Affiliate Marketing

Behind the scenes of my affiliate deal-making

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Over the past few weeks I’ve been approached to promote three affiliate offers, and uncomfortable thought it was, I turned all three down.

All three of these offers were solid. They had good info at a fair price. There’s no doubt each of them can be very valuable to the right person.

Also, all three offer owners who approached me I already had previous relationships with. I had already done some projects with them, or at least we had exchanged some non-business emails and had some sort of rapport going.

Finally, all three offer owners were paying out generous affiliate commissions. In theory, I could make some good money here.

And yet, like I said, I turned down the opportunity to promote any of the three offers.

The reason was simply I personally couldn’t get excited about them. I took a look at these offers and my personal reaction was “Hm, I see.”

I imagined writing emails to promote these offers. How? I’d have to do some jumping jacks before, in order to simulate a bit of life in my copy.

I also imagined taking myself out of the equation altogether. I imagined saying, “Hey this isn’t for me, but don’t let me get in your way, maybe it’s for you.”

That still didn’t sit right. After all, with that approach, where do I stop? Do I end up promoting $3.45 pork chops on sale at Target, because somebody somewhere might want them?

I’ve made the point many times before that I don’t look at this newsletter as a business first. I look at it as my own personal playground, an opportunity to experiment and practice, a reflection of my own interests and tastes.

I can’t blame you if you shrug off everything I’ve said above as just my perverse attitude, something that I do because I apparently don’t care enough about money to reach out and grasp it when it’s offered to me.

Still, I remembered something while thinking about this rather unpleasant issue.

Ben Settle, who I think treats his email newsletter as much more of a business than I treat mine, shared almost the same attitude in an email a couple years ago. In fact it’s possible I got my attitude from Ben.

Ben wrote that the best affiliate offer to sell, at least for him, is one that’s personally fun. And when an offer is not personally fun for him… well, here’s Ben’s report on one such campaign:

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No matter how much time I spent writing those emails, no matter how much time I spent strategizing the campaign, and no matter how much time I spent interviewing the creator of the product (and I did) it did not matter, and the sales were lackluster at best.

The reason?

Not because the offer was bad.

It was extremely valuable, especially for the price.

No, one main reason why was because it was not fun.

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I’m telling you this because over the next few days, until Tuesday to be specific, I’m promoting Tom Grundy’s Subtraction Method.

In fact, I’m promoting it as an affiliate, even though it’s a free training.

There was was the option to simply promote the paid workshops that Tom will be running in the coming weeks, on the back of the (free) Subtraction Method training.

But Tom and I both agreed that the best and happiest way to promote this was simply offer the free training first, one where Tom would reveal all the concepts underlying the Subtraction Method.

It’s Tom’s job to sell the group implementation workshops, following the free training, just to those who want help working through those concepts with Tom’s guidance.

Point being, the real reason I’m telling you to go sign up to Tom’s Subtraction Method is that I’m personally interested and even excited by what Tom has to teach. The promise of an affiliate payout alone wouldn’t do it.

But maybe you don’t even know what I mean by the Subtraction Method. If so, here are the details from my Al Pacino-themed email yesterday:

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Tom’s story is that he quit his high-powered London banking job in order to seek enlightenment. Enlightenment found, Tom ended up going back to the bank.

Curious, right?

The first time around at the bank was miserable, says Tom. The second time around has been enjoyable, stress-free, and even fulfilling.

What made the difference is what Tom calls the Subtraction Method.

The Subtraction Method is not about the kind of minimalism that involves living in a hut in the backwoods of Montana, shooting and skinning rabbits, and melting snow for drinking water.

Rather, it’s about a different kind of minimalism, one that has to do with ideas and attitudes.

The end result can be that you achieve all the external success you think you want now, and you do it on such terms that you’re not eaten out from inside like Michael Corleone or Al Pacino.

Or the end result can be you don’t achieve the external success you think you want now, and you find out that that’s perfectly fine, because what you thought you wanted is not what you actually want.

Here is where I start waving my hands and waffling and mumbling a little too much. Because the Subtraction Method is not my area of expertise. Rather it’s Tom’s area of expertise.

