Copywriting

A dirty rotten scoundrel’s secret to making a living online

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I recently watched a dirty little movie called Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is set on the French riviera. It stars Michael Caine as Lawrence, a dapper English scammer who charms rich and corrupt women for large sums of money… and Steve Martin as Freddie, a classless American jackass who milks the pity of any woman for tiny bits of money.

It’s been a few days since I saw the movie. The following monologue by Caine’s dapper scammer is what’s stuck in my mind:

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Freddie, as a younger man, I was a sculptor, and a painter, and a musician.

There was just one problem. I wasn’t very good. As a matter of fact, I was dreadful.

I finally came to the frustrating conclusion that I had taste and style, but not talent.

Fortunately, I discovered that taste and style are commodities that people desire.

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Like I said, this stuck with me. Maybe it will stick with you too.

You don’t have to scam anybody — that’s not what this is about.

But what Caine says about taste and style is true. They are commodities that people will pay for.

The amazing thing is that whatever your taste and style — ahem, obscure and campy 80s comedies — there are people out there who will appreciate it. And thanks to the miracle of the Internet, it’s easy and affordable to find such people.

I rely heavily on this, simply curating ideas, articles, movie scenes that I find interesting or funny or outrageous.

You can do the same. You can use your own taste and style, and simply share ideas that somehow impressed you or stuck with you.

That’s all you need to do, and you can be successful.

But if you want to do something a little bit extra with those ideas that impressed you or stuck with you, you can apply what I call the Most Valuable Email trick.

The result will be something that goes beyond what most other people will ever do.

In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

“What just happened?”

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I woke up last night at 2:30am in what felt like a fever.

​​My forehead was wet and my body was burning. “Why is it so hot…” I mumbled as I threw the covers off me.

Turns out I didn’t have a fever. But my A/C did die.

Some time after I’d gone to bed (11pm, nice and cool), the A/C stopped doing its job. Immediately, the Barcelona heat, along with my nighttime panting, brought the temperature in my bedroom up to about 990 degrees.

I promise to get to the marketing moral of this email very soon. But before I get there, I have to share one more personal detail:

I’m kind of done with traveling. The packing, discomfort, displacement — I’m getting more and more resistant to it. I can’t be bothered to take even a half-hour trip out of town.

And yet:

Last night, around 4:30am, as I sat wide awake in my sauna of an apartment, in a mild panic that this is how my life will be until the A/C gets fixed (and who knows when that will be — last year it took two weeks), I started fantasizing about traveling.

Somewhere… anywhere, as long as it was cool, or at least had A/C.

And that’s the marketing moral I promised you. Imagine if in that moment, or really even now, because it’s still very hot, I had come across an ad that said:

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Did your A/C just die?

Get away from the heat with our special “while your A/C gets fixed” hotel package!

Beautiful getaway in the cool Pyrenees mountains, only two hours’ drive from Barcelona. And yes, we do have A/C in all our rooms, just in case!

To book now, call 1-800-HELLA-HOT

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… had I seen this ad, I can tell you, I would have called. In fact, I might even go to the trouble of researching such a hotel and calling it now, even without the ad.

The bigger point:

Nothing ever gets done without a deadline, right?

Right.

That’s why marketers have invented a million tricks and tactics for amping up the fear of missing out — countdown timers, 10+ emails on the final day of promos, disappearing bonuses, etc.

All that stuff’s necessary when you’re trying to motivate people who are not internally motivated at that moment.

But there are people who are internally motivated at that moment. And the way you find them is by asking yourself, or better yet, by asking your buyers,

“What just happened? Why did you buy, now?”

Often, it won’t have anything to do with your specific offer (continental breakfast, stylish wood paneling, friendly staff).

Instead, it will have to do with your buyers, and their life circumstances. The A/C that died in their apartment the night before, and the three hours of sleep they got as a result.

Useful info. Because once you know it, you can use it to pick these people out easily from among a huge crowd… to make them a premium offer… and to do them a huge service.

That’s my free advice for today.

But if you’d like to contribute to the Bejako “while the A/C gets fixed” fund, and learn techniques used by A-list copywriters to rope in just the buyers from among a huge audience, you can find that in my Copy Riddles program.

​​For more information on that:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

If your open rates are excellent but your sales suck

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Yesterday, I wrote an email about a magical, far-off place called Affiliate World. I even invited you to meet me there.

