Copywriting

Your free tip for bombarding clients with extra value

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A couple days ago, I promised to tell you how a Copy Riddles member got more out of Copy Riddles than he paid for it.

It involves a specific client-herding technique, which comes from a copywriter named Nathan, who asked me not to share his last name (for reasons that will be obvious). Says Nathan:

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– I familiarise with the content I’m promoting eg. eBook

– Develop the big idea

– Write as many bullets as I can – as quick as I can

– connect them all to the big idea and edit based on your training

– sprinkle them throughout my copy

Then, as a bonus to my client… I hand them the best bullets and tell them they’re free “Twitter” posts. Sometimes it’s around 30-40 bullets I end up handing over.

Clients love it as they feel like they’ve been bombarded with extra value. And it took no extra effort.

===

“Huh?” you might say. “Good for the clients… but how is this any kind of proof that Nathan got more out of Copy Riddles than he paid for it?”

Well consider this:

1. Nathan signed up for Copy Riddles when I first launched it, back in 2021

2. He followed the program from beginning to end, and he participated in the weekly Q&A calls and weekly “Best Bullet” contests

3. When I ran the Copy Riddles cohort the next time, Nathan joined for a second time, and did the weekly contests again

4. At that time, he was working as a freelance copywriter. He then got a job as an in-house copywriter, while continuing to do freelance work (where the tip above about bombarding clients with value comes in)

5. After about a year, as a result of his growing skill, experience, and clear dedication to simply working, Nathan got headhunted for a new job with a nice salary increase. But not just that. As he wrote to tell me:

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But it’s not just the “head hunting” and “pay rise” that is the exciting part…

Is that my old job don’t want to lose me, so they’re going to contract me to keep writing for them… And…

The marketing manager (who also recently moved to another organisation) is contracting me to write for her as well.

All of this means I’m more than doubling my income.

Why this success? I don’t think it’s because I’m better than any other copywriter. Honestly, I think it’s because I read what you, Daniel and Ben say… I trust it… And I put it to practice.

You already know how important your bullet course has been for my journey, but the value you share in every email (just like this one) I treat with as much respect as any piece of information I’ve paid for.

All that to say, thanks… Again. And I’m sure there’ll be plenty more times you’ll hear it from me.

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About that “You already know how important your bullet course has been for my journey” part, Nathan gave me some earlier feedback on Copy Riddles, back before I even had a name for it and simply called it my bullets course. Here’s what Nathan told me then:

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John, this course was incredibly fun, motivating and mind blowing.

The daily emails kept me focused on the goal and also acted as a form of accountability.

But to me, it really wasn’t a “bullets” course… this was much MUCH more. It was so in depth that it felt more like a complete copywriting course.

I know you did talk about that in the sales (ie. being able to apply it to all parts of copy) but I had no idea it would be this in depth and useful to me every day copywriting.

The insights into the mindset of A-list writers, the reasons why they say things a certain way and how I can apply the same thought patterns to my own copy… priceless.

===

Right now, I’m running an “Unannounced Bonus” event to promote Copy Riddles. This event is ending tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

I haven’t been delivering Copy Riddles as a live cohort course for years, but I will do it now one last time. This means an opportunity to get on weekly calls with me and other Copy Riddles members, to get some accountability and motivation, and to participate in the weekly “Best Bullet” contest for the sake of recognition and fun and even some silly prizes.

That “Bullets With Bejako” live cohort is one part of the special offer during this “Unannounced Bonus” promo. Another is a free lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine. I paid $997 for this last year, but it’s yours free with Copy Riddles if you get it before the deadline.

As a final inducement, I’m offering a payment plan until Sunday, so you can pay for Copy Riddles over three months.

The payment plan is there to take out the psychological sting of a lump payment. It’s there to allow you to get started today, and maybe do like Nathan — use the training and skills you gain through Copy Riddles to wow some clients, and win yourself some new work, and make your money back from this program before the final payments are even due.

Again, the deadline to join is tomorrow at 12 midnight PST. To get in before this offer disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

“What is the absolutely most important, do-or-die copywriting skill?”

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“What is the absolutely most important, do-or-die copywriting skill? It’s a mechanical skill. it’s not something touchy-feely, empathetic, hard to describe. It’s so important, that if you can do it, you are a great copywriter, you’re 99% of the way there. If you can’t do it, you will never get anywhere. What is that skill?”

