Direct Marketing

Secret offer knowledge that’s too valuable to trumpet loudly

by

I’ve been going through Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts seminar recordings.

There are two great, truly great, Dan Kennedy seminars.

One is Influential Writing, in which Dan explains how to create a cult of personality in your writing. Basically, it’s what everybody with a personal daily email newsletter is doing or should be doing.

The other great Dan Kennedy seminar is Opportunity Concepts. It tackles the other side, not the copy but the offer.

Opportunity Concepts teaches you how to repackage, reinvent, recreate what you offer as an opportunity — something so new, so distracting, and so sexy that people want it based on its own merits, even if they don’t know you, even if it sounds preposterous, even if it’s expensive.

So today I’m going through Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts, maybe for the fifth time ever.

The seminar sold for $10k when Dan put it on live back in 2011.

The recordings sold for $1,500 after that, but are no longer available anywhere, including eBay or Dan Kennedy’s site.

(Don’t ask me how I got ’em, but I got ’em a long time ago, for free, though legally.)

So I’m going through Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts. And I decide on a whim to google “Opportunity Concepts.” There’s not much out there. but…

… there is a page on the Dan Kennedy’s website, saying that Opportunity Concepts has been turned into a book called Selling Opportunity.

The only way to get Selling Opportunity is to sign up to the Diamond Level of Dan Kennedy’s membership/newsletter.

The Diamond Level costs $297/month.

Much better than either $10,000 or $1,500, and really a drop in the bucket considering the value of this info.

But then, on one last hunch, I decide to go to Amazon.

I search for “Selling Opportunity.”

And there it is.

A recording of Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts, sold as an audiobook published by Nightingale-Conant… for $15.

I bought it immediately, even though I already have it.

I skipped around through it, just to see if it really is the Opportunity Concepts training.

It is.

Some parts are missing (a couple guest presentations, for example).

But most of it is there.

If you like, you can get Opportunity Concepts, reinvented as Selling Opportunity, below.

I won’t trumpet it any more. You either know or you don’t know what this is worth. If you don’t, that’s okay. If you do:

​https://bejakovic.com/opportunity-concepts

Is your list too small for list swaps?

by

For several decades now, I’ve been recommending list swaps as a way to grow your email list.

(List swap = you promote somebody else to your list, in exchange for them promoting you to theirs.)

The #1 objection I hear is:

“My list is too small to make it worth anybody’s while.”

How small is too small?

4 people?

100 people?

200 people?

I was recently on a call with a list owner who has a list of 1,500 entrepreneurs. He said he’s worried his list is too small to do list swaps!

That dude asked for my advice about approaching people for list swaps. What I told him is:

1. A fantastic lead magnet and solid emails will go a long way.

Right now, I’m doing a list swap with somebody who has a list of 150 people… because he’s willing to custom create a lead magnet I know my audience will get value from. Plus his emails are solid.

2. You can always offer to make things right.

If somebody’s list is bigger than yours, you can offer to promote them multiple times, now and then again in 6 months or in a year etc. (In the end, that’s the deal I ended up striking with the guy in point 1.)

3. Money can plug the gap. You can always offer to both promote the other person AND to pay them something to make the exchange more equitable.

So?

Are you convinced now?

Are you gonna rush out and start doing list swaps?

I hope so.

But if not, I gotta tell you my dark-psychology conclusion here:

I don’t think list size is really what’s holding people back from doing list swaps.

Rather, I think it’s the same old culprit that holds back pretty much everybody, pretty much all the time:

Fear of rejection.

Putting yourself out there… and having somebody tell you no or ignore you… and feeling so small and worthless because of it.

If that’s your situation, then I’d suggest, in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, that you put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals.

It would be great to not care about being rejected, or to just do stuff in spite of this fear.

But while you work on that, it can make sense to look for alternate routes to achieve your business goals.

I’d like to point you to an opportunity to do so right now.

Maliha Mannan, who runs the Side Blogger and who is a member of my Daily Email House community, has a list of 9,000 online creators and business owners and people who want to become such.

Maliha is auctioning off a classified ad spot in every Sunday edition of her newsletter… FOR THE REST OF THIS YEAR.

