Stories

I shot a moose

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“I shot a moose once,” says Woody Allen. The audience at the comedy club starts chuckling.

“I was hunting upstate New York,” Woody explains, “and I shot a moose.” It’s the beginning of a 3-minute routine. But it’s already funny.

The question is why.

If you don’t want me to kill this joke for you, then stop reading now. But if you’re curious why “I shot a moose” is already funny in itself, and how this can help you write better stories, then read on.

Still here? Let’s dissect this:

“I shot a moose once,” says Woody. The audience chuckles.

Partly it’s the improbable setup. Woody Allen, small, city dweller, nebbish, hunting in upstate New York.

But partly it’s the moose itself. The same improbable setup would not be as funny if Woody said, “I shot a deer.”

Why moose and not deer? A few possibilities:

Moose look funny. They have the round muzzle, the cauliflower antlers, they are oversized and look ungainly.

Also, moose are less common than deer. Maybe that makes the story less likely to be real, and therefore more absurd.

Finally, the word moose is funny for some reason to English speakers. Perhaps it makes us think of “moo” as in cow. Perhaps it’s the unexpected unvoiced “s” at the end. If the animal’s name were pronounced “mooze,” it might not be as funny.

In good comedy routines, as in good stories, the comedian takes you down a meandering garden path. What’s important is not the destination – the punchline — but the journey along the way.

So how do you organize a meandering stroll for the greatest effect?

Like a fountain in a real garden, some things are guaranteed to please during a comedy show — mockery, mimicry, slapstick.

Other times, it’s just important to stroll and take surprising new turns. What exactly lies around the corner doesn’t matter too much, as long as it’s new.

And then, there’s the unimportant detail that’s actually important. The cabbage patch instead of the flower bed… or the moose in the Woody Allen routine.

So why the moose?

We can guess, but ​​nobody knows for sure, not even Woody Allen. Whatever it is about the moose, the fact is this seemingly unimportant detail is actually important.

The point of today’s email is not the moose. It’s that fascinating gardens, like great stories and funny comedy routines, rarely spring forth fully formed.

They are the work of careful craftsmen.

Comedians like Woody Allen will deliver the same routine hundreds or thousands of times, each time perfecting the delivery and testing out small variations, including all the unimportant details. It’s the collection of all those details that ultimately “get the click.”

So that’s my takeaway for you.

If you have a story to tell, but it’s not clicking, maybe it’s not the story. In fact, it’s almost certainly not the story.

Retell it again, tweak it, add in stuff, take out stuff, polish it.

A new audience will keep thinking that it’s new. An old audience will need to be reminded. And to both an old and a new audience, the final walk down the garden path that you deliver will be more fascinating and stimulating than what you started with.

I wish I had a storytelling training to sell you right now. I don’t have one. But I’ve actually written quite a lot about storytelling, and experimented with storytelling techniques myself.

You can learn and profit from my experiments. They are one part of what’s documented inside my Most Valuable Email course, specifically in the Most Valuable Email Swipes #13,#16, #17, #18, #19, #20, and #22.

For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

The ONE thing to know about storytelling

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The ONE thing to know about storytelling is that, like cooking, plumbing, and robbing a bank, storytelling is really a collection of skills and strategies rather than a single unifying rule to follow.

I know you probably don’t want to hear that. But look at this:

– How do I know when I’m using too much detail?

– ​How do you know where to stop?

– ​How to add twists to a story?

– ​Making up stories… When might you want to do this?

A few days ago, I asked readers what questions they have about storytelling. Above are a few of the replies I got.

All fair questions. All require separate answers. Any answer that could possibly answer all of them, such as tension! or surprise! or delight!, is so vague as to be useless.

But wait, there’s more.

The real thing I want to share with you in this email is not the discouraging message above.

Rather, I wanna tell you something interesting I read yesterday in a book about magic and showmanship. The author of that book says the best performers, magicians, and showmen practice something he calls conservation.

Conservation: the ability to do more and the will to refrain.

From the book: “If we try to give any routine more importance than it will bear, we destroy the illusion and may reveal the secret.” Hence, conservation. The willingness to hold back the full might of your armory of magic tricks.

Same goes for storytelling.

There are lots of tricks if you really break down what the best storytellers do.

But in order to tell an interesting and effective story, you definitely do not need all of these tricks. In fact, one or two tweaks to what you might normally do are all it takes to turn a bland story into something memorable and exciting.