That’s why I’d like to invite you to sign up to his training. The training is free. It’s happening next Wednesday, Nov 6, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I’ll be there. If you’d like to be there as well, you can register to get in at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/subtraction

**HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT**

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Alex Hormozi, the bearded, trucker-hatted, nasal-stripped author of the book $100MM Offers, has been aggressively running Facebook ads that open with:

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**HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT**

I’ve never publicly endorsed anything until now. And that’s because I’ve built my reputation on giving amazing value.

Anything I endorse has to live up to that. Nothing has, until now.

For many of you who want to start a business online, this is the fastest, easiest, most fun way I’ve found.

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The ad goes on, but the gist is that the fastest, easiest, most funnest way that Alex is endorsing is… Skool.

You might know Skool — it’s an online community platform, much like Facebook groups, but without all the stigma that anything connected to Facebook has today.

I don’t know the deal that Hormozi has struck with Skool. But even at the most plebeian level, Skool offers 40% to affiliates, lifetime, each month, for anybody who comes in and creates a group (creating a Skool group costs $99/month).

So maybe Alex Hormozi is wrong?

Maybe Skool is not the fastest, easiest, most fun way to start a business online?

Maybe promoting Skool is? Or if not Skool, maybe some other software-as-a-service?

This got me wondering about what other worthwhile SaaS platforms have generous lifetime affiliate programs.

I know that many email marketing and web hosting companies do. But what else?

Software for design? For sales? Practice management? Inventory management? Pet store management?

If you know of a good software product that offers recurring affiliate payouts, write in and let me know. I’m curious. And in return, I’ll reply and tell you about a super-clever way I’ve seen one affiliate promoting a SaaS company, and apparently making a killing right now.

Public appeal: What are you eyeing to buy?

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During my CopyHour promo last week, I got a message from a reader who got stung by buying too soon:

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Man you really gotta start posting an affiliate calendar, your bonuses are always amazing… same case as High Impact Writing. I already bought it on the first round of the year and I will say it was phenomenal. would’ve been great to get it from your affiliate though

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An affiliate calendar is a smart idea. But the fact is, as things stand, I have no major affiliate offers planned soon. Maybe you can help me with that.

Ask yourself:

Is there anything you’re thinking of buying?

Any course, mastermind, coaching program you have your eye on, you’ve been saving up for, you’re on the fence with?

If there is, write in and let me know.

If it’s an offer that makes sense to promote to my entire list, I will reach out the offer owner and ask about striking some kind of a deal.

And when I do, I will make sure you benefit.

Maybe I can wrangle a sizeable discount on your behalf.

Or maybe I’ll add on valuable bonuses — extra trainings or a community or secret info — that make the original price seem like a steal.

You win. I win. And maybe even that offer owner wins.

So think for a moment. And if something pops up in your mind, let me know.

Meet me in New York/Baltimore/Palm Beach?

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Last weekend, I ran the first in-real-life meetup of my readers in Barcelona, where I live. That meetup went great. It definitely made me want to do one again.

Over the next few weeks, I will be traveling to the U.S. for the first time in 5 years.

So maybe you would like to meet me somewhere along the way?

I’ll be in New York City between March 5th and 10th… in Baltimore between March 10th and 14th… in Palm Beach between March 14th and and 17th. If you will be around any of those places on those dates, write me a note and we can see about meeting up.

In other news, thank you in case you used my link to sign up to Dan Kennedy’s free “Shutdown Livestream” yesterday.

A buncha people wrote me, some asking for the free trifle with their name on it that I promised as a bonus… others just to wish me good luck in the affiliate contest, which has seized my body and mind like a low-grade fever.

There’s no public leaderboard for the affiliate contest behind this marketing campaign, so I cannot say how I am doing after yesterday’s push. But I will keep you posted when I find out.

And in case you didn’t sign up or you don’t know what’s up:

The free livestream will happen tomorrow, Fri March 1st. It will feature marketing legend Dan Kennedy, being interviewed in his basement, where he works, by Russel Brunson of ClickFunnnels. The topic will be why Dan has decided to cut off new signups to his No B.S. Letter “for the foreseeable future.”

It’s sure to be entertaining — Dan does a very good curmudgeon act.

​​More importantly, this livestream is sure to be valuable. Dan knows more about direct marketing, personal promotion, and influential writing than probably anybody else on the planet.