Bidding starts at $2.

More info here:

https://www.skool.com/anthill-club-6065/your-official-invitation-to-my-basementbackyard-party

Daily Emails 101

by

Over the past few weeks, I have been spending a lot of time talking to Nick “The Knife” Bandy, and trying to persuade him to create a course that I want to buy and maybe even sell.

The background is that Nick has an email list, which he has been growing for the past year with a low-stress ad funnel to a low-ticket product that runs at a VERY slight profit, indefinitely.

In more specific numbers:

Nick’s low-stress ad funnel gets him about 100 new buyers on his list every month. And for every $1k Nick puts into this funnel, he gets $1.2k out before he’s even sent an email. He only checks in on it every few months.

Every time Nick mentions this ad funnel and this way of growing his list, my stomach growls and I start to salivate a little.

I’ve been trying to get him to create a course about this, because frankly I myself would love to have a similar funnel and would love to grow my list, with buyers, on autopilot, at profit. Come on!

The trouble is, Nick is kinda busy.

He’s got his regular $12k/month CMO retainer (part time, come on!)…

… he’s got partner revshare deals he has been kicking off…

… and because he has created one successful low-stress ad funnel, he has now decided to create a second.

I will keep pushing Nick, and maybe if I succeed, and he creates his course, I can make it available to you too.

Meanwhile, all I can do is daydream.

Today I was in the shower — no joke, and no direct response hyperbole — and I found myself thinking how I could create a low-ticket something called Daily Emails 101.

Daily Emails 101 would walk those who have or want to have an online business through the first 101 days of writing and making sales with a daily email newsletter.

Daily Emails 101 would be the most wonderful, exciting, and nichiest guide to this niche topic, and I’d make sure it inspires as well as informs.

Is this something you would want?

I mean, if I were to create Daily Emails 101, and if I were to promise to get you a deal on it that nobody else will get, not outside of this email, would you put down, say, $5 today to have the option to buy Daily Emails 101?

Hit reply and let me know.

If you say yes, and you’re serious enough to put down $5, maybe I’ll create it… maybe I will sell it to you for an unimaginably sexy price when it’s done… and maybe, when Nick does create his “low-stress ad funnel that grows your list at a profit” course, I will be ready to unleash it on the world, a few copies at a time (I’ll even put your name inside of it to say thanks).

The ecstasy and agony of shopping for what you really want

by

“Congratulations, it is now your turn,” the computer told me. “You have 10 minutes to make your purchase.”

I rubbed my palms together. “Here we go,” I said.

As long-time readers of my newsletter know, I’m a tennis fan.

I used to play tennis when I was kid. I sucked at it. So for most of my life, I’ve instead gotten my kicks vicariously, by watching pro tennis on TV.

This year, I’ve decided I’ll go to see tennis for real.

There’s a big event in September, happening in London, called Laver Cup. It was started by tennis legend Roger Federer. It’s a kind of invite-only competition of the world’s best and most charismatic players, who compete in two teams: Europe vs. the world (aka colonizers vs. the colonized).

Tickets for the Laver Cup went on pre-sale yesterday at 11am my time. You had to be signed up to the waiting list via email, which I was.

At 10:55am, I was nervously waiting in the digital waiting room for the pre-sale to start, and for my turn in the digital queue to arrive.

At 11:04am, I got the go-ahead. I could now proceed to pay an obscene amount of money for uncomfortable seats to watch grown man clobber a little yellow ball of fuzz for three days straight.

Like I said, I rubbed my palms in excitement, and…

“Your spot in the queue has expired,” the computer told me before I had a chance to do anything. “Please rejoin the queue for another spot.”

What… How? When???

Long story short, the ticket-selling website that was supposed to take my money for Laver Cup tickets wasn’t working right, at least for me.

At first, it was telling me my spot in the queue had expired. It kept sending me back to the waiting room to rejoin the queue.

Then, as I kept flailing around in a panic that my tickets would get swept up by somebody else, the site started marking me as a bot, scammer, scalper, even though I was scrupulously following their instructions on how to buy tickets.