​​To which, I got a reply from James “Get Paid Write” Carran, whose newsletter I am a reader of. James wrote:

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I’m obviously not in the right crowd because I spent this entire email thinking affiliate world was a thing you were making up for the email until I got to the end and realised it was a conference 😂

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James is right — i didn’t explain Affiliate World at all.

I didn’t mention it was a conference, or that it was in Budapest until halfway through the email, or anything about the dates. I figured there was no point — either people are already going and they know, or there’s no way I will persuade them to go with this one email.

Lazy?

Maybe.

Self-defeating?

Maybe.

But I remember hearing something about this a long time ago in an interview with marketer Travis Sago.

Travis a kind of nice-guy Ben Settle. Like Ben, Travis is an expert email copywriter and direct marketer. Like Ben, he has a cult-like following. And like Ben, he has made millions with his own online businesses and has helped others make millions too. One curious thing:

Travis says he writes his email subject lines like he has to pay for each open.

Rather than trying to get everyone to open, and hoping to somehow persuade or convince or explain to them why it’s in their interest to take the next step before they click away… Travis uses each email to select from the audience a tiny pocket of highly qualified people.

There’s a broader approach here – efficiency as a business principle. It’s how Travis has been able to build up a multimillion business selling little $39 ebooks… and how he was later able to build up a second multi million business, selling $5k and $10k and $25k programs and masterminds.

I don’t practice Travis’s subject line approach with this newsletter, not every day. But maybe it’s something for you to think about on this Sunday, particularly if your open rates are excellent but your sales suck.

And in case you’d like to know what to write once people open your emails, so your emails not only get opened, not only get read, but also make sales, you might like:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Dan Kennedy’s “stealth tactic” for client attraction from scratch

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Yesterday, I got on Skype. I live in Spain, I have a Croatian phone number, and Skype is my only way to dial an American landline and not pay ridiculous charges.

Skype connected.

“Hello?”

“Hi Steve. It’s John Bejakovic. We were in contact on LinkedIn. Is now an okay time to talk?”

“Hi John. Yeah, absolutely. I was expecting your call.”

Last week, I cold-contacted this guy. We weren’t even connected on LinkedIn but I sent him a message out of the blue.

Earlier this week, I guess he finally opened up LinkedIn because he replied. We exchanged a couple more messages. At the end of it, I got him to agree to a call. He sent me his home phone number.

We did the call yesterday. ​​I was asking questions and he was willingly answering. ​At the end of the call, I also got him to give me his home address.

Now, this wasn’t a business-getting call. But… it coulda been.

The same strategy I used to get on a call with this guy and to even get his home address is one I heard Dan Kennedy advocate in his Business of Copywriting Academy.

Unfortunately, that training is hidden inside the ancient infrastructure at AWAI. That means it’s hard to buy, and impossible to promote as an affiliate. It’s a shame, because the training is really interesting and really valuable.

One idea that’s stuck with me is a kind of Trojan horse for client getting, something that Dan says he would use himself if he needed to. In his own words:

“Let me give you my stealth tactic. Here’s what I would do if I was starting from scratch, right now, and I wanted some clients in Cleveland. If and when I retire and I decide to spend six months out of the year in Orlando, if I then feel I want a couple clients, I will use this strategy exactly as I’m about to describe it to you.”

Dan is famous for 1) never leaving suburban Ohio and 2) for never using the Internet. ​​That’s why he’s talking about using this strategy locally in Cleveland and Orlando.

​​But the same strategy works online too. Again, I used it just yesterday on LinkedIn and Skype, though I wasn’t looking for client work.

So I got a deal for you:

As I wrote yesterday, I’m considering putting together something new, a kind of offer research service that tracks unique and effective offers. In particular, I’m interested in offers that are 1) working now, and that 2) don’t rely on authority or a personal brand.

Have you spotted any such offers recently? Or better yet, have you bought any such offers recently?

If you have, write in and tell me about it.

If the offer you tell me about is unique and actually matches the two criteria above (working now, not relying on authority or personal brand), then I’ll reply to tell you Dan Kennedy’s client-getting stealth tactic — what he would do if he needed clients today.

And by the way, Dan’s stealth tactic is not limited to getting copywriting clients. It’s relevant if you want clients of any kind, or partners, or just connections for your own ends, like what I was doing with the guy I contacted on LinkedIn.