If would like to sign up to this free livestream before it disappears into the night:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

Exciting update about my No B.S scarcity emails

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Three weeks ago, I wrote three emails making fun of Dan Kennedy’s ongoing, scarcity-mongering “Shutdown livestream” campaign.

At the end of those emails, I included an affiliate link for you to sign up to that campaign.

In part, I did this because the campaign had been effective on me (I signed up both to the livestream and to Dan’s newsletter).

In part, I also did it because I’ve learned a ton from Dan Kennedy, and I would promote his stuff for free, and I have in the past.

But let’s get back to the present.

I sent out those three emails three weeks ago. I had a good chuckle with readers who wrote me back about Dan’s scarcity tactics. And then, I forgot all about it.

Until last night.

Because last night, I got an email with the subject line, “Exciting Update: NO BS Shutdown Campaign Leaderboard Revealed!”

The inside of that exciting email said:

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Now let’s dive into the current top 5 on our Leaderboard:

1. Tim Hewitt
2. Travis Lee
3. John Bejavoic
4. Frank Buddenbrock
5. Frank Andrews

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I don’t know if there’s a French-Canadian marketer out there named John Bejavoic. I’m guessing not. Instead, I reckon this is only time #64,171 in my life that somebody’s mangled my last name.

No matter. Because it means that, for the first time in my life, and in spite of my absolute lack of effort and my three tongue-in-cheek emails, I am now in the running of an affiliate competition.

The email described the prizes for the top 3 affiliates:

* Third place is a 6 months free of Dan Kennedy’s newsletter
* Second prize is a box of Dan Kennedy faxes
* First is a ticket to the No B.S. Superconference in May

The first two prizes I don’t need. The third prize I don’t want (who wants to travel around the world from Barcelona to Dallas TX).

And yet…

As I read through this “Exciting update” email last night, I found myself paranoid, spinning around, and looking over my shoulder.

Would somebody swoop in and take my 3rd place position?

I was like a dragon, guarding my wealth, suspicious somebody will take it away from me, and slyly thinking how I could increase my gold stash — even though I don’t really want the gold.

It brought to mind the following passage by another master of direct response marketing, Claude Hopkins. Hopkins wrote a hundred years ago:

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Many send out small gifts, like memorandum books, to customers and prospects. They get very small results. One man sent out a letter to the effect that he had a leather-covered book with a man’s name on it. It was waiting for him and would be sent on request. The form of request was enclosed, and it also asked for certain information. That information indicated lines on which a man might be sold.

Nearly all men, it was found, filled out that request and supplied the information. When a man knows that something belongs to him – something with his name on it – he will make the effort to get it, even though the thing is a trifle.

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So now I’d like to invite you once again to sign up to Dan Kennedy’s free livestream campaign.

The livestream will happen March 1st, two days from now. It will feature Dan Kennedy, being interviewed in his basement, where he works, by Russell Brunson of ClickFunnnels. The topic will be why Dan has decided to cut off new signups to his No B.S. Letter “for the foreseeable future.”

I’d like to invite you to sign up for this livestream for three reasons:

First, because like I said already, I have learned a ton from Dan Kennedy. Odds are good that you too will learn something valuable, if only you sign up, and even more so if you actually watch the free livestream.

Second reason is that you would help me do better in this stupid affiliate contest, which I am participating in against my better judgment, simply out of loss aversion and blind greed.

Third, because I have a trifle with your name on it.

It really is a trifle. But it’s yours.

​​It has your name on it.

And you can claim it, if only you sign up to the Dan Kennedy free livestream campaign, forward me your confirmation email, and tell me a physical address where I can mail your trifle.

And in the spirit of this entire No B.S. scarcity campaign, I have to mention this named trifle is only for the first 15 people who take me up on this offer.

To get started, here’s the first step, where you can sign up for Dan’s free livestream:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

What’s wrong with affiliates?

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Story time:

10 years ago, my friend Sam and I naively decided to become Internet marketing millionaires.

Somehow we found Andre Chaperon’s Tiny Little Businesses course.

We rubbed our hands together, and envisioned that in six months’ time, we’d be sitting at the beach, drinking margaritas, occasionally leaning over to our laptops to see how many more thousands of dollars had rolled in over the past 15 minutes.