I spent the next hour trying again… refreshing the page… closing down tabs… switching browsers… switching from my laptop to my phone… switching wifi on and off… sending links to a friend to buy tickets in my stead… and waiting on hold with customer support, who, after hearing me out and being very understanding, told me to go to wait and try again in an hour.

Which I did.

All with no result other than frustration and agony.

I’m telling you this story mainly to vent, because I never did manage to buy the stupid tickets.

But, since I make a point of squeezing a marketing lesson out of everything, let me squeeze one out here as well.

In direct response land, where I tend to live, we are used to doing a lot of persuading, convincing, and pushing to get prospects to buy. And even then, typical conversion rates are 2% or lower.

It can warp your mental picture, and make you think that people are begrudging you the money they send you.

The fact is though, if you find a buyer in heat, the way I was yesterday, they will fight and strive to overcome all sorts of obstacles to give you money.

My most dramatic experience of that, as a seller, came during the last 15 or so minutes of the auction I ran in December.

Every few seconds, people were bidding thousands of dollars more on the offer I had put up on auction, and strategizing how they can be the ones to pay the most before the deadline (the winning bid came in at $31k).

Yesterday, I ran my second-ever auction.

The offer on auction was “behind the scenes” data of auctions I will be running in the coming months, weeks, and days (including a new one, tonight, for a partner).

I won’t tell you how my auction yesterday did, since that’s info that I’ve sold to people yesterday, as part of much more detailed “behind the scenes” data.

But I have gotten messages today about my auction yesterday, like the following:

“I couldn’t be there (4 kids bath and bed) but would love to learn from the metrics! Is there a way I can do that?”

I’m considering making some for of my “behind the scenes” data available, to a limited number of people, even outside the auction.

If this is interesting to you, then hit reply and tell me what are you most curious about in the “behind the scenes” auction data I’m offering to share.

If I do end up making this offer available, you will have to reply like this to be able to get it. In other words, a kind of waiting list of the eager, though I promise to be less maddeningly arbitrary and glitchy than the Laver Cup site.

1 hour from now: My “Behind The Scenes” auction kicks off

by

My “Behind The Scenes” auction kicks off in 1 hour.

Here are 3 reasons, all from earlier today, why you might want to participate:

1. Today, I got login details to a moderator account for a community of 6k members, in preparation for an auction I am planning to run, built around an offer that sells for $10k.

2. This morning, I got a message from an auction partner I have already written a pre-auction poll. He wrote:

“I’ve received several very positive, ‘I want to win’ kinda emails. And here’s the latest in the screenshot. Lots of $1 but I think you said that’s expected. I’m good to push forward.”

3. Just a few minutes ago, I got a new potential auction partner contact me over Skool and say:

“Are you down for a short call early next week to plan our first auction in [his community?”

The behind-the-scenes details of those three partner relationships and the auctions that might come from them, and other partners and other auctions, are effectively what’s on offer today.

I ran my first auction back in December 2026. It made $31k.

I will be running more auctions with partners over coming the days, weeks, and months.

I am willing to give you a behind-the-scenes look into all those campaigns.

I will share offers (both public and behind-the-scenes)… sales numbers… DMs used to sell… my “day after” conclusions.

I will also share the sources of partners I’ve been getting, the strategies that led to getting them, my experiences working with them.

Think of it like a reality TV show, which actually teaches you something incredibly valuable, while you’re enjoying yourself and not even trying.

All starting at a bid of $1.

Only available inside a popup Telegram group I have set up just for this occasion.

Curtains go up at 7pm CET/1pm EST/10am PST.

If you’d like to be there to witness or participate (all participants will get a prize), here’s where to go:

https://t.me/behindthescenesauction

How to get your list to pay you to create your own lead magnet

by

A couple days ago, brand strategist Chavy Helfgott posted a little case study in my Daily Email House community. Maybe it’s something you can profit from.

Chavy wrote:

===

I’ve been working with John on monetizing my list, and after several weeks of asking lots of questions to my readers, we realized the following:

1) Creating a lead magnet was something that would solve problems for many of my readers

2) I myself don’t have a proper lead magnet with which to steadily grow my list with high quality subscribers

So – John conceived of the idea of running a live cohort for a minimal price, in which I would build a lead magnet for myself while showing the cohort members my process, and giving them feedback as they create theirs.