In other words, this tactic can work whenever you really want a connection with a specific person or profile of person.

​​And if that sounds attractive to you, then think of an offer that matches my criteria above. Write in with it, and I’ll tell you what Dan would do.

How to heal the partisan divide one dollar at a time

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Here’s a provocative but revealing little quiz for ya:

For every $1 spent by the US government in 2022, how many cents went to military spending?

(I’m asking about 2022 because it’s the most recent year for which I could find data.)

Think about that for a moment, and come up with yer best guess.

I’ll tell you the answer in a second but really, the specifics are not all that interesting. What is interesting is that, if you’re American and maybe even if you’re not, your answer can expose you as being either Democrat or Republican, left or right.

The right answer by the way is 14.2 cents.

Like I said, that’s not all that interesting. What’s more interesting:

Dems tend to guess US military spending is higher than Republicans guess.

Ok, maybe that’s not tremendously interesting either. Maybe that’s predictable.

So let me try again. Here’s the really interesting part:

If you don’t just ask people to guess, but instead you pay them to guess right, or you pay them to simply say, “Dang I don’t know,” then suddenly party bias shrinks by 80%.

In other words, put some live chips on the table, and suddenly, people’s beliefs change.

We know this because a professor at Northwestern, John Bullock, did the experiment. He found the result confirmed over a large number of participants and a large number of questions, involving topics like race, unemployment, and military deaths.

Curious, no? What’s going on?

I can’t say for sure, but I can imagine two options:

1. Maybe there’s extra thinking going on when money’s on the table. Maybe people take a moment to say, “Gee my gut says this, but let me take an extra second or two to think it over, since there’s real consequences to expressing my opinion.”

2. Maybe there’s extra thinking going on when money’s not on the table. Maybe people “know” the real answer, or at least their best guess at the real answer. But when there’s no consequences to guessing wrong, maybe people like to engage in some “extra thinking” — posturing or group identification — and that comes out as a more partisan guess.

Either way, the conclusion is, money gets you closer to the truth.

Of course, I’m really talking about business, not politics.

Prospects lie, or they embellish, or they just don’t think very hard about what you’re asking them. Not until there’s money on the table — their own money, which they just took out of their pocket, and which they are now considering sliding across the table to you.

​​Or maybe they won’t slide it across? Maybe they’ll just put it back in their pocket? Which brings me to a second little quiz:

Are you launching a new offer?

If you are, you can just put it out there, and see if the market buys. No doubt that will give you feedback. But it won’t be very detailed or granular feedback. It won’t tell you what, if anything, you can do to make more sales.

There might be a better way. If you’re launching a new offer, then hit reply. Tell me what your offer is. And I can tell you about this better way.

Jim Camp, A-list copywriter

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Right now I’m reading a book titled You Can’t Teach a Kid To Ride a Bike at a Seminar.

The book was written by David Sandler, a 20th-century sales trainer.

I wrote an email about Sandler last year because of his connection to famed negotiation coach Jim Camp. That email ran with the subject line, “Jim Camp, plagiarist.”

Camp must have studied under Sandler, because the ideas inside “You Can’t Teach a Kid” and Camp’s book “Start With No” are as close to identical as two brown, “L”-sized, farm-fresh eggs. (For reference, Sandler died in 1995, Camp published Start With No in 2002.)

If you ask me, Camp did three things right.

First, he took Sandler’s system out of the world of sales — water filters, life insurance, and whirring hard drives — and he applied it, word-for-word, to the world of billion-dollar negotiation in corporate boardrooms.

In other words, Camp took Sandler’s valuable but provincial knowledge and brought it to a bigger, more prestigious arena, not encumbered by the slumdog baggage that’s attached to the word “sales.”

Second, Camp co-opted what Sandler taught and made it his own. He turned the Sandler Sales System into the Camp Negotiation System, without ever mentioning or crediting Sandler except once, in the middle of a list of 20 other mentors, in an appendix to his “Start With No” book.

You might think this is despicable, and in a way it is, but it’s also a necessary part of the positioning of the guru at the top of the mountain.

And then there’s a third thing that Camp did right.

It’s completely in the presentation, the messaging of his book and of his Camp Negotiation System.

You can see this messaging change in the title Start With No. It’s also present on almost every page of the book.