Andre’s TLB told us to pick a niche, find a product we could promote as an affiliate, then build a list using that affiliate product as the offer.

Sam and I followed this recipe to a T and beyond.

We spent weeks picking out the perfect niche (hard gainers, skinny guys who want to put on muscle but can’t).

We did market research to find out the pain points, motivations, and language used by our target market (it helped that both Sam and I were both in our target market, tall and hopelessly skinny).

We found the perfect affiliate offer to promote, a quality program, fairly expensive, with a good sales page. It would make it easy to pay for ads with even a few sales.

I had seen that the owners of this offer had previously worked with affiliates.

But when the time came to promote them, I couldn’t find the form on their site to sign up as an affiliate.

I wrote to the owners to ask about it. A reply came back:

“Thanks for the interest. But we’ve actually paused taking on new affiliates at the moment. It doesn’t really work for our business.”

First, there was a moment of shock. Then my blood pressure shot up.

I may or may not have fired back an email, explaining to this guy that he doesn’t know how business is done online… that this is free money that he’s saying no to… that a new customer is the most valuable thing a business could ever get, and that’s what I’m offering to bring him.

Very rightly and very wisely, the offer owner did not respond to my stupid email.

Those were the early days of my marketing career. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that a businesses would not want to sell offers (particularly info products, with no marginal cost) to somebody new, with no effort involved.

“What’s wrong with affiliates?” I asked myself. My newbie brain simply couldn’t handle it.

As you can guess, Sam and I never recovered from this setback. Our dreams of a drunken 4-hour workweek on the beach vanished like receding waves in the sand.

But that was a long time ago. I’ve learned a lot about marketing and online businesses since then. I’ve heard and seen many other successful marketers say they do not work with affiliates. And today, I can tell you…

I still don’t really get it.

I mean, what could possibly be wrong with affiliates? Why would anybody ever say no?

Over the past few months, I have had two affiliates promote my stuff.

Daniel Throssell promoted my Copy Riddles course back in September.

Right now, Kieran Drew is promoting Simple Money Emails.

During both promos, I rolled out of bed each morning to find thousands of dollars worth of new sales, dozens or hundreds of new subscribers, and somebody with standing in the industry going out of his way to say nice things about me and my products. Here’s a few bits from Kieran’s email yesterday:

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SUBJECT: The best email writing course I’ve ever taken

B – E -J – A – K – O – V – I – C

The reason I’m shouting letters over Zoom like a Croatian spelling bee is because my friend asked for my favourite newsletters.

I always recommend this guy. People always sound skeptical. It’s not quite the standard Ben Settle or Justin Welsh you hear chucked around in our space.

But out of the hundreds of lists I’m lurking on, John Bejakovic’s emails glue me to the screen the most, and keep me coming back for more.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say he’s the best email copywriter you’ve probably never heard of.

[… Kieran goes on to explain the offer, course plus two free bonuses, and then he says:]

Yes, this is an affiliate link.

But I’ve taken his course 5 times in 5 months. It’s an hour read yet every time I come out noticeably better at copy. Few courses have that effect – which is why I’m promoting it.

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Who would not want endorsements like this?

​​Aren’t affiliates just the greatest thing in the world?

But maybe you are wiser and more perceptive than I am.

“Kinda cherrypicking there, ain’t you John? Both Kieran and Daniel are pretty atypical cases.”

Maybe.

They do both have a list that they email regularly. They have both built a bond with that list, and authority and trust. And more.

They both cultivate discipline in their readers, rather than preaching the gospel of the 4-hour workweek. They both, explicitly or implicitly, repel people who aren’t down with their message.

In short, both Kieran and Daniel have spent time building up a quality list and emailing themselves into a healthy, respect-filled relationship with that list. And now I get to benefit from it.

I’m not sure what my point is, except:

1) Great affiliates are great, and

2) If you want to be a great affiliate, start a list today. And if you already have one, email it more often, starting today.

And if you don’t want to be anybody’s affiliate, but you simply want to have the opportunity to sell any reasonable and helpful offer you decide to create, start a list today. And if you already have one… well, you know where I’m going with this.