Jan 29 – initial tease to my list and LinkedIn to gauge interest

Feb 4 – official “launch” with an email describing the live cohort

Feb 13 – registration closed

Total marketing: 12 emails to my small list & 10 LinkedIn posts

Zero ad spend.

15 days from concept creation to launch closing.

4 cohort members paying me $99 each.

Our first call is on Monday, and I’ve already built a template that is on its way to becoming my first sellable info-product.

And of course, I started creating my own lead magnet, which will probably be a summary of this lead magnet building process.

So – if you, too, are a barefoot shoemaker, perhaps you can also let your audience pay for the privilege of coming along for the ride as you make your own shoes.

===

Like Chavy says, we all have important things we want to do, need to do, aren’t doing….

… so why not create an offer out of it?

You can do like Chavy is doing, and run a cohort program. Charge people some nontrivial but very easy price, and guide them through the same process you are following.

It makes sure you do what you need to do, plus it builds an offer for you, plus it gets you buyers you can sell other things to.

Pr you can do like I’m doing with my “Behind The Scenes” auction.

Fact is, for the past few months now, I’ve been creating “systems” docs for several things I do or want to do better, in which I put real-world data, make hypotheses based on that data, and create systems that get me better results over time.

I’ve created such “systems” docs for promos, for followup, and for auctions, among other things.

Except, I’m not as diligent as I should be at updating these docs and putting in the data and making hypotheses and creating ever better systems.

So I figured, why not turn my “auction systems” doc into an offer, take other people for the ride, get paid a bit of money to actually do what I should be doing?

That’s what’s happening tomorrow.

In case you missed my emails about it over the past few days… I’ll be running an auction.

Bidding starts at $1.

The offer on auction is the “Behind The Scenes” of the auctions I have run already and will be running (I currently have 8 auction partners who are at various stages, and all are still moving forward).

The “Behind The Scenes” I will share will include offers on auction (both public and private)… sales numbers… interesting marketing… sales DMs… “day after” conclusions… along with the “auction system” I am devising based on all this data.

I’m thinking to make bonuses available as well for tomorrow’s auctions, Such as, how I have and will be getting auction partners… a live ride-along with me on an auction, plus a share of the money made… and other bonuses that are suggested by auction participants in real time.

Maybe tomorrow’s auction will be a flop, and winning bid ends up at $13.

Maybe I will be able to do like Chavy, and make a bit of cash, a few hundred dollars or more, by taking people along for the ride with me.

In any case, I figure I will get something out of it, in the form of the “auction systems” doc I should be creating anyhow, plus data (from tomorrow’s auction) that I can put into that doc to make my auction systems better.

If you’d like to participate in the auction (I will have a prize for anyone bidding), here’s where the auction will go down, tomorrow, Tuesday, at 7pm CET/1pm EST/10am PST:

https://t.me/+_qLpIllO2IZlM2Q0

Will you witness your own Moose Murders?

by

Today being February 22, it makes for the 33rd anniversary of the one and only performance of the Moose Murders, said to be the most notorious flop that Broadway has ever seen, which opened and was shut down on the same night, February 22, 1983.

The Moose Murders was a slapstick murder mystery that featured plot elements such as:

* Attempted incest between son and mother

* A coffin, corpse, and a taxidermied moose head on stage for most of the play

* A mummified paraplegic who gets up from his wheelchair to kick a man dressed as a moose in the crotch

A New York Times theater critic who was present at that one and only performance wrote:

“The season’s most stupefying flop — a show so preposterous that it made minor celebrities out of everyone who witnessed it, whether from on stage or in the audience.”

I’m telling you this because, as two time Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman once put it, nobody knows anything.

Goldman was talking about Hollywood, but same applies to Broadway and elsewhere.

A bunch of people, typically trained pros and maybe even talented, putting their maybe-talented heads together… putting in a lot of effort… putting their reputations and emotional well-being on the line… only to produce a complete and embarrassing flop, one that will hopefully soon be forgotten, or worse, that will be remembered for years to come and held up as an example of BAD.

And now, a chance to witness your own Moose Murders?

As I announced in my email yesterday, I will be running a “behind the scenes” auction — auctioning off the offers, sales numbers, DM sales conversations, insights, and private conclusions, present and future, from auctions I will run in the coming weeks and months with partners and for myself.

An auction about auctions? Too meta?

I floated the idea in an email a few days ago to see if there is interest. There seems to be.

But the Moose Murders had 13 preview performances before that fateful February 22 1983 opening.

The writer, the director, and the actors still had no real idea this is gonna be a disaster. Like Goldman said, nobody knows anything, not until the stakes get real.

So let’s see what will happen with my “behind the scenes” auction.

Maybe it will go off well.

In this case, it might be a fun show and maybe you learn something and even get your hands on some private and behind-the-scenes data and insights.

Or maybe it will turn into the Moose Murders of auctions.

In other words, maybe this is your chance to witness a stupefying flop in real time, and become a bit of minor celebrity, and have a story you can tell your Internet Marketing grandchildren for years to come.

My “behind the scenes” auction will have its one and only performance this Tuesday, February 24.

The curtain goes up at 7pm CET/1 pm EST/10am EST.

If you’d like to grab your seat in time for the spectacle and possibly legendary flop:

​https://t.me/+_qLpIllO2IZlM2Q0

Come for the auction, stay for the secure communication

by

A couple days ago, I floated idea of auctioning off the behind-the-scenes details — offers, sales numbers, DM threads leading to sales — of auctions I will be running in the coming weeks and months, for myself and for parthers.

Based on the response I got to that email, it seems like there’s interest enough. We will see for real now.

Though I have a Skool community, I will not be running this auction there. Instead, I will be running it inside a newly minted Telegram group.

I’m doing so for two reasons.

One reason is that my existing community is not a fit for the offer on auction here.

My Skool community is not about auctions but about monetizing email lists, and the people inside have shown repeatedly they are not interested in the topic of auctions, exciting as I might find it.

The second reason I’m running this on Telegram and not skool is… well, that’s actually private, behind-the-scenes info, and will be revealed inside my “Auction Systems” doc, which will be part of this auction offer.

The auction for that coveted, exclusive, and rare item, plus other auction-related secrets and privileges, will kick off this coming Tuesday, February 24, at 7pm CET/1 pm EST/10am EST.

The auction will go on until it runs out of steam or until it’s time for me to tuck myself into bed for the night, whichever comes first.

If you’d like to get inside the Telegram group, either to spectate when the auction kicks off or because you are genuinely interested in getting the behind-the-scenes of auctions I will be doing (including this one), here’s the link:

https://t.me/+_qLpIllO2IZlM2Q

Having trouble selling courses?

by

Last August, a well-known course creator in the copywriting and email marketing space sent me a message that said, in part:

===

Lately it feels like there’s a secret “Thou Shalt Not Buy From [dude’s name]” commandment that’s been floating around and I’m not sure how to fix it 😅

(Kidding, sort of. It’s just that course sales have been waaaaaaaay down)

They dropped off big around March. There was piracy, which certainly didn’t help, but I mostly think it was my audience getting crushed by the robots.

They got scared and stopped buying, even when I offered exactly what they said they wanted.

===

I have heard the same message since, from a few other list owners I know. Some have seen gradual declines in course sales. Others have seen things drop off a cliff over past 2-3 months.

Has selling courses become a a problem for you?

Were you able to sell courses before… and now it feels like there’s a secret fatwa on you, prohibiting people in your market from giving you money?

If so, hit reply and tell me about it. Think of me like your therapist or your father confessor.

I’ll listen, without judgment.

And if you like, I will also share with you a bit of behind-the-scenes of a second dude I know personally, somebody who is selling tons of courses right now, more so than ever, behind the scenes, quietly, without any fanfare, and what his secret is, in his own words.

Want the behind-the-scenes of the auctions I will be running?

by

Over the past week, I’ve gotten on “coffee dates” with 7 possible auction partners. This is following a couple emails I sent out to my list 10 days ago, and two posts I made in two communities I’m in.

Among these possible auction partners are:

* A yoga teacher with a 15k email list, 500k Instagram followers, and 1-1 mentorships that reach into $2k/month range

* A copywriting course creator I’ve looked up to ever since I got started with my email list back in 2018

* A marketer with a Skool group of about 5k and a suite of offers he has sold successfully and now wants to auction off licensing rights to

* Several folks who help coaches get more business, and who have communities and lists made of thousands of coaches

* A dude who has a list of 99k souls, mostly buyers, and a $10k offer, I will say no more…

With all 7 of these possible auction partners, things are currently moving forward.

On top of that, there are auctions I myself will be running with my own audience and with my own offers.

On top of that top, there are auctions I want to run in partnership with other people who have offers or expertise, and putting in front of my own group, or new groups I spin up.

And now, because I don’t have enough things going on in my life, and enough obligations to deliver on, I was wondering…

Would you want the behind-the-scenes of the auctions I will be running?

I don’t know which of the auctions I’m working on will turn into reality, and which might die in the pre-auction phase.

But I figure out of my current 7 auction partners… plus 2-3 auction ideas for my own auctions… plus a few offers from other people thinking to auction to my groups…

… at least some, maybe half, will come to reality and produce real results, data, and insights.

And that’s just over the next few weeks.

I keep seeking out auction partners both via paid and organic, warm and cold channels.

I also have an arrangement to get possible auction partners referred to me, from somebody who has the ear of many community owners.

Interest in auctions has already been sizeable following my own $31k auction back in December. I figure after a few more successful auctions, interest will be even sizeabler.

All that’s to say, I think I will have plenty of behind-the-scenes to share over the coming weeks, months, and possibly years.

Here’s what I’m offering to make available for ALL the auctions I will run, from here to eternity:

– real numbers (sales and dollar amounts) about how the auction did, both in public and behind the scenes

– details of what the auction offer was, and what offers were made to people who bid but didn’t win (an auction is pretty much an exercise in devising a good offer, and so this will be education in offer-making in real time, with numbers to back it up)

– my “day after” conclusions following each auction, which I write with myself and share with nobody else (some good, some bad)

– my auction-partner-getting strategies, plus the results they’re producing (follow them yourself if you want auction partners too)

– my “Auction Systems” doc — my A-B-C doc for how to run an auction. So far, it’s pretty basic, but it will be updated and evolving based on future auctions I will run, including templates, copy, offer stack skeletons etc. Basically, I’m looking to make this an SOP for how to run an auction, or as close as I can get to it.

For transparency’s sake, and to reassure any of my potential auction partners who might be reading this:

I will anonymize or scrub the names of my auction partners, their businesses, and identifying offer details.

The point is not to expose internal stuff from people’s businesses, at least without their explicit consent.

The point is to give you behind-the-scenes of the auctions I’m running, plus what’s working, and what’s not.

Does that kill it for you?

If yes, that’s too bad.

If not, then read on, because I’m also thinking to offer some bonuses:

* Ride along with me on one of the auctions I will be running, either for myself or for a partner, so you can learn how to run an auction + get a 25% cut of what I will make

* Get on my shortlist for people I refer auction partners to

I realize I’m really getting into the territory of selling air here. But in my current optimism about auctions, I figure that some of the current one-time auction partners I have shaping up will become ongoing auction partners.

And with all the hustling I’m doing to get more partners, I figure will eventually get to a place where I have more possible partners than I can work with myself. If that happens, you can be the person I reach out to first for help.

* (Experimental and possibly deadly) An invite-only WhatsApp group where I share real-time auction results, complications, and curiosities, and where members can chime in both with help and with hooting

I’m foolishly enthusiastic about this idea of giving you a peek behind the scenes. But then again, I’m foolishly enthusiastic about a lot of things.

Sometimes my enthusiasm is proven right. Often it’s not.

So before I put in an ounce more energy or a minute more of time to create this, you gotta tell me:

Is this something you want?

Or since I’m so gung ho on auctions… would you bid $1 for the behind-the-scenes of the auctions I will be running?

Vote away below, and your vote will determine what happens here:

​Yes, I’d bid $1 ​

​Yes, I’d bid $100​

​Yes, I’d bid $1,000,000, my house, my car, and possibly my spouse for this​

​No, and I wish you’d stop trying to ram auctions down my throat​