That’s a little quiz that Ken McCarthy, who’s been called the “founding father of Internet marketing,” once gave to a room full of info marketers who wanted to learn copywriting.

“I was gonna offer $1,000 in cash to the guy that can get this,” said Ken. “That’s how confident I am nobody in this room knows it, except for maybe a professional copywriter.”

People in the audience started guessing:

“Know your market?”

No.

“Hand-copy great copy?”

No.

“Write every day, practice?”

That’s a good one, but no.

“Get your reader’s attention?”

Another good one, but no.

“List a lot of good benefits?”

Ooh so close, but no.

“Empathize with your readers?”

No.

Finally, somebody in the back of the room:

“Write a sales bullet?”

“Yes!” said Ken. “This is the entire craft of copywriting. And it amazes me how many people have read all the classics, written some great copy, taken thousands of dollars worth of training, met great copywriters, and didn’t realize that this is it. If you can do this, you are in the game. If you can’t do it, you’re outside the stadium, trying to find a parking place, circling round and round. It’s that night and day.”

“Why are bullets so important?” asks Ken. “Because they are the raw material for:”

– bullets (of course)

– headlines

– reasons why

– subheads

– calls to action

– sales arguments

– the order form

– the entire letter

Email marketer Ben Settle, who back in his freelance copywriter days used to write copy for Ken, and who reveres Ken and frequently quotes and references him in his emails, agrees. Says Ben:

“When written correct everything ‘comes’ from the bullets, including non-bullet copy or ads where there are no bullets.”

Which brings me back to my Copy Riddles program, and the “Unannounced Bonus” event I am running for it right now. This event ends tomorrow at 12 midnight PST. It involves:

#1. Copy Riddles, of course, which allows you to own A-list copywriting skills more quickly than you would ever believe

How?

By drilling into you mechanical do-or-die skill of writing sales bullets, and giving you feedback from A-list copywriters, who wrote their own sales bullets starting with the same source material as you did.

(This feedback process is why past customers have called Copy Riddles “the best course I’ve taken, bar none” and “worth every dollar/minute/page.”)

#2. A lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine

… which sells for $997 on the rare occasions when Lawrence makes it available at all. $997 is what I paid Lawrence last year for it. (A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga: “I would gladly have paid him ten times, even 100 times its price.”)

#3. The unique and never-to-be-repeated “Bullets With Bejako” live cohort

Many years ago, I used to run Copy Riddles as a live cohort to provide members with greater motivation, feedback, and results that an “asynchronous” content-only course frankly cannot match.

I stopped doing live cohorts for Copy Riddles because they are too much work.

I won’t ever do a live cohort in the future. But I’m doing as part of this “Unannounced Bonus” promo, so you can own those million-dollar copywriting skills in just the next few weeks, instead of never.

#4. 3-Month Copy Riddles Payment Plan

As part of this promo, for the next three days only, you can break up payments for Copy Riddles over the course of three months.

Again, this “Unannounced Bonus” event ends tomorrow at 12 midnight PST.

If you’d like to get in on the game and you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

How I write emails and create offers using Ad Money Machine

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Yesterday I got an email from Robin Timmers, the “largest copywriter in the Netherlands”. Robin just got Copy Riddles during the current “Unannounced Bonus” promo, which comes with a lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money machine (normally $997). About that, Robin wrote:

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Hey John,

I got the offer, and I was wondering…

(I’ll start after finishing up CopyHour, which is +-3 weeks left.)

How do you (both in general and specifically you) use the Ad Money Machine?

===

Well, it’s about time somebody asked.

I’ll tell ya, and it will be relevant whether or not you get Copy Riddles or Ad Money Machine.

It will be just as relevant if you want to do all the endless and tiring legwork yourself that Lawrence has done on your behalf, and masochistically spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to find out what best direct response marketers across industries are doing.

Here are four ways I personally use Ad Money Machine:

#1. Subject lines and email hooks

Nobody has called me out on it, but all the subject lines I have so far used during this promo have come from ads and sales letters in Ad Money Machine:

* Copy Riddles customers hit jackpot with “Unannounced Bonus” scheme (“U.S. residents hit Jackpot with ‘Old Vegas’ Casino Rolls”)

* Over $1M ($1,000,000) and 20 years of loving labor went into this brilliant Unannounced Bonus (“£125,000 ($300,000) and 2 years of loving labour went into this sumptuous Centennial Edition of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF DICKENS”)

* Exposed: Gary Bencivenga’s “100x its price” marketing investment (“Exposed: Warren Buffett’s $39 Billion Black Gold Bonanza”)

* The magnificent obsession that produces A-list copywriting skills (“The Magnificent Obsession That Produced The Coffee Favored By Kings”)

* Dead for 34 months — now alive again (“Outlawed For 41 Years — Now Legal Again”)

* Copy Riddles is expensive… or maybe not (“Life is short… or maybe not.”)

* How I write emails and create offers using Ad Money Machine (“How I Make $327 Per Hour Practicing Real Estate”)

The bigger point is that good hooks, and good ways of crystalizing those hooks in words, are eternal. It makes sense to be a student of your market, and other markets, and reuse what’s worked.

#2. Marketing ideas I can port from one industry to another

Just one example: Gary Halbert’s 4 steps for turning $39.95… into $289… into $4,046.

Yes, Lawrence has the front-end ad that Gary Halbert ran in the WSJ, selling a Halley’s Comet commemorative silver coin for $39.95.

But the ad copy was not the story.

The story, which Lawrence got direct from Gary himself, is how those $39.95 front-end orders were turned into $289 sales, and how those $289 sales were turned into $4,046 sales, in 4 simple steps.

In spite of this being Gary Halbert, this 4-step process is perfectly legal and even ethical. It also applies to any field, including info products like courses and memberships. It’s something I have been using in part and will be using much more going forward with the offers I create.

#3. Uncovering core appeals in an industry

Until last year, I ran an email newsletter on the topic of longevity. I regularly went into the Ad Money Machine “Beauty and Anti-Aging” category (~100 winning direct response ads) to search out what appeals sell (“Look 10 years younger in 10 hours”), what words and phrases people respond to (“thinning hair”), and what hooks to use (the French).

#4. Curiosity, entertainment, and inspiration

Like I keep saying, Ad Money Machine is not simply a huge collection of winning direct response ads, with a new ad popping up each day.

What makes me keep going back over and over is Lawrence’s commentary, knowledge, and experience, which put these ads in their fascinating (at least to me) context.

If you’re actually interested in copywriting and marketing… if you’re intrigued by the history of the field…if you are amused by or have at least heard of some of the characters who made it what it is… then Lawrence’s site is addictive.

As just one example:

Last Sunday, I went on Ad Money Machine, looking for a headline I could repurpose for a subject line.

I came across that “U.S. residents hit Jackpot” ad.

But then I started reading Lawrence’s commentary, where he casually mentions that Vic Schwab (author of “How To Write An Advertisement,” one of the best books in the field, and the copywriter behind Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People”) helped start a gold and silver coin company.

Lawrence had a post on that as well. So I got sucked in, clicked through, and started reading that instead of writing my email. That’s ok. Not only was it fun and interesting and inspiring, but I learned something (going back to point 2 above) that I will use in the future.

The deadline to get Copy Riddles along with the “Unannounced Bonus” of Ad Money Machine is this Sunday, just two short days away.

As a reminder, I also will be running a live cohort for Copy Riddles, one last time, never to be repeated, as part of the offer for this promo, to help you actually go through the program so you benefit from it and start owning those A-list copywriting skills.

Plus, there’s a payment plan if you want to take out some of the sting of paying in one lump sum. That also goes away on Sunday.

To take advantage of all that before the deadline makes it disappear forever:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

The magnificent obsession that produces A-list copywriting skills

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This morning, I sent an email about a great endorsement for Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine. That endorsement came from the world’s greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga.

(Gary: “I would gladly have paid him ten times, even 100 times its price.”)

A lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine costs $997, but I’ve made a deal with Lawrence so I can offer it for free as bonus for my Copy Riddles program for this week only. Except…

It’s nice for Lawrence and Ad Money Machine to get this great endorsement from Gary Bencivenga.

But what about Copy Ridddles? Where’s the shining endorsement there?

Unfortunately, I cannot count Gary Bencivenga as a Copy Riddles member. (Gary, if you’re reading, hit reply and we’ll fix that.)

I therefore do not have a glowing testimonial for Copy Riddles the way Lawrence does for Ad Money Machine.

However, I do have the following curious story from Gary.

Once upon a time, a young Gary had to compete against Gene Schwartz, the legendary copywriter and author of the cult book Breakthrough Advertising.

Gary wrote up a first draft to try to beat Gene’s control sales letter. But when Gary compared what he had written to the control, he got depressed — his bullets were so much weaker than Gene’s.