In fact, you probably knew all this before. But if hasn’t clicked yet, or if something is still holding you back, here’s a course that has helped others before you:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

My fruitful first Clickbank failure

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first-ever book. Well… book might be a bit grandiose.

It was more like an 85-page pdf. And by publication, I really just mean I put it up on Clickbank for sale.

The title of this thing was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. The background was this:

10 years ago, I was a dissatisfied office drone working at an IT company. Day after day, I’d sit at my computer, drumming my fingers on the desk, looking out the window as the sun set at 4pm. “And I still have to sit here and pretend to work for 2 more hours!” I wanted to get free.

And then I heard about Mike Geary. Mike was making a million dollars a month selling his own 85-page pdf, The Truth About Abs, on Clickbank.

How could I do the same?

Fortunately, the same source who clued me in to Mike Geary (Tim Ferriss) also clued me in to that most highly revered and valuable guide to direct marketing:

Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters.

Being the bookish type that I am, I got the Boron Letters and I read them. At the time, I wasn’t sure what exactly was so great about them. But I did get one thing from Gary, and that’s when he talks about how to create an info product:

1. Pick a topic
2. Read 5 of the best books on the topic and take notes
3. Write up your own book/85-page report with the best information taken from those other books
4. Make millions!

And here we get to the crossroads.

Because in an unusual move for me… I actually put the Boron Letters down… stared at the void for a bit… and then took a hesitating, first step forward.

In other words, I stopped reading and actually did what Gary was telling me to do. I followed his steps 1-3.

The outcome was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. I put it up on Clickbank. And then, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of step 4 aaaand…

Total sales? 0. Total money made? $0. Total learning experience?

Well, with 10 years of hindsight and about 6 years of working as a direct response copywriter, let me highlight a few of the mistakes I made with this first project:

1. Name. I went with Salary Negotiation Blueprint just because every other info product at the time was “something something blueprint.”

But what exactly was the promise in my name? That with my blueprint, you could… negotiate? Not very tempting.

2. “Affiliates will love it!” No, they won’t.

You can see public lists of what Clickbank affiliates love to promote, and salary negotiation guides are not it. This was a lesson I could have learned from the Boron Letters — sell to a starving crowd.

3. My market. What profile of person is going to buy an ebook on salary negotiation?

I can’t say, because I never managed to sell a single copy. But my guess is, these aren’t exactly players with money. More likely to be schlubs on a budget — much like me at the time.

6. The back end. What can you sell to somebody who bought a guide on salary negotiation? A course on networking over the water cooler? Or a guide on Slack tips and tricks, maybe? It feels like grasping at straws.

Ultimately, salary negotiation is a one-time need. Which is bad — because the profits come on the back end.

7. The price. I can’t remember the price. I think I started out at $37, and when I failed to make any sales there, I moved it down to $17, where I continued to fail to make sales.

But whether at $37 or at $17, my price was completely disconnected to the value of my offer. There was zero thought or strategy to it.

So there you go. Maybe you can learn a bit about direct marketing from my mistakes above. Or maybe you knew all this simple stuff before.

Either way, you’re in a good place.

Because there are mountains of people out there who don’t know even these basics of direct marketing and copywriting.

​​And not all these people are as clueless and unsuccessful as I was 10 years ago. Some of them have working businesses — even thriving businesses — in spite of awful, self-defeating marketing.

But you’ve probably heard this claim before.

I know I heard it for a long time. And all I could say is, “Well, where are all these mountains of business owners who could benefit from my growing marketing knowledge? I’m ready to help them out!”

The perverse truth is, they seem to pop up the most when you no longer need them.

A part of it is simply your level of skills. But a part of it is the exposure you give yourself.

In other words, you can shortcut the process somewhat, by giving yourself more exposure. Which brings me to my ongoing offer:

You can get a free copy of my Niche Expert Cold Emails training.

This training covers two cold email strategies that got me in touch with a couple of business owners, one with a working business, and the other with a thriving business.

All in all, these cold emails led to $16k worth of copywriting work. Not Mike Geary money, but an important step on my journey away from office dronedom. And I’m sure I could have gotten more work from these emails, had I just used them more consistently.

The training is yours free right now, as part of a promotion I’m trying out. For the full details, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/