And on the other hand, making use of more than just one or two tricks per story is likely to destroy the illusion and may reveal the secret.

What secret?

Well, for that (drumroll) I invite you to join me for the free presentation on storytelling that Kieran Drew and I will host on Monday, specifically at 4pm CET/10am EST/7am PST (yes, I know).

This presentation is a bonus for those who get Simple Money Emails before the presentation goes live. After that, no free bonus.

If you already have Simple Money Emails, you should have gotten an email from either Kieran or me with the Zoom link to join Monday’s presentation.

And if you don’t yet have Simple Money Emails, you can get it at the link below. ​​I could try for some callback humor right now to wrap up this email, but instead I will conserve and refrain. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

New evidence that women tell amazing stories

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The late, great Patrice O’Neal — the man was literally great, weighing in at over 300 pounds — had a standup comedy routine about how women tell terrible stories.

“I always make my girlfriend tell me the end of any story she’s getting ready to tell me first, before I invest in the whole,” Patrice said. Then he gave an example:

“‘What’s the end of the story?'”

“‘Somebody got shot!'”

The big man grimaces and weighs his options hard for a moment.

“‘… ughhh… all right. Go ahead. Try to tell the story.'”

I thought of this last night as replies poured in to my email yesterday.

That email started with the story of a friend who wants to introduce more stories into her corporate presentations. The email ended by asking my readers to write in with their questions about storytelling.

So far, less than 12 hours later, I’ve gotten more than 40 replies to that email. And here’s what got me:

Except for one of those replies, which came from the friend I referenced in yesterday’s email, who also happens to read this newsletter and also happens to be a woman, all 40+ replies came from men.

I thought this was very curious.

For the record, my almost nonexistent bro-aura means I do not repel female readers in general. And typically, whenever I ask for feedback or solicit replies in an email, I get a healthy mix of both men and women replying.

And yet, yesterday, no women replied, except for my friend, who might have replied only because the email talked about her.

Clearly, all this is evidence that Patrice O’Neal was wrong, that women in fact tell amazing stories, and that they do not need any help with telling stories better.

But what about all those luckless men?

Many of them did ask really “male” questions, basically variations of:

“I want to know the algorithm that produces stories that are guaranteed to force every reader to read even if they don’t want to read and even if they don’t know me or want to know me, and also the algorithm should never fail and it should always specify exactly which word to insert in the next slot in the word-chain, given the totality of input that preceded it.”

I’ll tell you right now, I do not have that algorithm. And if I did, I wouldn’t share.

Fortunately, other men wrote in with more reasonable questions like:

– Where do I find stories to tell, or how do I come up with them?
– How do I know if my stories will be interesting to readers?
– How do I tie a random story into the thing I’m selling?
– Which types of stories to avoid?

All reasonable questions. But I won’t talk about them in any detail in the presentation I am preparing.

The reason why I won’t talk about them is that I’ve already created an entire course that addresses all of those questions in detail, and then some.

This course is clearly not meant for women, since they apparently don’t need it. But if you’re a man, looking for a rational, systematic, solution-oriented method to write sales emails, including ones with stories, then go here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Free presentation about storytelling in emails

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I’ll tell you about the free presentation in a second. But first, let me set it up:

I met a friend for lunch yesterday. She’s a corporate trainer. She trains, I assume, corporates. She teaches them things like “change management.”

We sat down on a park bench. I told her about my presentation in London last week, specifically, how I led it off with a story. That’s something even other copywriters forget to do when they get up and talk in front of others.

My friend said, “I’d like to introduce stories into my presentations. But I don’t know how.”

I frowned like she had told me she enjoys eating cat food. What is there to know? You look through the presentation, find the key moments of it, and squeeze in a story there.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I know how to tell a story well,” she said.

I frowned again.

Like I’ve written before, I feel there’s a lot of mystification around storytelling. To me, it mostly comes down to 1) watching lots of movies and 2) occasional practice.

But I bet you want some shortcuts. Some tips. Some tricks to tell better stories, sooner, without the dozens of rewatchings of the Princess Bride that I’ve put myself through.

So I’ll make you a deal.

I’m preparing a presentation I’ll put together, tentatively titled:

“Next-level storytelling tricks for emails that sell (no hero’s journey, thank you)”

I’ll see about that title still. But I think you get the idea.