So what did he do? In Gary’s own words:

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I said, the only way I’m going to have a way of competing with Gene is if I figure out what he’s done to get these bullets.

So wherever his bullets came from, I would read the same page. I would learn from him just by mimicking what he had done.

So I said, “This bullet that he came up with came from chapter 3, page 4. What is the original source of this?”

And he taught me so much, just by studying his copy and by looking at the product itself.

I was able to beat him, but it was really his package too in a way, because I learned the technique.

===

That process Gary describes is exactly what Copy Riddles is about.

Copy Riddles gets you competing with A-list copywriters, starting with the original source material they used, and allows you to compare your final result with their final result.

The goal is not to match word-for-word what the A-listers did. It’s certainly not to get depressed about how your copy is so much weaker than theirs.

The goal is to find out what A-list copywriters zoom in on, what they chose to leave out, how they take a dry and technical fact and make it sexy and exciting.

Do this over and over, starting with different source materials, and subtly and quickly, the A-listers’ instincts become your instincts, their tricks your tricks, their skills your skills.

Of course, you don’t need Copy Riddles to do this. You can follow the process and do all the work yourself. Start by digging around the Internet and collecting A-list sales letters…

… then stalk Amazon, eBay, used book sites, and online repositories to find the books and courses they were selling, most of them out of print…

… and when you finally get both the sales letter and the out-of-print book in your possession… go bullet by bullet… and tease out how the A-list copywriter turned lead into gold.

This magnificently obsessive process will 100% work.

I know because I’ve done it. All in all, it took me about three months of time and maybe 100 hours of work.

Of course, if you these results but you want them more quickly and more easily, then that’s what Copy Riddles is for.

Copy Riddles is a fast, fun, mostly-done-for-you ride that allows you to own A-list copywriting skills, following this Gary Bencivenga-approved process.

It’s a process also approved by the couple hundred people who have been through Copy Riddles before you, who say things like:

#1: “There are very few copywriting courses that offer this level of practical value”

#2: “The best course I’ve ever taken, bar none”

#3: “I literally use what I learned in Copy Riddles every day”

#4: “I think most people should start learning about copywriting this way”

#5: “One of the best copywriting courses I’ve done”

#6: “The entire course is an a-ha moment”

#7: “Worth every dollar/minute/page”

If you’d like more info on Copy Riddles, or to grab it before the Ad Money Machine “Unannounced Bonus” disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Exposed: Gary Bencivenga’s “100x its price” marketing investment

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I once heard Gary Bencivenga say—

But wait. First, let me do things properly, and first tell you who Gary is, in the odd case you don’t know, or remind you of the man’s accomplishments, in case you do.

Gary Bencivenga is widely regarded as the world’s greatest living copywriter.

That praise is based not on subjective impressions, but on hard numbers.

An executive at Rodale Press, a big direct response publisher, said that Gary never lost a split-run test when going up against other top copywriters.

An executive at Phillips publishing, another major direct response company, said that Gary had more winners than anybody else.

Gene Schwartz, a legendary copywriter and the author of the bible in the field, Breakthrough Advertising, summed it up by saying there are only four or five true masters of copywriting — and Gary is one of them.

With that intro, let me tell you what I heard Gary say once.

Gary said he advised a client, a publishing company, to purchase a small financial newsletter, lock stock and two smoking barrels, simply because of an enthusiastic testimonial the newsletter had gotten. (The author of that testimonial was a certain Warren Buffett.)

So great, says Gary, is the value of really convincing proof.

Going by that logic, I am hereby putting in my offer to buy Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine — the entire site, all the content, and the domain. I am doing this based simply on the following testimonial, which comes from Gary Bencivenga himself:

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One of the secrets I teach copywriters and marketers who want to be more successful is to be sure they read a great direct response ad every day.

But where do you find an almost limitless supply of great ads to be inspired by?

The best source I have ever found is Lawrence’s site. I’ve been writing copy for more than 40 years now, and I still do my ‘ad-a-day’ thing, just to keep sharp.

I never fail to be inspired with new ideas when browsing through Lawrence’s collection of ads. I would gladly have paid him ten times, even 100 times its price. Investing in your own knowledge is always the greatest investment you can make, and this is one of the smartest ways to do it.

===

I don’t know how much Gary paid to get Lawrence’s daily serving of a great response ad.

I do know I paid Lawrence $97 per month for it for a long time, and then I paid him $997, last year, in one lump sum, for a lifetime subscription.

