Email Marketing

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.

===

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

You don’t want to sell to a hobbit like me

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Last week, I, Bejako Baggins, was minding my own business, tanning my large and hairy hobbit feet by the fireside, when a wizard burst through the doors of my hobbit-hole and announced in his deep voice:

“Bejako Baggins — You are experiencing a huge deliverability problem my friend!”

Now we hobbits are peace-loving creatures. We shy away from noise and adventure.

Besides, only a week earlier I had sent another such wizard away from my doorstep.
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​I’d even written a little circular letter, which I sent to my readers all over Middle Earth, explaining how I take no thought for deliverability beyond writing interesting stuff that other hobbits and elves and men want to read.

But this wizard would not be denied. He towered over me, his peak hat reaching to the ceiling, his arms above his head. And he thundered:

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Listen mate, I love your copywriting style!

I subscribed because of that, but this problem is stopping you from more envelope opens & a higher number of return letters

Therefore, wiping out thousands of silver coins to be made from your work

I discovered this deliverability problems out of curiosity as your intro circular letter got delayed

Now, I’m 100% confident I can fix this problem for you… and I will NOT be charging you! (FREE)

Instead, Once I fixed this issue for you, and you’re satisfied with my service. I would hope if you can refer me (at any time) to someone else who’s facing a deliverability problem

===

I have to admit that my little hobbit heart started pounding. Not because of the threat that my letters were not getting delivered or opened — I have reason to believe I’m doing well.

But I was intrigued by the wizard’s offer — free, fixed for me, no risk or effort required by my peace-loving hobbit body.

I thought for a moment. Then I smiled and I said, “Ok wizard, you are on. If you can improve my letter deliverability, I will happily promote you to anyone who comes asking for such services.”

The wizard immediately suggested we schedule a council meeting, tomorrow morning, down by the large oak tree, to discuss what our adventure will entail.

I frowned at this. It sounded like it would eat into second breakfast. “Just tell me what you have to tell me now,” I asked him.

So he tried. “First,” he said, “you will have to get a new address from which to send your circular letters. You can still live and write in this hobbit-house, but your letters will be sent as though they are coming from somewhere else.”

“That’s more trouble than I need,” I told him.

The wizard nodded and then stroked his beard. “Well, you can keep your address, but you can go and find a new letter-delivery fellowship.”

“Yeah that’s not gonna happen either,” I said.

The wizard was starting to get concerned. “Well, there’s one last thing you could do. You could pay for a dedicated letter-delivery satchel, to make sure your letters aren’t getting stuck to any other letters, or maybe getting thrown out with them.”

I got up from the fireside, and escorted the wizard to the door.

I appreciated the effort he had put in. But all of this sounded like work. It also sounded risky, and like it might create a problem where I really didn’t have one, or at least where I didn’t worry about one.

I could hear the wizard muttering into his beard as he stepped outside into the night. “Fool of a hobbit…”

But what to do? That’s how my race is.

That’s why I say you don’t want to sell to a hobbit like me. Even if you have a solid sales message (“HUGE deliverability issue, costing you many silver coins!”) and a great offer (“free and fixed for you”), you will most probably just end up wasting your time.

In the Shire we like to sing an old hobbit tune:

“First is the list, then comes the offer,
Last good copy, and then a full coffer”

So if you don’t yet have a good list and offer handled, then my advice is to focus on those first, in that order.

But if you have both a good list and a good offer… then you know what else we hobbits like, besides peace and comfort?

The only kind of excitement and challenge we are ever really after?​​

​​Maybe you guessed it. And if not, well, you can get the answer at the following page:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

It might be fantastic and refreshing, but it ain’t got a sales page

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I’ll admit it right away:

The world has not been crying out to buy my Simple Money Emails course.

This past summer, I launched it as a special offer via an ad in Josh Spector’s newsletter. Many of my readers got it back then.

I haven’t advertised it or offered it since, because I’ve been waiting for the sales page to write itself.

But the sales page refuses to do any writing. And I have little interest in doing its job for it. I have lots of more exciting, more promising things I can be doing.

Things were at this impasse until a couple days ago, when I got the following email from a reader:

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I subscribed through Josh Spector’s newsletter and thought The Simply Money Emails Course was fantastic and refreshing.

Of the many different courses (free and paid) that I have taken, Simple Money Emails is the only course that has taken me from being a complete email copywriting newbie to feeling ready to take on client projects after completing the course.

As for my feedback on the course I’d say it is very detailed and meaty even though it looks like a short course initially. What tied everything together is the video interview you did with Igor and I’d say for future versions of Simple Money Emails I’d like to see more video content for visual learning (and faster consumption)

I haven’t gotten through the swipe files yet but I think they’re the cherry on top and I definitely will use them as a base or inspiration for the emails that I am going to write for my clients.

===

The fact is, I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from people who have gone through Simple Money Emails already.

And so from today on, I’ve decided to make this course available to buy, even without a sales page.

(I will deal with the sales page issue in a possibly exciting way starting tomorrow.)

For now, I will just tell you what’s inside my Simple Money Emails offer:

1. My Simple Money Emails training

​​Since 2015, I’ve written close to 2,000 daily sales emails. I’ve used them to successfully sell info courses, live trainings, high-ticket coaching, supplements, software, ecommerce products, even pet supplies.

​​In this training, I distill all this experience to give you a simple, repeatable, 1-2 process, which almost anyone can use, to write daily emails that make sales today and keep your readers coming back tomorrow.

2. Simple Money Email Swipes

​​This is a swipe file containing 51 of my simplest, most effective money-making emails. These include all the emails I reference in the core SME training, plus many more — all highlighted and marked up to show you the relevant ideas or concepts in action.

3. Quick & Dirty Emails That Make Money

​​This is a presentation I gave 2021 to Igor Kheifets’s $97/month mastermind. I talked about my experience writing daily emails to two large lists made up of ecommerce buyers — which were each making $4k to $5k in sales with each email, day after day. In many ways, this training was the forerunner to the complete Simple Money Emails training.

4. 9 Deadly Email Sins

​​Over the past year, several successful business owners and course creators have paid me multiple thousands of dollars to critically look at each email they were sending and give them my feedback.

​​This training sums up the 9 most frequent pieces of copywriting feedback I’ve given in these exclusive coaching situations, along with examples of actual copy I critiqued. I sold this training for $100 when I put it on live, but it’s yours free as part of Simple Money Emails.

5. The price for Simple Money Emails, parts 1-4 above, is $197.

If you decide you’d like in, you can buy Simple Money Emails here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

… and if not, that’s okay. I’ll be back tomorrow, teasing and demoing the ideas from this course without spelling them out. Perhaps in time you will figure it all out. Or if you have no time to be teased and you’d like to get going now, well, the link is above.

How to seek out testimonials

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Yesterday I held a coaching call with a coaching client. At the end of it I asked if he had any last questions for me. He did:

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Do you do anything to seek out testimonials? Because I don’t feel I’ve gotten anything since I’ve purchased your course that enticed me to do it. But maybe I might have missed it. I feel I don’t do a great job of it. I have one follow-up email for people who purchased my [course] a week later and another one for [his other course].

===

Great question.

Testimonials are super important, both for possible future buyers and for that person who just bought — it makes it more likely they appreciate what they just bought, and get value from it, and stick around.

Beyond that, testimonials are super important for you, the person who created the course — or at least they are for me.

Making a sale is nice, I won’t lie.

​​But hearing that somebody actually appreciates your work (as I’ve had happen lots of times) or genuinely had a life-changing experience due to it (as I’ve had happen on a few occasions) makes you feel good about what you do… makes you more likely to stick with it for long term… makes you more likely to put in extra effort with the next product you launch, because you realize what can be at stake.

So how do you seek out testimonials to benefit your present customers, your future customers, and yourself?

Here are three different strategies, ranked in terms of how effective they’ve been for me:

One, like my coaching client said, is an automated followup process. It’s better than nothing, but I’ve found it pretty weak in general.

I had a followup email for my Copy Riddles course back when it was delivered as a “live” course that went out one email a day. After the complete batch of course emails had gone out, I would let a couple days pass, then send out an extra “what feedback do you have for me” email.

​​I did get a few testimonials that way, but it was nothing to write to a motel, hotel, or houseboat about, and certainly not to home.

The second strategy I’ve used is a request for a testimonial inside the product itself. I usually end my courses with a little signoff. Here’s how I end my Most Valuable Email course:

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We’ve reached the end of this course. I want to say thanks once again for your trust in me, and for getting this course. And I’d like to commend you for making it to the end — most people never do that.

I hope you will apply this Most Valuable Trick for yourself, because it really has been that valuable to me, without any hyperbole. And it can be the same for you. If you do apply it — when you do apply it — write in and let me know the results. I’d love to know.

Good luck, and I hope to hear from you soon.

===

I have had a fair number of people finish courses and write in with feedback after I prompted it like this. Perhaps it’s a better moment than when a followup email arrives — the end of a course is an emotional high, at least if the course is good.

But the third and most effective way I’ve sought out testimonials is simply engagement, as in:

1. Writing engaging emails (the recent “Even numbers for the dead” email drew a lot of replies, including some that were effectively testimonials)

2. Using engagement bait (as I do often, see my “Magic boxes” email from a few days ago for that)

3. Actually engaging directly with readers, in some limited but real way

And of course, when people give you testimonials, you want to encourage more such behavior. That means you feature the testimonial not just on your sales page, but in your emails. Name the person. Say you appreciate what they’ve done for you. And mean it.

Let me give you an example:

A few days ago, out of the blue, I got an email from a new subscriber, Pete Reginella.

​​Pete had bought my 10 Commandments book on Amazon without being previously on my list. He signed up to my list to get the little-known, apocryphal 11th Commandment. He read the welcome email which delivers the bonus, which starts out like this:

“First off, thanks for reading my 10 Commandments book all the way to the end. I’d love to hear what you thought of it, particularly if you thought it was wonderful. Just hit reply and let me know.”

Pete did write in, and I’m grateful to him for it. Here’s what he had to say:

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Hey John,

I’ve read lots of copywriting books in my short time as a copywriter and I must say…

Yours was actually the only one I couldn’t stop reading.

I actually read it all in one sitting.

It was very easy to consume and well written.

===

So that’s a short how-to course on seeking out testimonials.

As for a short how-to course on the supreme element of your copy to worship above all others…

… ​​​and a short how to course on getting everything you want in life, at least the material stuff…

… ​​and a short how-to course on making your copy easy to consume…

… ​​for all that and more, check out my 10 Commandments book:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Magic boxes

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Last year, specifically on May 29 2023, I wrote an email about Dan Kennedy’s book The Phenomenon. In that book, Dan says:

“There will always be an offer or offer(s).”

I sighed, hung my head, and finally started adding an offer at the end of each email I sent out to my list.

Not surprisingly, I made more money from my list over the past year than I had in the four years prior.

You probably know to put an offer at the end of your emails. After all, everybody does it, and it’s kind of the point of sending out daily emails.

But what if you don’t have a product or a service to sell yet? Or what if you only have a few bum offers, which your list has stopped responding to every day? Should you still insist on a call-to-action at the end of each email?

I covered one aspect of this earlier this week. I gave you a great Dan Kennedy idea about selling “options” on your shiny future offer.

But what if, for whatever reasons of your own, you don’t even want to sell future options?

Here’s what I’ve found:

There are many ways to drive people to valuable action, even if you have nothing good to sell today.

Example:

My first ever one-on-one coaching student sells a $4k training for dental practices. While she was preparing that training, she was writing emails to a list of dentists. And her emails were falling into a void — zero response or engagement.

On our first call, I told her to make a tweak to her next email, and to put in a “magic box” CTA at the end of the email. The result, in her own words:

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Haha, I like that.

Better ingredients, better emails.

I got my first response to an email today from an owner of a fairly large dental practice here in Melbourne.

Thanks for pushing me in this new direction re trying to wrap things up in magic boxes instead of just getting them nodding along.

Excited for the year ahead 🙂

===

I don’t know if that dentist ended up buying my student’s $4k training. But when people do respond, you can start a conversation with them. You can get into their world. You can build a stronger relationship. Often, that translates into sales down the line.

That might be something to keep in mind if you have valuable prospects on your list, but you haven’t yet built much of a relationship with them yet.

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about “magic box” CTAs, I’ll make you a deal:

Reply and tell me the size of your email list. If you haven’t got a list, that’s fine, no judgment, you can write in and tell me that. On the other hand, if you do have a list, or if you have multiple, or if you manage a list on behalf of somebody else, write in and tell me how big your list or lists are.

In return, I’ll tell you how a “magic box” CTA works. There’s a good chance you’ve figured out how it works, but you might still learn a tip or two from me that you hadn’t thought of. And besides, maybe we can get into an interesting conversation.

The hidden benefit of the disappearing bonus

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A few weeks ago, I offered a 24-hour disappearing bonus for previous and new buyers of my Most Valuable Email course. One of the people to take me up on that disappearing bonus was Al Donaldson, who wrote to say:

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I recently bought your MVE and I’d be keen to see the disappearing bonus offer (before it vanishes).

You asked for my opinion on the MVE course and I have to say I’m impressed. It’s a beautifully simple idea that has many layers to it. And, as you mention, there are an almost unlimited number of ways to apply it.

Thanks for laying it all out so clearly.

===

Of course I’m telling you this to promote Most Valuable Email. But I do also have the slightest and lightest of practical takeaways for you.

I curse myself whenever I do one of these disappearing bonuses.

I always get dozens of emails to respond to, personally. And since I make a policy of responding to everyone within 24 hours max, it’s often a hectic, email-blizzard day.

But I noticed that, along with simple requests for the disappearing bonus, I also inevitably get testimonials coming in, like Al’s testimonial above. Maybe those testimonials would have come in time anyhow. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

The fact is, people often need that extra push, that extra bit of motivation, to tell you what they think of your products, particularly when that feedback is positive.

This is nothing more than the most fundamental direct marketing truth — that people often put off all kinds of actions, even ones they mean to take, even ones that align with what they want.

Engagement-baiting emails, the kinds I’m slowly becoming known for, are a very manual-labor way to give people that extra push.

But the testimonials that come in make it worthwhile.

Besides, even though I’m always a bit horrified to send out one of these emails and come back an hour later to see an inbox filled with replies I have to attend to, it’s actually very nice to get in direct contact with my readers.

But now back to Most Valuable Email:

There’s no disappearing bonus today.

But if this course is something you’ve been meaning to buy, you might as well get started today.

If I do offer any disappearing bonus in the future, it will be yours if you want it, since I always make all disappearing bonuses available to previous buyers also.

And you will have that much more of a head start. Most Valuable Email is most valuable because of what it gives you if you use it, not because of the $100 I will get paid.

Besides, you might just like to prove me and every other direct marketer wrong. You might like to take action on something positive today, of your own volition, and not wait until tomorrow, next week, or next year, even without the whip of a deadline or the future pacing of certain ruin and misery that awaits you if you don’t.

If that’s the case, then here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Confessions of a shameless email taker

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Some people just take, take, take. Me, for example.

For years now, I’ve been signed up to the email list of a business owner outside the marketing niche.

As usual, I don’t like to name names, so let’s give this business owner an impenetrable alias. Let’s call him Blimon Sack.

Blimon writes interesting daily emails. I know, because I read them often, and have for years.

He usually opens with some historical anecdote or curiosity. I’m eager to read those.

The second half of Blimon’s emails transition into a “takeaway” — some kind of point he wants to make — and then lead into his offer.

But like I said, I just take, take, take.

I’ve been reading Blimon’s eduselling emails for years. I never bought from him, never even clicked through to the sales page.

Not buying became a habit. Read the interesting historical anecdote… click away.

I had some vague idea of what Blimon is selling. It was the same offer every time. But if you asked me to explain it, I couldn’t really tell you, because I didn’t know.

That is, until one day. That’s when Blimon sent out a different email. He cut out the usual education/entertainment, the first half of his email.

Instead, he simply restated what his core offer is, what he had been promoting all this time. He listed everything that’s included. He stated the price. And he gave some kind of reason for getting it today rather than tomorrow.

I didn’t buy this time either, but I was damn close. I finally had a clear idea of what he sells. It sounded interesting and valuable and reasonably priced.

If Blimon would repeat this bare, “zero value,” pattern interrupt email from time to time, there’s a good chance my resistance would finally crumble and I would buy.

So that’s my “takeaway” for you.

Infotaining, eduselling, Simple Money Emails are great. They keep people reading. And they do get a good number of them to also buy in time.

But there’s always those takers on the list, who enjoy the stories and the gossip and the news, but who are “too smart” to pay for anything.

Of course, not everybody who doesn’t buy is a taker like me.

There’s also a good number of people who joined your list recently, who might not have been around for the long-gone launch of your offer, who enjoy your emails, see that you know what you’re talking about, but whose eyes still glaze over when they reach the B side of your email record, where all the sales deep cuts are.

For those people, all of them, it’s important to send the occasional stripped-down email. Not to hide your offer behind a story or a news item or even a testimonial. But to, as my former copywriting coach used to say, make your offer “on the nose.”

And if you’re wondering why you got two emails from me tonight instead of the usual, well, that’s why.

Perhaps you found this email valuable. ​​If so, you should check out my Most Valuable Email training, because it’s filled with dozens more valuable marketing ideas.

​​You can read about Most Valuable Email it in that other, “zero value” email I sent you. Or directly here on the sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

10 lessons from the ClientRaker promo

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As I write this, it’s 12:36pm on Thursday July 20th, Central European Time, which means that it’s now some 16:36 hours after I finally stopped promoting Steve Raju’s ClientRaker.

Whenever I complete a promo, I like to force myself to look at the dead hulk, lying there on the ground, and ask myself what I see. Sometimes this triggers insights in my little head which I can use on future projects.

So here are 10 curious things I saw during the ClientRaker promotion. Maybe one of them will give you an insight you too can use on a future project:

1. Whenever I sent an email saying that others are buying, and showed proof of that, I made more sales.

2. Building Steve up, and specifically, diagnosing him as a “certifiable genius,” a slightly nonsensical term, also created a spike in sale.

3. I managed to screw up my affiliate links and as a result I could honestly write an email that said ClientRaker is so good I am promoting it without getting paid. From what I can tell, this one email drove more sales than any other. The lesson is clear. Make it clear in whatever way you can that the current promotion is not a cash grab, but first and foremost a benefit to the reader.

4. To date, ClientRaker has only Steve as a successful case study. I called this fact out. Based on the responses I got (I couldn’t tell by the sales), this turned a liability into an asset.

5. I converted about 1.5%-2% of my list. I don’t know the exact numbers because of the screwed up affiliate links for some of the sales.

The only numbers I have to compare to are from my Most Valuable Email launch, which did 4.7% of my list at the time. However, since my list grown since them and since ClientRaker sells for 4x what I sold MVE during its launch, I made more money with this promotion than with the MVE launch. I call that a solid win.

6. I sent out 12 emails over 6 days. My total unsubscribe rate, over the entire 6 days and 12 emails, was 0.4%. I am clearly not pushing my readers enough.

7. Multiple people wrote in to thank me for promoting this offer. Several did it after I wrote an email about my snafu with the affiliate links. And this morning, long-time reader Kasper Lal wrote in, after watching the first ClientRaker training. Kasper’s subject line read “I didn’t believe you…” and the email read:

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I have to admit, when you promoted Steve’s program I was a bit skeptical about that “revolutionary” way of using ChatGPT. Thought it would be just another batch of “expert prompts.”

Boy was I wrong…

Steve dropped so many paradigm changing bombs I’m still in awe.

Thanks for selling me on that chance!

===

8. I found it much easier to wholeheartedly promote somebody else’s excellent training that I usually do when promoting my own trainings, which I also aim to make excellent. When I combine this with the sales made, the satisfied buyers writing in to thank me, the fact I don’t actually have to do any of the delivery, then I have to admit I would be happy to do an affiliate promo like this every week if I could. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find somebody like Steve Raju hidden away with a brilliant training that hardly has any previous exposure.

9. I got zero complaints about the emails I was sending, either about the volume or about topics, such as “‘Too many single moms'” in my Facebook DMs.” Again, makes me think I am not pushing my readers enough.

10. I did proactively kick one guy off my list. After the deadline had passed. For doing nothing more than asking me some questions. About ClientRaker. But that’s a story for another time.

For now, let’s get to my offer to you for today:

If you have bought ClientRaker and have gone through the first training, write in and tell me what you thought of it.

In exchange, I will send you the transcript of a call I did with steve, or a part of this call. I had Steve walk me through setting up LinkedIn profile — what actually to put on there, what’s important, what doesn’t matter.

I did this out of laziness, expecting Steve would tell me stuff I already knew. But as Kasper says above… boy was I wrong. Steve told me great stuff I did not know, had not thought about, and would not ever think about, including a tip for that most dreaded part of a LinkedIn profile, and that’s the photo.

Steve’s tips are yours if you want ’em, in exchange for you telling me what you thought of Steve’s first call. Simply hit reply and write away.

I’ve decided to let Arnold Schwarzenegger shortcut his way into my coaching program

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Two days ago I was told that The Austrian Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has started sending out daily emails.

I was curious so I signed up for his list. A fun thank-you page popped up:

“Come with me if you want to subscribe! Check your email! DO IT NOW!”

Good job, big guy. But I wondered about the actual content — will Arnie write it? He’s already had an A-list career as a competitive athlete, a business man, a movie star, and a top-level politician. So why not an email copywriter?

But no. It turns out Arnold employs two editors-in-chief who write the actual emails. Inspiration + diet + health advice. The content feels correct but a bit bland, a bit too earnest, a bit too how-to.

I skimmed the first day’s email. I skipped the second day’s. I’m not looking forward to the third day’s.

The point is unavoidable:

Arnold Schwarzenegger has figured out the importance of daily email, even at this stage of his enormously successful career. Some kinds of influence you just can’t shortcut or replace.

Unfortunately, he’s delegating the writing of the emails to these two editors-in-chief. That’s already a huge minus, because what his audience really wants is something that feels like real, one-on-one contact with Arnie.

To top it off, the content is lacking spice.

For all these reasons, and as a way of saying thanks to the entertainment that Arnold Schwarzenegger provided early on in my life, I’ve decided to take the following dramatic and unprecedented step.
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I offer coaching on writing daily emails. My goal is to get business owners writing daily emails effectively and efficiently. That means:

1. People should enjoy reading your emails.

2. People should do what you tell them to do as a result of your daily emails (Arnold is promoting his Pump Club and preselling his new book, set to be published in October).

3. Writing these daily emails should be manageable, so it fits it into your otherwise busy schedule — in between shooting your new Netflix action show, pumping iron, and trying to mediate the war in Ukraine, for example.

I don’t often advertise this coaching program. I don’t often take on new students. I also don’t accept most people who express interest in this coaching.

But since Arnold has shown so much promise in so many other fields, I’ve decided to accept him into my email coaching program, without the usual screening call I make everyone else go through.

I’m just waiting for word of this uniquely good news to reach him. Once this happens, I will probably get an email from Arnold, and we will coordinate our busy schedules and find a regular time to talk that works for both of us.

I have little doubt that his daily emails will improve dramatically very soon after, and we will make that October book launch a huge success.

And while Arnie and I work to get our schedules synced, I might take on another coaching student.

In case you are interested, reply to this email. Tell me a bit about yourself — who you are, what you do, who you do it for.

I’ll tell you if I think you’re in a place to benefit from the coaching. And if I think you are, we will get on a call to see if it really is a fit. Except Arnold, nobody gets to skip this step.

If it is a fit, then we can start working together towards the goal. As someone asked Arnold once, “What is best in life?”

I don’t have his exact quote in front of me. But he responded with something like:

“Crush your readers’ indifference… see money driven to your bank account… and hear the lamentation of your competitors.” With daily emails, of course.

“So where are we all supposed to go now?”

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A couple days ago, an article on The Verge by David Pierce picked up steam and then really started chugging along, tearing through any obstacles in its path, and demanding the attention and concern even of slack-jawed layabouts who were minding their own business just moments earlier. The title of Pierce’s article:

“So where are we all supposed to go now?”

Pierce was writing about how social media — first Facebook, then Twitter, now Reddit — are dying. And what, he wanted to know, will be next?

I know all about this because I’m a painfully contrary person. After about 20 years of resisting social media, I am now getting on social media full on.

First, I got on Twitter a couple months ago (under a pseudonym). That’s how I came across that runaway Verge article. And I will also most probably get on LinkedIn in the next few days (under my own name).

I figure what others, smarter than I am, have already figured out:

Maybe social media is a cesspool, and maybe it’s now dying to boot. But there are still billions of people on there. I only need a small and select fraction of those people to do very well.

My ultimate goal — as you can probably guess — is to get these people onto my email lists, either this one that you’re reading now, or my new health newsletter. That’s how I can write to them regularly, with something interesting or valuable, and build a relationship, and even do business and exchange money for my offers.

So what will come after Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit? Where are we all supposed to go now?

I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care. Because I use a mental shortcut known as the Lindy Law, which says that you can expect technology to survive on average as long as it’s already been around.

Email has been around for 52 years, longer than the Internet as we know it.

Will email still be around 52 years from now? Who knows. I figure its odds are better than any new technology that comes out today or tomorrow.

But you probably knew all this before. What you might not know — something that surprised me yesterday — is that there’s an email platform called Beehiiv.

I promoted Beehiiv in my email yesterday, and I gave people a bit of a carrot-and-stick to sign up for a free account on Beehiiv using my affiliate link.

I got lots of people taking me up on the offer, and I got lots of people thanking me for cluing them in to Beehiiv. That’s the part that was surprising to me — so many people had not heard of Beehiiv before.

I personally use Beehiiv, I’m very happy with it, and that’s why I’m happy to recommend it. As for why you might want to try it for your new newsletter or project, here’s my best case for that:

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Beehiiv is slick and it has a buncha tools that other email providers don’t have. Like a nice-looking website, straight out of the box, that doubles as your email archive. A referral program. Recommendations from and to other newsletters. An ad network if you want to monetize your newsletter that way.

Just as important:

More than any other email platform I’ve directly used or indirectly heard about, Beehiiv is stable and reliable. It doesn’t crash. It doesn’t lock up. It doesn’t fail to send out emails you meant to send and it doesn’t sneakily send out emails you didn’t mean to send.

But really, try it out for yourself and see. Maybe it’s not for you. Or maybe you will love it.

There’s no risk either way. Because Beehiiv is free to start using and to continue using indefinitely — for sending emails and for the website.

You only have to pay something if you wanna upgrade to some of the fancier growth and monetization tools — which I’ve done, because it’s well-worth the money for me, and because I’ve decided to stick with Beehiiv for the long term.

So like I said, I encourage you to give it a try. But—

I know that encouragement, and good arguments, and lists of shiny features, are often not enough to get people to move.

So I’ll give you a bit of a carrot-and-stick too.

Over the past two months, I’ve grown my new newsletter from 73 subscribers to 1,109 subscribers.

And if you try out Beehiiv using my affiliate link, I will send you a recording in which I talk about all the stuff I’ve done to grow that newsletter — what’s worked, what hasn’t, what I plan to do going forward. (I’ll even tell you some stuff I’m planning to do to grow this daily marketing newsletter that you’re reading right now.)

Also, here’s another thing I promise to give you:

I had some deliverability problems early on with my new newsletter. It turned out not to be Beehiiv’s fault. Rather it was that I had failed to set up my DNS right. I fixed that, and my deliverability problems got fixed. But I went one further.

I also came up with a little trick to increase my deliverability going forward and even to increase my open rates.

This trick has nothing to do with DMARC or DKIM records. It has nothing to do with trying to game Gmail. It’s just plain old marketing and psychology. And it’s allowed me to actually increase my open rates while my list has grown quickly and sizeably.

This trick is not complicated — it takes all of five minutes to implement.

And if you take me up on my offer and try out Beehiiv, I will send you a quick writeup of exactly what I did, and how you can do it too, to have the kinds of deliverability and reader engagement that other newsletters can only wonder at.

So that’s the carrot. The stick, or the threat of it, is that there’s a deadline, 24 hours from now, at 8:31pm CET on Thursday, July 6.

If you’re interested, here’s what to do:

1. Head to Beehiiv using this link: https://bejakovic.com/beehiiv

2. Sign up for a free account. You don’t have to sign up for anything paid. I am counting on Beehiiv’s quality and service to convince you to do that over time.

3. Once you’ve signed up, forward me the confirmation email you get from Beehiiv — and I will reply to you with 1) the recording listing all the things I’ve done and will be doing to grow my new newsletter and 2) a write up of my little deliverability and email open trick. Do it before the deadline — 8:31pm CET on Thursday, July 6 — and you get the carrot, and not the stick. ​​