Now, the deal is — if you have questions around storytelling, hit reply right now and ask away.

You can ask me anything that comes to mind. I will use any questions you send me before tomorrow at 8:31 CET to shape and inform this presentation.

​​In return, I’ll tell you how you can get free access to this presentation when I do put it out — which will be soon, but more details on that are coming.

If this sounds interesting to you, take a moment right now. Think about your questions around storytelling. Then hit reply and let me know. Thanks in advance. ​​

The George Costanza school of formulaic but effective emails

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In the new course I just released, Simple Money Emails, I gave the example of an effective “George Costanza school” email I wrote five years ago.

That email used “The Opposite” storyline from Seinfeld. George realizes every decision he has ever made in life has been a mistake, and decides to start doing the opposite from now on. Good things follow.

I used this story to open an email for my old aromatherapy list (I used to be a low-grade aromatherapy influencer once). Sure enough, I sold some copies of my aromatherapy book via that George Constanza trope. And I’m not the only one…

… ​​and not in the aromatherapy niche only.

Yesterday, I got an email from a long-time customer and reader (not sure he wants me to share his name), who wrote me after getting SME to say:

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Hey John! Loving the course so far, and very interested in the “9 sins” offer.

One thing that made me laugh while reading it is that I used this same episode and story about George Constanza twice in different emails for different lists to sell some courses, successfully.

===

I don’t know which lists and which courses he made sales to with this story. But the smaller point is clear. ​​If you ever need a formulaic but effective way to open your email:

Use “The Opposite” storyline from Seinfeld. It can fly in pretty much any market.

Bigger point:

It might seem obvious that you want to open your emails with stories that help you make the sale. But it’s not obvious at all, at least based on the 100+ emails I’ve been paid to critique and review over the past year.

All the time, I see people who open their sales emails with cute or interesting stories that go nowhere, or at least nowhere near the offer they are promoting.

And then these same people wonder why they’re not making any sales — the email marketing equivalent of being unemployed and living with your parents.

And on that note, I’m putting on a live training next Monday, 9 Deadly Email Sins.

The above is one of the 9 sins. The others are equally as simple, equally as widespread, and equally as deadly.

If you’d like find out what these sins are, so you can take a 180-degree turn away from them and towards a new, more successful episode in your life:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/​​

Open this email to take a little trip

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This morning, I had coffee at the little harbor in the old fishing village of Volosko, on the Croatian seaside, where my dad has an apartment.

The harbor in Volosko is very small, enough for a dozen small boats. It’s surrounded by colorful buildings with wooden shutters and blooming flowers on the window sills.

Today being Sunday, it was quiet, nobody much around, just the docked boats slapping against the sea. Somewhere a mast stay was clanging against the mast.

In the middle of the small harbor, there is a breakwater, which has been converted into a terrace for a nearby cafe. I was there this morning, with my dad and his wife, sitting in the shade, sipping an espresso and watching people walking their dogs.

I’ve been staying in Volosko for the past four days. I’ve largely had an unenjoyable time. I’m not joking.

I asked myself, how?

I realized it’s because I spent the four days at my computer, at home, mostly working. My dad and his wife have been doing the same — on their screens, maybe working, maybe just wasting time.

It’s been said, if you write sales emails, make them entertaining. Take people for a ride. Because people’s everyday lives are rather dull and limited. That’s not me being condescending. I myself am as guilty of living a dull and limited life as anybody, or maybe more so, since I sit in front of the computer so much.

So when you write sales emails, show people a scene. Take them for a ride, or a little trip. ​It will be good for your readers, and good for you too — because it will force you to look up from your own screen on occasion and see the rather rich world that surrounds you.

The last time I was in Volosko was a year ago. I traveled there for business — so I could write and send my Most Valuable Postcard #2.

If you want to see more of Volosko, and of Opatija, the bigger beachhead resort town that Volosko has merged into, you can find a bunch of photos of that inside my MVP2 below.

And besides the pictures, MVP2 also has a point — the essence of copywriting and marketing, as I see it, woven into a bunch of stories. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp2/

Why the girl-and-python show is a great place to negotiate

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Here’s an intriguing (and for writers, a most instructive) scene from one of the greatest films in Hollywood history:

“Christ what a trip. The whole time I’m thinking, what if somebody knows what I got in here? Can you imagine that? Two million dollars on the seat next to me in that plane? Mikey, what the hell’s going on anyway? I’m totally in the dark.”