You, however, can get the same lifetime subscription I paid $997 for, the same subscription that Gary says is “one of the smartest ways” to invest in yourself, and you can get it for free.

You can get it for free as part of the “Unannounced Bonus” promo I am doing for my Copy Riddles program this week, which runs until this Sunday at 12 midnight PST.

For more info on Copy Riddles, or to invest in yourself before this deal disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Over $1M ($1,000,000) and 20 years of loving labor went into this brilliant Unannounced Bonus

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This week, I’m running an “Unannounced Bonus” promotional event for my Copy Riddles program.

Copy Riddles, as you might know, uses a clever mechanism to download A-list copywriting skills into your brain, over the course of a few short weeks.

I’ve been selling Copy Riddles since 2021. I have had a lot of customers go through the program. I have had only glowing feedback.

But I’ve been talking about all that for years. Odds are, you know it already.

So today, I want to share with you the special “Unannounced Bonus” I’m making available if you join Copy Riddles before this Sunday, July 20, at 12 midnight PST.

That bonus is a lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine.

I’ve written about Lawrence lots of times in my newsletter — he’s “the world’s most obsessed ad archivist.”

Ad Money Machine is Lawrence’s subscription service where, each day, he shares direct response winners from the past and the present. Two points to highlight about that:

First off, these are not just random screenshotted ads from newspapers.com. As Lawrence says on the Ad Money Machine site:

“I’ve invested over a million bucks on subscriptions and products to keep my name (and aliases!) seeded on direct mail lists.”

The vast majority of these ads, packages, and promos are not available online — anywhere, except inside Lawrence’s membership site.

The reason is that he’s spent the time, effort, and money to get himself on the lists of the biggest and most successful direct marketing companies, so he can see all their marketing — the front ends, being mailed out to specialized direct mail lists, as well as all the mysterious stuff that goes on in the back, to customers only.

Because of this, Ad Money Machine is effectively a collection of “businesses in a box” — the winning ad copy, offers, and funnels across a range of markets, from health, wealth, self-help, along with a bunch of quirky ones thrown in (fishing, stamps, “grass plugs”).

Second off, Lawrence isn’t “just some guy,” and Ad Money Machine is not even his primary business.

For over two decades now, Lawrence has been working as a direct response copywriter and operator, focusing on direct mail.

That means that, when it comes to Ad Money Machine, Lawrence doesn’t just share winning ads and promos. He also puts them in context, using his own decades of experience, and he explains why these ads worked and how they connect to deeper principles of copywriting and direct marketing.

A few bits of feedback Lawrence has gotten about that, from top direct response copywriters and marketers who have paid him thousands of dollars for his ad archives and commentary:

“Brilliant examples, great commentary. This one just gave me an idea for a newsletter we’re about to launch that I think will hit large. I don’t know where you find this stuff, but I’m glad you do.”

— John Forde, A-list copywriter and co-author of Great Leads

“My jaw is literally black and blue from hitting the floor over and over again as I got to see the techniques you’ve uncovered. I never dreamed many of these things were even possible, let alone how easy you’ve made them. The word ‘miraculous’ comes to mind.”

— Ken McCarthy, founder, System Seminar

“If Lawrence has got a product for sale, you should get it!”

— Marty Edelston, founder, Boardroom Inc.

About that last comment from Marty Edelston:

Ad Money Machine normally sells for $97/month. I subscribed to it at that price for over a year, starting in 2023. At that time I even promoted it to my list, for free, without being an affiliate, simply because I thought it’s such a valuable service.

Then back in 2024, Lawrence offered a rare opportunity to buy a lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine for $997 one-time. I knew I’d keep paying Lawrence monthly for a long time, so it was a no-brainer to take him up on this offer. I paid the $997 and bought the lifetime subscription.

Now, I’ve partnered with Lawrence so people who buy Copy Riddles during this week also get a FREE lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine, the same subscription I paid $997 for. I also got him to agree to extend the same benefit to previous Copy Riddles buyers.

(If you’re wondering why Lawrence would possibly agree to this, it’s because I’ve made the same deal to his lifetime subscribers — they can get Copy Riddles for free. Being a savvy direct response guy, Lawrence knows the value of growing his list with a bunch of people who are 1) interested in direct response copywriting and 2) have paid $997 to get better at it.)

Over the course of the coming week, I’ll have much more to say about Copy Riddles, about Ad Money Machine, and about Lawrence himself.

But frankly, I’ve never offered a deal this good before, at least if you too are interested in direct response copywriting and want to get better at it. In case you already know you want this deal, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

P.S. If you are already a Copy Riddles member, I sent you an email about how to claim your free lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine. In case you didn’t get that email, write me and I’ll get you set up.

The great disengagement is here

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A few days ago I saw a trending and curious article, “Are we the Baddies?”

The article was written by a guy named George Hotz, aka Geohot, who is a kind of influencer among nerds. (He was the first to hack the iPhone and later worked at Google, Facebook, and Twitter.)

Says Geohot:

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I signed up for Hinge. Holy shit with the boosts.

How does someone who works on this wake up every morning and feel okay about themselves?

Similarly with the tip screens, Uber algorithm, all the zero sum bullshit using all the tricks of psychology to extract a little bit more from every interaction in society. Nudge. Nudge. NUDGE.

Want to partake in normal society like buying a coffee, going on a date, getting a ride, paying a friend. Oh, there’s a middle man now. An evil ominous middleman using state of the art AI algorithms to extract just a little bit more from you.

===

Geohot goes on to helpfully prophesy that we are doomed.

You might agree with him, you might not.

My point today is simply that Geohot, a tech nerd, wrote this article, that it went viral, and that it had thousands of upvotes across sharing sites and hundreds of comments. Here’s a representative one:

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We should not underestimate the timeless human response to being manipulated: disengagement.

This isn’t theoretical, it’s happening right now. The boom in digital detoxes, the dumbphone revival among young people, the shift from public feeds to private DMs, and the “Do Not Disturb” generation are all symptoms of the same thing. People are feeling the manipulation and are choosing to opt out, one notification at a time.

===

Copywriting legend Gene Schwartz famously talked about “stages of sophistication.” In the shell of a nut:

Over time, each market gets exposed to more and more advertising. As a result, people in that market become more jaded and suspicious.

But it’s okay, says Gene. Because eventually, the market dies and a new market is born out of it. Tony Robbins’s Personal Power collapses in on itself, and out of that comes Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

The one thing that Gene never talked about is that society as a whole has gone through multiple such death and rebirth cycles.

Once or twice is ok. Three times and people start to notice something oddly familiar. The fifth or tenth time, we all become a little more jaded or sophisticated in general.

And after 150 years of direct marketing, of using “all the tricks of psychology to extract a little bit more,” and dozens of such cycles, society becomes really sophisticated.

And now, with the acceleration that Geohot is talking above, of apps that everybody is using all the time, which are applying direct response insights and techniques at mass, instantaneously, backed by big data and genuine AI… well, welcome to the great disengagement.

Like the commenter above says, this isn’t theoretical, it’s happening right now.

I’m telling you this simply as a kind of warning, or a curious observation of something you might not have spotted yourself yet.

If you want more than a warning, then my best prediction is that when all is said and done, people will still want to connect with other people, be entertained, and maybe learn something new.

In the future, I imagine everybody will be an actor, or a semi-pro soccer player, or maybe a newsletter author, even if the platforms change or no longer exist, and people ignore notifications and stop trusting algorithms.

And if you don’t agree with me, you know what to do — don’t write me and tell me so.

Instead, start your own email newsletter and express your views there, to people who want to hear from you over others, even without notifications and algorithms.

And if you want my help with that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The moat of asking for help

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A few months ago got an email from copywriter Suraj Punjabi. I know Suraj from the PCM community I worked in as a coach last year.

Suraj and I exchanged a couple emails, in one of which Suraj opened up and shared some pretty personal stuff. I’m reprinting it below, with Suraj’s permission. It’s a long message but worth reading in detail if you are looking for clients, copywriting or otherwise. Says Suraj:

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I’ve been on a dry spell since April, but I finally landed a gig thankfully.

It turns out I was busy doing cold outreach that didn’t bother looking at my own data.

So in January, I did just that. Gave cold outreach a break and looked at my own data hard.

And I noticed that literally 100% of my clients for the past 5 years came from referrals through connections I made from Facebook.

I felt pretty dumb for abandoning such a proven strategy in favor of cold emailing.

So, when I went back to leveraging this strategy, I immediately started getting inbound leads.

One of them, a 9-figure powerhouse in the keto space, just became a client.

In fact, I’m starting with them TODAY.

Oh and another gig I got was working under a senior copywriter who currently has his plate full and needed help with emails.

I’ll never forget the lesson life just taught me.

Some coaches swear by cold outreach, others by Upwork, LinkedIn, or X.

They might be right in their own way.

But nothing beats looking at your own past data to see where most of your clients have come from and doubling down on that.

Of course, this is not exactly newbie stuff. You need to have solid data. And I have 5 years worth.

Since PCM until today, I have sent at least 5000 cold outreaches using different strategies.

I have done PCM, I have tried sending conversation starters…

I have tried sending personalized Looms to show them how they can get more subscribers to their list…

I have pitched low risk offers like helping them write a blog just to get my foot in the door.

I made a LinkedIn profile and paid monthly for the premium subscription.

I even went back to Upwork to compete against $10/email copywriters! 🤢🤢🤢🤢

And none of those strategies held a candle to simply reaching out to my Facebook network and asking for help.

Not saying those other strategies don’t work. Perhaps they do work for some people (I know PCM works for A LOT of people), but it didn’t work for me.

Felt like a fish being told to fly. haha.

I felt so stupid when I realized it.

But oh well.

Lesson learned.

===

Two things to point out:

The first is the obvious — expert opinion doesn’t mean much compared to your own direct experience.

The second is less obvious, and it’s where Suraj says, “And none of those strategies held a candle to simply reaching out to my Facebook network and asking for help.”

Asking for help.

Most people don’t have a problem asking for the time, or for directions, or for a book to borrow.

But asking for help finding work — something that suggest genuine unokayness on your part — is something that few people are willing to do.

I never really did it when I was a freelance copywriter, and in need of work, except tentatively, with a few previous clients. (Even that rare and hesitant asking for help got me new leads.)

All that’s to say:

Asking for help works. People like feeling helpful, useful, and important.

At the same time, most people won’t ever ask for help, not in things like getting work, because it’s too threatening to the ego.

That just means that, if you can get over your own hesitations about asking for help, then you’ve just created a kind of moat around yourself and your success, which the hordes of others in your industry are not able to swim, jump, or walk across.

That’s my message for you today.

My offer to you today is my new 10 Commandments book, because this asking for help is actually Commandment I in the book.

It’s easy to read this book and think, “Oh these are interesting ideas, maybe I could use one of them in an email or a headline.”

But the fact is, each of the commandments in this book deals with the fundamentals of effective communication, and each is applicable to pretty much any problem you might be facing, whether personal or business. If you haven’t yet gotten your copy:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Bejako After Dark, my new OnlyFans project

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I’ve spent a lot of time in Ubers the past few days, jetsetting back and forth across my home town of Zagreb, Croatia.

A part of that experience has been listening to the local pop radio stations, which seem to be the music of choice for Uber drivers here.

(Bear with me for a minute. I promise to give you a good payoff to this story.)

During an Uber today, an awful pop song came on the radio. A woman was singing a childish tune over a reggae rhythm played by synthesizers. The chorus kept repeating (translated from Croatian):

===

When you’re alone, you need to go to the sea

When you’re alone, you need a friend

When you’re alone, you need a bottle of wine, you need a nice girl

===

“What is this horror,” I asked myself after the chorus repeated for the 45th time. Then on the 46th repeat, the final line changed:

“When you’re alone, you need a bottle of wine, you need Severina”

“Oh ok that makes sense,” I said.

In case you don’t know — and if you do, I have questions for you — Severina is the most nationally and internationally famous singer from Croatia.

Starting in the early 90s, for a decade and more, Severina recorded dutiful and horrible songs like the one I heard today. Her career wasn’t going anywhere.

And then, in June 2004, a sex tape involving Severina leaked out. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, the tape was quickly viewed more times than the moon landing.

As you can probably guess, Severina’s sex tape transformed Severina’s music career.

It opened up huge new audiences both locally and internationally. It helped her change her image to a kind of sex vixen.

It got a lot of musicians, including some respectable ones, interested in working with her. And it has kept her music, awful though it is, playing on the radio, even today, 20 years later.

But I promised you a good payoff to today’s story, and a sex tape ain’t it.

Along with listening to Severina, I am also reading a book titled Veeck As In Wreck. It’s the autobiography of Bill Veeck, who was one of the most innovative and influential owners of a major league baseball team in the history of the sport.

At different times, Veeck owned the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians.

But he started out by working for the Chicago Cubs, back when the Cubs were a horrifically losing team. Of course, no fans wanted to go see the Cubs since they were so bad, and the Cubs’ stadium, Wrigley Field, sat empty.

Veeck managed to turn all this around. Well, not the Cubs’ losing record, but the attendance problems.

Veeck managed to sell out game after game by introducing creative giveaways (live lobsters, a horse), spectacles (fireworks, before any other baseball teams had ’em), and schemes (a dwarf playing as designated hitter). As Veeck put it in in his autobiography:

“A team that isn’t winning a pennant has to sell something in addition to its won-and-lost record.”

And now I’d like to point out something crazy that might have slipped your attention:

Both the Chicago Cubs and early-stage Severina were in the entertainment business — sports and music. I mean, what sells easier and better than sports and music?

Except, of course, for the Cubs and Severina, being “entertaining” wasn’t enough. They both kind of sucked at that, and so they had to tack on a second degree of entertainment — a circus environment, a sex tape — in order for fans to care or at least stomach their first degree of entertainment.

And that’s the point I wanted to get across to you.

If you’re selling something important and dutiful, you can sell more of it by trying to be entertaining. You probably already know that – it’s the “infotainment” idea that people like Sean D’Souza have been championing for two decades.

The thing is, you might not be much of an entertainer. Or you might be decent, but you might simply be in a marketplace where everybody else is also entertaining, and maybe as well as you.

In that case, you can still lap the pack if you offer a second-degree of entertainment — entertainment of a different kind, preferably in an entirely different format.

And with that, I’d like to announce I’m launching a new project, an OnlyFans channel, Bejako After Dark — no, you wish.

But I am thinking about this topic of second-degree entertainment seriously. In time, some good idea will land on me. Maybe it will be OnlyFans.

In any case, until that happens, let me just turn you on to something I’ve already created — an entertainment of a different kind, in an entirely different format, in which I bare myself quite naked:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

A mystery on today’s date

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At 10am on July 2, 1937, precisely 88 years ago, the following happened:

An overloaded plane, 5,000lbs over its normal weight, rumbled down a grass runway.

Observers at the airport thought the plane had actually fallen down the cliff at the end of the runway, but a few moments later, the plane reappeared, apparently airborne, and gradually rose up into the clouds.

Aboard, there were only two passengers: a navigator, named Fred Noonan, and the most famous female aviatress of all time, Amelia Earheart.

Earheart and Noonan were completing the final leg of their round-the-world flight, crossing the Pacific from Melanesia back to the U.S.. If successful, Earheart would become the first woman to fly all the way around the world.

But Earheart and Noonan never made it to the next stop. Some 20 hours later, also on July 2 (thanks to crossing the international date line), they disappeared somewhere over the Pacific, never to be heard from or seen again.

Except… maybe they were heard from or seen again?

A woman in Texas picked up an SOS radio transmission the next day, in which she heard a woman who claimed to be Earheart, and a man groaning in background. The two were supposedly stranded on an uninhabited island in the Pacific.

Then again, a Japanese woman on the island of Saipan claimed she had personally witnessed Earheart and Noonan, following their crash on the island, being executed by the Imperial Japanese Army.

There were also claims that Earheart was captured but not executed by the Japanese. In this scenario, she was forced to work as Tokyo Rose, an English-speaking radio broadcaster used to spread Japanese propaganda during WWII.

And finally, there was the theory that Earheart completed her flight as planned but immediately chose to go into obscurity, only to reappear years later as a New Jersey banker.

All in all, around 100 books have been written about Earheart and what really happened to her.

Organizations and well-funded expeditions have been established to really get to the bottom of it.

Numerous TV shows and documentaries have tried to shine light on the mystery. I’m surprised Angelina Jolie never made a movie about Earheart.

Now I think you will agree with me, because I happen to be right about the matter, that none of this would have happened had Earheart simply crashed and burned in a certain death, or had she even managed to complete her round the world tour as expected.

There’s something about the mystery of not knowing what really happened, a lack of closure, which drives intense attention or even obsession, which cannot be created in any other way.

If you have basic knowledge of copywriting, you are familiar with this human quirk, and you probably even exploit it via “open loops” in your copy.

What you might not be familiar with is the underlying neurology of why we feel the need for closure so strongly, or how the same neurology can be exploited by magicians (if you ever hear a magician tell a corny joke, that’s why), by negotiators (Jim Camp’s advice to “negotiate in the bathroom”) or by hypnotists (to perform a rapid induction that gets 5 weeks’ worth of hypnosis down into 3 minutes).

If any of that sounds intriguing to you, take a look at Commandment X of my new 10 Commandments book, waiting patiently for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments