decided to avoid sailing where the pirates are, and to take harbor where pirates aren’t willing to follow me.

Specifically, I’ve decided to sail as little as possible on the risky, turbulent, pirate-infested Ocean Of Secrets, and to instead spend most my days cruising the safe, rich, and comfortable Sea Of Getting People Results.

That’s a metaphorical and philosophical shift, but it’s more than that. It’s also a matter of deliverables, and of the offers I’m making as well.

If you’d like an example, keep an eye out for my email tomorrow.

I will tell you about my Price Increase Challenge, which I will be launching next week, not with the goal of selling you hot and exclusive tactical info (“Raise your price exactly 18.2%!”)… but with the goal of getting you to actually run a promo to your list that boosts your positioning, and maybe even wins you a treasure chest of doubloons.

How to write emotional copy, with examples that made sales

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Today I will recommend to you a book that I have not read and that I have no plans on reading.

Let me tell you why I am still recommending it to you.

The book in question is written by Denny Hatch. Just yesterday, it was re-released after a long time of not being available.

A bit of background:

I’ve known of Denny Hatch for a long time because he once put together a different book, called Million Dollar Mailings. That was a book with a cool proof element. It brought together a bunch of sales letters, each of which had made $1M+, along with the history and context of the mailing and the people behind it.

My kind of stuff. And worth the big price tag it sold for.

But that is NOT the book I am recommending to you today.

The book I am recommending to you today is one that a long-time reader of this newsletter, Jeffrey Thomas, decided to republish on behalf of Denny Hatch.

Jeffrey himself is not just some kook who likes to republish out-of-print books. He’s a direct response copywriter at MarketingProfs, a big education platform for B2B marketers. He’s also got a podcast on marketing, on which I appeared some years ago.

A few months ago, Jeffrey contacted me, full of enthusiasm, about resurrecting this great Denny Hatch book, called Emotional Hot-Button Copywriting. Would I want to read it?

The fact is, no. My own to-read list is already too long. I’m reluctant to take others’ recommendations even when backed by a lot of enthusiasm.

I asked Jeffrey why he thought this book was so important that it merited republishing. In his own good time, Jeffrey responded:

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Hey John,

A few weeks ago you asked why I was interested in releasing Denny Hatch’s book (which will be officially released next Monday, Feb 16).

When I first started in copy, there were many people saying how important benefits are in the sales process. And they still say that, and they’re not wrong.

But a small group of direct response writers talked about emotions in copy. The Rule of One, for instance, occasionally includes the importance of a single driving emotion. But not everyone includes emotion in their description of the Rule of One, like it’s a secret or a shameful thing.

Personally, I’ve tried hard to not be too emotional in life. I already cry easily at movies, which I find ridiculous, and I worried that being emotional might convey the wrong message. One of weakness.

Slowly I realized that emotions are in fact why we choose to do most things, and that I’m a fool if I leave it out. But that doesn’t mean I need to cry. There are plenty of powerful emotions.

And since Hatch’s book was based on successful sales letters focused around emotions, what better way to learn how to apply this aspect than with swipes from highly successful copy.

I couldn’t find the book, so I asked Denny if I could help him republish it, for his benefit and my own and anyone else who wants to learn how emotions can be used to sell with success.

===

Denny Hatch’s republished book has a legit reason for existing (emotions ARE important in copywriting).

It also has legit proof behind it (again, a bunch of winning sales letters, which illustrate the concepts and techniques).

That’s why I’m recommending this book to you today, in case you need it.

The fact is, I needed this book myself, and I coulda gotten a lot of value out of it, 10 or so years ago, in the first 2-3 years of learning about copywriting.

At that point, I had learned the structure of sales copy. I understood how to provide proof and make a logical argument. I could handle objections.

But much of the time, something was missing, and I knew it. Some substance. The emotion.

I fixed that for myself over the years. I read a lot about copy and about psychology. I bought a bunch of courses and even went through some of them. I experimented, I observed myself and others, I dissected others’ copy and my own when it worked.

I took me, I don’t know, two, three, four, five years, but eventually I overcame my own deficits or reluctance around writing emotional copy, in those situations where it’s needed.

And that’s why I have no plans to read Denny Hatch’s republished book.

But if writing sales copy is still a mysterious topic to you, and in particular, if you’re awed or intimidated by the alchemy of getting people to feel something real, just by arranging the little black letters they see on a page or screen, then this book can be valuable for you, today.

This book is expensive.

$49.

That’s because it’s only available in a large, paperback edition, full of color and pictures and real sales letters.

If you’d like to get it, before it goes out of print again:

https://bejakovic.com/emotional

One is the loneliest number

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It being Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and it being a fact that, in spite of looking everywhere, high and low, I still don’t have a sweetheart, a date, or anybody who could possibly serve as a Valentine, I have to admit the following truth:

One is the loneliest number.

No, come on. Get real.

I am an incorrigible bachelor, and whether by nature or by longstanding habit, I’ve found I almost never get lonely, even after months spent alone. (Although it does turn me quite weird, more so than usual.)

But still.

One is the loneliest number… of clients.

Yesterday, I teased a mystery A-list direct marketer and copywriter, who is helping a small and select group of copywriters profit from the crisis, confusion, and uncertainty in the market right now… by doing something that no copywriters are doing now, at least none that I know of.

I asked for a show of hands from those who are interested.

A good number of people replied.

I followed up for more info.

Some replied to my followup.

One curious thing stood out. Multiple people wrote they are working as copywriters… and they have precisely ONE client.

I remember from my days of being a freelance copywriter, it’s a stressful situation to be in, particularly if you don’t have a reliable way of getting more good clients.

I remember periods of time of not even looking for new clients, because the search seemed futile, and simply spending my days delivering the work I had, and either praying for a miracle or waiting for the axe to drop.

I’ve been thinking of kicking off a group with the mystery A-lister to help with this.

The idea being, this group would be a place where this A-lister would talk about how he gets clients by going to businesses no other copywriters or marketers are going after… and how he turns those clients into 5- and 6-figure paydays.

Is this group something you’d be interested in?

If so, tell me a bit about where you’re at right now with your copywriting biz, and what even has you interested in this.

If I feel there’s enough serious interest, as evidenced by people actually replying in meaningful ways, I’ll make this group a reality.

If not… no problem. I’ll just go and sulk, on my own.

 

Offer for copywriters

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I’ve been talking to… a guy.

He’s a legit A-list direct marketer and copywriter.

He has made millions with his own businesses… he’s been hired by the biggest brands (like Agora) to help them start entire new ventures….. he counts legends in the DM world as close personal friends.

(Among these close personal friends is the #1 authority I have mentioned over and over and over in these emails.)

Back in 2021, at the height of the covid confusion, this A-list marketer and copywriter ran a small group program.

He personally worked with a select group of copywriters and helped them profit from the crisis, confusion, and uncertainty in the market then… by doing something different from what all other copywriters at the time were doing.

Now, 5 years later, with AI taking jobs (and copywriting gigs), and with the overall market wobbly and unsure outside the NVIDIA-OpenAI cross-investment bubble, he is doing it again.

He is putting together a small group of copywriters whom he will help to profit from the crisis, confusion, and uncertainty in the market right now… by doing something that no copywriters are doing now, at least none that I know of.

Is this something that interests you?

If so, hit reply and let me know.