Mikey picks up the suitcase and carries it off. “The family’s making an investment in Havana. This is a little gift for the President.”

Maybe you recognize this scene. It’s from The Godfather, part 2. ​​Fredo Corleone, the oldest surviving son of the Godfather, is talking to his younger brother Michael, who now heads the Corleone crime family.

Michael recently survived an assassination attempt. He knows his business partner Heyman Roth and Roth’s henchman Johnny Ola were behind it. What he doesn’t know is who inside his own circle betrayed him and collaborated with Roth.

Fredo puts his hands in his pockets as he watches the suitcase disappear.

“Havana’s great!” he says. “My kind of town. Anybody I know in Havana?”

Michael pours himself a glass of water. “Oh… Heyman Roth? Johnny Ola?”

Fredo stares for a bit, trying to pull out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. Finally he manages to get the cigarettes out. He looks away.

​​”No. Never met them.”

A couple weeks ago, I wrote an email about negotiation coach Jim Camp. Camp helped negotiate many billion-dollar deals, but he became famous thanks to his contrarian, oracle-like sayings.

One thing Camp said is that he likes to negotiate in the bathroom. That might sounds contrarian, but it’s not. It’s very literal, and backed by basic human psychology.

For an example, fast forward a bit, to Havana.

​​Fredo isn’t smart or strong enough to run the Corleone family, but he’s a fun guy. He knows all the cool spots. He takes Michael and a few U.S. Senators and judges to a girl-and-python act.

“Watch,” says Fredo, as he pours out glasses of rum. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

A young woman is brought out on stage. She is tied to a kind of ceremonial pillar. Then a man in a silk robe is brought out. Two assistants pull off his silk robe to leave him standing naked in front of the audience.

The guys with Fredo — except Michael, who’s checking his watch — gasp and then start chuckling.

“That thing’s gotta be a fake. Hey Freddie! Freddie! How’d you even find this place?”

Fredo doesn’t take his eyes off the stage. “Johnny Ola told me about this place. He brought me here. I didn’t believe him, but seeing is believing. Old man Roth would never come here, but old Johnny knows these places like the back of his hand.”

Michael doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. But he looks like somebody just punched him in the gut. And he turns around, and gives a signal to his man who is standing at the door.

So there you go. The reason to negotiate in the bathroom, or during the girl-and-python act. It’s because barriers come down. Jim Camp explains: “As they go to the bathroom, you ask them a question. They’ll answer. They smile, and they answer the question. It’s a great time to do research.”

I wrote about that in my email couple weeks ago. But then I asked myself, what’s really going on? Is this just a negotiation trick?

Eventually, it dawned on me. It’s not a trick. It’s a bit of very basic human psychology.

Our brain likes to think in discrete events, snapshots, scenes, like a movie. This much is obvious. What’s less obvious and more interesting are the consequences. From a New Yorker article on the topic:

“Walking into a room, you might forget why you came in; this happens, researchers say, because passing through the doorway brings one mental scene to a close and opens another.”

Like I said, a bit of fundamental human psychology.

You can now shrug your shoulders and say, “So what?” That would be a Fredo-like thing to do.

Or you can be more like Michael Corleone, and think about how to adapt, how to use this bit of psychology for your own ends.

That’s what Jim Camp did. That’s what successful magicians do. And successful writers, too. In fact, it’s what I’ve tried to do in this very email.

Let me end there, and point you to an offer you can certainly refuse. It’s my Most Valuable Email training, a kind of man-and-keyboard act. In case you’re a person who likes to take advantage of fundamental human psychology:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

A story about true magic

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If you’re interested in my Most Valuable Email program, you can find that here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

And now, here’s a story about true magic:

Magician Max Malini made his reputation thanks to impromptu performances.

One time, Malini sat down at a restaurant for dinner with company. He spent hours there, talking with his friends, drinking, eating. Fish soup. Lamb chops. Then a slice of chocolate cake.

During the entire time, Malini didn’t get up from the table.

Eventually, he turned to a woman at his table and asked to borrow her hat. This was at a time when women still wore hats. The woman took off hers and handed it to Malini.

Malini set a coin spinning on the table, and asked the woman, lady or eagle? The owner of the hat called out, eagle.

Malini used the hat to cover the still-spinning coin. When he lifted the hat, the coin was flat on the table, tails up, showing the eagle.

Mailini set the coin spinning a second time. He asked a man at his table, lady or eagle? The man said, lady.

Malini covered the coin with the hat again. When he lifted the hat, the coin was flat on the table, heads up, showing the lady.

Malini then set the coin spinning a third time, and covered it with the hat.

And when he lifted the hat, there was no coin at at all.

Instead, there was an enormous block of ice on the table, a cube about one foot to a side, perfectly chiseled, without a single drop of melted ice water anywhere.

And the point? In the words of another magician, screenwriter and novelist William Goldman:

“In a sense, a screenplay, whether a romance or a detective story, is a series of surprises. We detonate these as we go along. But for a surprise to be valid, we must first set the ground rules, indicate expectations.”

And now you can go back to the beginning if you like.

96% done, I knew I had to discard today’s email

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I was gonna write one email today, and it was gonna be solid and possibly fine. But fate didn’t allow me to go down that path.

My original email was about a momentous interview in 1992 when CNN talk show host Larry King interviewed Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire.

With three questions, King managed to convince Perot to run in the 1992 presidential race… very probably stealing the presidency from George Bush… giving it to Bill Clinton… and changing world history for decades to come.

In fact, I wrote that original email, most of it. I’d say I was 96% of the way done.

I’m not sure why — maybe I felt something was missing, maybe I wanted something concrete — but I decided to go on YouTube and see if I could quickly find the actual interview and hear Perot’s exact words.

I tried once, twice.

Lots of other Ross Perot videos, lots of other Larry King videos. But I couldn’t find the actual 1992 interview.

I decided it was time to get back to my email and finish things up but—

​​”Let me give it just one more try,” I said to myself.

I typed in a new search into YouTube.

​​Still no actual 1992 interview.

But a few videos down, almost below the fold, there was a 1 minute, 34 second clip of Larry King reminiscing about the interview.

Turns out, King asked Perot if he would run for president in the very first question of the night. Perot said no. King asked once more, midway through the interview. Perot said no. And then, in King’s own words:

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Two minutes left of the show. I don’t know what in me — just the way he was talking, the way we were conducting, talking about the economy — I said, “Is there any situation under which you would run?”

He said, “I tell you what. You put me on the ballot in all 50 states, and I’d run.”

And when we left that night, I said, “You think anything’s going to happen?” He says, “I don’t think so.”

And two days later he called me and he said, “I got back to my hotel room and the bellhop gave me $10. This could be a sign.”

And two weeks later, Dan Rather led with it on the CBS Evening News. Ran clips from my show. And the rest is history. We made a candidate.

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King was known as a master storyteller. Those 133 words above show why. As soon as I heard them, I was struck.

I knew what I had to do.

And the rest is history. I discarded my original email. I wrote this new one. Maybe it will influence you, or help you improve your storytelling. All you have to do is ponder Larry King’s words above a bit. And who knows where could will lead you?

But back to the present:

My offer tonight is my Most Valuable Email course, which is not about storytelling — unless you want it to be.

A part of what you get with MVE is my Most Valuable Email Swipes, 51 of my best emails using the Most Valuable Email trick. I just counted. 19 of the 51 are primarily story-based emails, which also happen to use the Most Valuable Email trick.

This could be a sign:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/​​

We’re in the fiction business

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I was surprised—

Yesterday I polled readers as to what books they are reading right now.

The responses came flooding in. Lots of business books. Lots of marketing books. Lots of self-help books.

What surprised me is that out of the several dozen responses I got, fewer than five came from people who said they are reading fiction.

A few days ago, I mentioned how I’ve watched lots of Dan Kennedy seminars about marketing and copywriting, and how Dan will often poll the room about who reads fiction.

​​A few hands go up, most stay down.

“You gotta read fiction,” says Dan. “Many people make the mistake of thinking we’re in the non-fiction business. Big mistake. We’re in the fiction business.”

So read fiction. Even better, write fiction. Dan did it – a mystery novel. John Carlton did it, too — sci-fi. I guess even Gary Halbert did it, maybe romance.

You don’t have to write a novel or even a short story. An email can be it.

​​I’ve done it before in this newsletter. Sometimes I was serious about it. Lots of times it was a parody. In every case, it was valuable.

​​To read the adventures of Bond Jebakovic, secret agent, go here:

https://bejakovic.com/once-upon-a-time/