This messaging change is what built up the mystery of Jim Camp, and it’s why Camp’s book has sold so well and spread so far, and why so many sales folks and marketers and copywriters know Camp today, and why so few know Sandler.

Now ask yourself:

If you knew what change Camp made, and if you could apply it to turn your message from unknown to bestselling, from slumdog salesman to mysterious and yet celebrated negotiation guru…

… what could that be worth to you?

I don’t know. But you do know, and maybe the truth is it would be worth a lot — thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more.

I’m asking you this question because you can find this messaging change, the technique that Camp used to make himself and his system fascinating, in my Copy Riddles program.

It’s there in round 15.

If you own Copy Riddles and it’s not 100% clear to you how Camp applied the technique in that round to his messaging, write me and I will clarify it.

And if you don’t own Copy Riddles, you can find out more about it at the link below.

I can tell you upfront, at $997, Copy Riddles is an expensive program.

But maybe in your case will be worth much more than I’m asking for it. Here’s that link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

My missing Olympic gold medal

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

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

The odd thing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://bejakovic.com/gold

Why is Alec Baldwin telling me to Always Be Closing?

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You probably know the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, or at least you know the famous “Always Be Closing” scene.

​​But just in case, lemme quickly run through it:

Picture a small, regional office for a team of door-to-door salesmen.

Most of the guys in the office are losers — they are not selling anything, and are making no money.

One rainy evening, a new, different face is waiting there in the office. He has come from the rich and distant headquarters of the company.

The new face is played by a cocky and polished Alec Baldwin, with slicked back hair and a silk suit, looking handsome and deadly.

Baldwin has a Rolex on his wrist. And, as he tells the loser salesmen, he drives an $80,000 BMW, and he makes $900k a year.

Over the course of about five minutes, Baldwin delivers a menacing pep talk to the struggling salesmen.

“ABC,” he tells them. “Always. Be. Closing.”

The gist of Baldwin’s speech is, “Start selling, or you’re fired.” This sets up the necessary chain of reactions that leads to the climax of the movie.

Fine. You probably knew all this. Or if you didn’t, now you do.

But there’s one tiny bit that I omitted in my summary above, and that you may have missed if you ever watched this scene for real.

Because everything I told you, it’s a little bit, I don’t know, too pat?

Why does this slicked-back, cocky salesmen, who makes all this money and who lives in Manhattan, why does he drive down to the suburbs to talk to these losers, and why does he do it exactly tonight, on this stormy night, so that the rest of the movie can develop just as it should?

This is the kind of question that the people in the audience might never ask out loud. But somewhere in their brains, the question is there. And if it’s not answered — well, that’s a problem.

David Mamet, the guy who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, knew this.

And so he took care of it.

As Baldwin is in the middle of his ABC speech, one of the loser salesman chuckles. And when Baldwin turns his deadly gaze on the guy, we get the following line:

“You’re such a hero. You’re so rich. How come you’re coming down here to waste your time with such a bunch of bums?”

Baldwin’s answer, when it comes, in between more insults to the other salesmen, is not much of an answer at all. The bosses asked him to come, he says, and he did it as a favor to them.

And that’s my point for you for today.

Effective screenwriting — and effective door-to-door sales, and effective copywriting, and pretty much any kind of effective communication — requires suspension of disbelief in your audience, if you have any hope of getting them to go where you want them to go.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that suspension of disbelief is often easier to achieve than you might ever believe.

Why?

Because while it’s instinctive for us to ask why… it’s also instinctive for us to be satisfied as soon as any kind of answer is provided, and to stop any further questions, at least on that one question.

Of course, it’s not always enough to say, “Because…” and then to give some kind of milquetoast reason.

Sometimes you need more powerful tricks to suspend disbelief in your audience.

And if you want those tricks, you can find them in my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Why?

Because in Commandment I, I write about an A-List Copywriter who was a grandmaster of suppressing disbelief. And I tell you how he did it. If you’d like to find out:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The one ring to rule them all, until it doesn’t

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A few weeks ago, Derek Johanson of CopyHour wrote an email with an inspiring idea:

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Most often all that an online business needs to go from zero to 6 figures is to focus on ONE simple business model and ONE marketing channel for growth.

One Business Model: If you sell courses, only sell courses. That’s your one business model. Don’t add coaching or do freelancing too.
​
One Marketing Channel For Traffic: If you’ve picked LinkedIn to drive traffic, don’t think about YouTube or paid ads at all.

That’s it. Going deep into ONE business model and ONE marketing channel is how you double a small business.

===

When I read this, I had a double reaction:

1. Whoa this makes sense
​
2. Hold on, this can’t be right — it’s just another manifestation of the human desire for “the one thing”

“The one thing,” as you might know, is a popular hook in direct response advertising.

It manifests itself in different guises — “the one thing,” “the ancient secret,” “the real reason” — but ultimately, it taps into to our brains’ desire to melt down the complexity and messiness of the world into just one magic ring of power to rule them all.

Rings like that exist in fantasies, but they don’t exist in real life.

Except, that’s not really what Derek was saying in his email. He was saying something more nuanced, and not-one-thingy.

I wasn’t quite sure how to stickily sum up what Derek was saying. Fortunately, somebody did it for me, in a paid private group (the only paid private group) that I’m a member of. The person in that group summed it up like this:

1. Test until it works
2. Scale until it stops working

Many things can work — for example, as sources of traffic.

The thing is, most things won’t work right out the gate. It will take some time and tweaking for them to produce results.

That’s step 1. Most people quit before they complete this step, and instead they jump to back to the beginning, to another supposed ring of power, hoping that it will work right away.

Derek’s email was about step 2. Going deep into one thing and scaling until it stops working. Which is a worthwhile idea, and like I said, quite not-one-thingy.

I thought about how to apply this to my own business. And I’m not really sure.

In terms of marketing channels to get people reading these emails, my number one source has been referrals and word-of-mouth, which I did absolutely nothing to encourage beyond writing daily and sharing novel ideas and illustrations. Maybe I should just keep writing.

As for the one business model, I still haven’t quite figured out one that I’m happy with. Which is why, over the past few months, I’ve sent out so many emails that ultimately link to $4.99 books on Amazon, or interesting articles you might find valuable, or—

Well, let me get to it now.

You remember I mentioned the paid private community I’m a member of? The only one?

I personally find it very valuable — and interesting.

Maybe you will too. But you will have to decide for yourself. I’m not promoting this community as an affiliate, and I’m not pushing you to join it. But if you’re curious to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

The light at the end of the tunnel

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“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“How do you expect me to respond to this?”

“How about, you love me too?”

“How about: I’m leaving.”

That’s the start of the last scene of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. In case you haven’t seen it, the movie goes like this:

The first time Harry and Sally meet, they hate each other. The second time they meet, Harry doesn’t even remember who Sally is. The third time they meet, Harry and Sally become friends. Then they sleep together, and things go south and they stop being friends.

And then one New Year’s Eve, Harry finally realizes he loves Sally, and he runs to meet her, and he declares his love. And she says, “I’m leaving.”

The fact is, screenwriter Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner both felt that movie should end like this.

​​No way should it end with Harry and Sally winding up together. That’s not how the real world works. People in those kinds of relationships don’t end up together.

That’s how the first two drafts of the movie actually went. The bitter truth.

But in the third draft, Ephron wrote this final scene, and Reiner shot it. After Sally’s “I’m leaving,” Harry delivers a speech about all the little things he loves about her, and they kiss and they wind up together, forever, in love.

And that’s how the movie was released, and it was a big, big hit.

So what’s the point?

Well, maybe it’s obvious, but you can go negative and cynical and sarcastic for the whole movie, but you gotta end on an inspiring, positive note.

​​It’s gotta make sense to people and give them a feeling of hope, at least if you want to create something that has a chance to be a big big hit, something that can appeal to a wide swath of the market.

Or in the words of screenwriter and director David Mamet:

“Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama — which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form.”

But now I have a problem:

I’ve just pulled back the curtain. And what’s behind the curtain is not so nice. So how can I end this email on an inspiring, positive note?

Well, I can admit to you that the world is a large and complex and often unjust place. But it does have its own structure. And just by reading these emails, you’re finding out bits and pieces of that structure, and that helps you make more sense of the world you live in, and it helps you shape and influence the world for the better.

I can also tell you that the above bit, about Harry and Sally and Nora and Rob, is part of a book I’m working on, the mythical “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Con Men, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Propagandists, and Stage Magicians.”

I’ve been working on this book for a long time. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, do you know about my other 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters?

It also collects bits and pieces of the structure of the world, and it can help you understand and shape that world for the better. In case you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments