Email Marketing

A critical look at Daniel Throssell, part II

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Last autumn, I wrote an email with the subject line, “A critical look at Daniel Throssell.”

It was about how I experienced, first-hand, the crazy levels of engagement that Daniel gets with his emails.

In that email, I also said I’m reading Daniel’s newsletter every day to try to decode exactly how he does it.

My original plan was to do this formally. To sit down, look at a bunch of Daniel’s emails, take notes. To read critically, not just as a consumer of marketing, but as a marketer, trying to squeeze out what exactly Daniel is doing, and how I might start doing the same.

That formal sit-down never happened. Well, not until a couple weeks ago, after Daniel wrote me to say:

I had this kinda weird idea to pay you to do an analysis of my storytelling and email style. You know I highly rate your marketing analysis skills above almost anyone out there.

I’m curious to see if you would identify anything I’m doing that I haven’t even consciously realised myself that I was doing. Nothing super formal, just spending a few hours writing down any random thoughts/notes/analysis you have about how you perceive I tell my stories and use them to achieve my goals.

Would you be interested in that?

If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you might know I rarely miss an opportunity to turn down a paying gig. It happened this time too.

I told Daniel that no, I wouldn’t want to do this, not for money, because I really don’t know what I would end up delivering. It’s not like I’d be writing a sales letter, with a clear and defined thing I could hand over at the end.

But I did tell him I’d do it for free, if I could make a little presentation out of it, and if he would also promote it to his list.

Daniel agreed.

So I sat down. I looked at a bunch of his emails. I scratched my forehead and I took a bunch of notes. Result:

Some of what I spotted Daniel doing is straightforward copywriting, just done really well.

Some of it is ideas he teaches in his Email Copywriting Compendium.

And then, some of it is stuff I hadn’t thought about before.

Specifically, I noticed three techniques Daniel uses regularly.

These three techniques aren’t in his Email Copywriting Compendium… they aren’t standard copywriting advice… and yet, they made certain of Daniel’s emails have the most impact on me and stick in my mind the most.

If you like, I’ll tell you what those three techniques are.

I’ll also give you examples from Daniel’s copy, and spell out exactly how you too can use these techniques, starting today, to make your emails more fun, more unique, and more effective.

Like I said, this will be part of a presentation I will put on. The presentation will happen live, next Monday, May 16 at 8pm CET.

You can register for this presentation below. Just click the link at the end and fill out the form on the next page, and I’ll send you a email with the Zoom meeting info and a calendar invite.

If you cannot attend this presentation live, you can still register because I will send out a recording BUT—

If you can at all attend live, I encourage you to do so. That’s because I’ll give you a surprise gift on the call, something I think you will like. This surprise gift won’t be a part of the recording.

So if email is how you make money… or if you’re a fan of Daniel’s style… or if you just have ears to hear and eyes to see that what he’s doing with his newsletter is wildly effective… then here’s your ticket:

https://bejakovic.com/daniel-throssell-presentation

I broke the email chain yesterday

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This morning, reader Jesús Silva Marcano wrote to say:

Hey John!

Today when I saw that I didn’t have an email from you….

And after waiting a few hours…

I must admit a part of me was a little saddened.

Besides Ben Settle’s emails, yours are the ones I usually look forward to.

They never disappoint.

I hope all is well.

It’s true. I didn’t send out email last night.

I broke a chain going back to July 2020, when I skipped a few days because I was on vacation at the seaside, drinking quite actively, and generally celebrating and feeling high from having made a ton of money the previous few months, my first really big copywriting months.

But nothing exciting like that happened yesterday.

I had an email scheduled. I checked my inbox before I went to bed. But the email still hadn’t arrived.

I checked ActiveCampaign. It said my email was “Pending Review.”

I tried to stop the campaign so I could recreate it and send it again. It wouldn’t allow me. I tried again. No soap.

I contacted ActiveCampaign to ask what’s up.

No response.

I went to bed, figuring it would solve itself.

It didn’t.

This morning, my email from yesterday is still “Pending Review.” I can’t imagine why, because I wasn’t writing about any controversial or flaggable topics. (I do have an email about a certain kind of “gross body enhancement” coming up, but last night’s email waddn’t it.)

Oh well. The world doesn’t end if I don’t send out an email.

​​But it does spin a little faster. So it’s a shame I don’t have something to sell you right now.

In my experience, people today are starved for something — anything — real.

And when your readers witness you making a mistake, in real time, or getting involved in conflict, in real time, or failing to deliver on a public promise like a daily email, that’s more powerful and engaging than even the most personal stories you share.

And if I had, say, a training on writing faster, that would be perfect. I could end this email right here by saying something like:

“But you know what? Let’s talk copywriting. According to my extremely neat timekeeping, 72% of so-called “writing” really goes to editing. And things often don’t get delivered on time, or ever, because they are “Pending Review” by that finnicky, editing part of your brain. So if you don’t want to be at the whim and mercy of your own inner editing demon, if you want to meet all deadlines, if you wanna get projects done more quickly and make more money, then join me for the Faster Writing (and Editing) Workshop here blah blah…”

Well, maybe a little less ham-handed than that, but you get the idea.

If only I had the faster writing offer for sale right now, then the fact that ActiveCampaign is behaving like a lazy consular office processing my visa application… rather than as a for-profit business that has been taking my money for the better part of a decade… well, that would’ve all worked in my favor.

So keep this in mind if you have your own email list. Anything really real in your life, particularly that readers can experience and verify for themselves, makes for the pinnacle of engagement.

As for me, I got nothing. No gain from this ​event. ​Except to tell you that indeed I am ok, in case you were worried. And now that I’ve told you the background of all this, to maybe make a slightly stronger bond with you, so you get excited about getting my next email tomorrow, and decide to sign up for my email newsletter.

Cheap, easy, and definitely worth it

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A few days ago, I sent out a George Foreman-themed email asking for testimonials. Either for my newsletter and products… or for me personally.

I got back some good responses. Just what I was hoping for. For example, copywriter David Patrick wrote me to say:

“If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good. In fact, he may very well be the best thing to happen to America… at least when it comes to persuasion and influence! No, really!”

Others wrote in to say that I’m not only the best thing for America, but “maybe even the world”… that I am a “vital resource”… and one person, who shall remain unnamed, wrote in all seriousness with:

“John Bejakovic and persuasion. You can’t beat that. He made me like cats. Even though I used to hate them and they used to hate me. So he’s a great person to find out about a new product that’s about persuading stubborn prospects. Or cats.”

I also got less flamboyant, perhaps more useful testimonials. I will drip those out in good time, in upcoming emails and sales pages.

For today, I just want to point out something obvious that you might already know, but that I had to learn. In fact, I didn’t learn it until only a couple years ago, when I was writing a VSL for a get-rich-in-real-estate guru.

In one of his content videos, this real estate guru talked about his “buyers list” — the list of people you can flip a house to.

But a buyers list is so much more than that, the guru said.

​​He then rattled off all the connections, employees, business opportunities, sources of funding, and personal relationships that resulted from his list, and from the personal emails he would send to them on occasion.

“Huh, interesting,” I said, a dim light slowly flickering to life in my head.

​​Time passed. I stared into space.

​​The light flickered a little brighter. “Ohh… yeah… I get it now!”

Because it’s not just a “buyers list” that can do all that. It’s the same with any email list, when it’s built right and managed right.

The fact is, my newsletter list has given me — often without me even asking — business partners… JV partners… copywriting clients… consulting clients… free products… insider tips and valuable ideas I wouldn’t know about otherwise… job offers… podcast appearances… mastermind appearances… and many, many new relationships with people, some of whom even became my friends, mostly online, but in real life as well.

Like I said, I had to have somebody point this out to me. That a list is a relationship, and that it’s good for a lot more than just a certain kind of one-way traffic.

Maybe you’re amazed I could be so dense.

But I am far from a natural when it comes to promotion or marketing or business. And yet it doesn’t matter.

You can find a spot for yourself, and be successful in time, even if you’re not a natural showman, salesman, or “scheme” man.

Lots of people have walked the road before you. Many of them are willing to point out, sometimes even for free, just where you should put your feet to take the next step to success.

Such as for example, starting and running your own email list. It’s cheap. Easy to do. And it’s definitely worth it.

If you want to see, how I do it, sign up to my list. You might learn something about copywriting and marketing and business along the way. Here’s where to get started.

Shock and delight at a celebrity funeral

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On December 3 1989, a memorial service was held at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at the University of Cambridge. The deceased was one Graham Chapman, aged 48, who had died two months earlier from tonsil cancer.

At various times during his life, Chapman was a homosexual, an alcoholic, a member of the Dangerous Sports Club, and one of the six members of the sketch comedy troupe Monty Python.

All the other members of Monty Python were there at the service. Several of them got up to give eulogies. One of eulogizers was John Cleese, the guy behind my favorite comedy of all time, A Fish Called Wanda.

“I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is,” Cleese started, “that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence should now be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he had achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun.”

The camera zoomed around the large hall. It settled on the other Pythons — Michael Palin, Eric Idle — looking serious and proper.

“Well I feel that I should say… nonsense,” Cleese said. “Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard. I hope he fries.”

Yep, this really happened. During a eulogy, John Cleese said about the deceased, “I hope he fries.”

Last night, I had the second call of the Influential Emails training. Throughout this training, I’ve been talking about the similarities between comedy and email copy.

Not because you want to make your emails funny necessarily.

But because you want to surprise, shock, and even outrage people at the start. And then, pay it off in a credible and pleasing way, where the only people who leave are the ones who are either slaves to mindless good taste… or who genuinely disagree with you.

In my life, I’ve never seen a better illustration of this “surprise and delight” combination than John Cleese’s eulogy.

I won’t tell you how Cleese got out of the shocking hole he had dug for himself. But he did it, and he did it in a sweet, credible, thoughtful way.

You can see it all in the short two-minute clip below. It might prove very instructive if you want to write emails that people will 1) read day after day… 2) look forward to… 3) feel a bond with… and 4) allow themselves to be influenced by.

But be warned. This clip contains two profanities, one of which had never been spoken on television before. If that doesn’t shock you too badly, then prepare to be delighted here:

Still here? Maybe you’d like to be surprised and delighted tomorrow as well. In that case, sign up for my email newsletter.

New startling sensations and illusions eclipsing anything ever attempted in the world of copywriting

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Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and behold the mighty A-list copywriters!

See how they persuade with the written word!

Marvel at their subtle tricks in these three bullets by Daring David Deutsch… Powerful Parris Lampropoulos… and Jesting Jim Rutz! Behold, ladies and gentlemen, behold:

* Cure your back pain. Inside on page 3. [David Deutsch]

* Study finds this herb works for three-quarters of men who take it. Page 16 [Parris Lampropoulos]

* Aging parents? A nursing home might be OK. [Jim Rutz]

Yes, boys and girls, friends and enemies! These A-list copywriters know secrets and mysteries that you do not! And now, for the low, low admission price of…

All right, that’s enough. Let me stop the circus barker act. And let me tell you the story behind the three deformed and monstrous bullets above.

The story is that yesterday I got a question from a feller named Nathan. Nathan signed up for my upcoming Influential Emails training. And he’s confused about how to plan out a welcome sequence.

How many emails to spend on telling the brand story? How many about benefits? When to handle objections? What order should the emails go in?

It’s a question I also used to ponder, many Octobers ago. But it’s not something I ponder any more, or that I’ll talk about inside Influential Emails. Because here’s what I told Nathan, and it might be valuable to you too:

Most people will not read all your emails. And even if they do read them all, they won’t remember them.

Does that sting? Bear with me for a second.

When we as copywriters or marketers put together a sequence of emails, we can trick ourselves into thinking it’s a sales letter. After all, that’s how it looks in a Google Doc, if you put one of your emails after another.

But that’s not how it looks to your prospects.

Your prospects might give one of your emails a thorough reading… skim a second one… skip a third. And all this separated by a day or more… and in between dealing with two dozen other emails in their inbox… plus all the other stuff that’s sucked away their attention in the meantime.

I’ve previously compared emails to sales bullets. The analogy applies here as well.

Because when you assume your prospects have followed your sequence faithfully… or that they will keep following it faithfully… your emails become armless and legless, like those hideous bullets above.

But free yourself of this wicked assumption, and behold the magic and the wonder that emerges. Each of your emails is forced to become fascinating and convincing, like these real, unamputed, A-list bullets:

* How a pickpocket can cure your back pain. Inside on page 3. [David Deutsch]

* What to take for an enlarged prostate if you’re not getting results from saw palmetto or pygeum. Study finds this herb works for three-quarters of men who take it. Page 16 [Parris Lampropoulos]

* Aging parents? A nursing home might be OK, but see four better options on page 89. [Jim Rutz]

But perhaps you’d like to know how to make each of your emails fascinating and convincing — the equivalent of the A-list bullets above. In that case, hold on a second. Let me put on my top hat and cape. And let me clamber back onto my soapbox.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, all my many mysteries and email secrets will be revealed. So step right up, and prepare to be shocked and amazed by my Influential Emails, the marvel of the copywriting world. Low, low admission price — a special offer, good only till this Sunday. Show’s inside, folks, right this way, the door to the tent is here:

https://influentialemails.com​​

You never get a second chance to make a last impression

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FBI negotiator Chris Voss has a tip for you:

If you ever have to call the family of somebody who’s been taken hostage by machete-wielding drug traffickers in the Philippines… then save your “how are you” for the end.

In other words, call up the mom of your hostage on the phone. Say, “Hey Mrs. Robinson. It’s Agent John Bejakovic here with the FBI. About your son… I’m afraid I got nothing new to report.”

Give the mom a second to process the info.

And then say, “Mrs. Robinson… how are you and your family coping with this whole situation?” Because…

“The last impression is the lasting impression.”

So says Chris Voss. But it’s not just him. We know today, from decades of experiments on human guinea pigs, that our brains evaluate experiences based on two brief moments only.

The first is the emotional highlight. That can be impossible to control.

But the second is the ending. That’s easy to control.

So it’s your choice. You can first ask Mrs. Robinson how she’s doing… then give her the underwhelming update. “Nothing new!” She will think you’re useless, like all those other FBI idiots.

Or you can switch up the order. Give the update first and end with, “How are you, really?” And Mrs. Robinson will leave off feeling human, like maybe you really care about her welfare and the welfare of her son.

“The last impression is the lasting impression.”

Now about marketing:

A lot of clients I’ve worked with like the idea of warming up a list.

“Let’s not sell anything for a while! Let’s just build a relationship! Let’s give ’em value! They will love us for it!”

I gotta tell you, from personal experience:

You better make your relationship-building material something miraculously good and new. And you better end each email real strong.

Otherwise, you will just leave a dry and chalky taste in your prospects’ mouths. And the next time they get an email from you… they will think twice about biting down on your value-laden content.

But here’s an easy trick, in line with Chris Voss above.

Instead of leaving your prospects with your attempt at value… leave them with an offer.

“The last impression is the lasting impression.”

Make an underwhelming stab at value… and you’ll leave your prospects feeling let down as they walk away.

But make an offer… and your prospects will leave with some tension, mystery, and the feeling of an unexploited opportunity. They might not be ready to buy then and there. But you will make them engaged and ready to listen to you the next time.

And like I said, this all comes from personal experience.

I usually don’t sell in these emails. It’s a moral failing. That’s the only way I can describe it.

Sure, not selling has forced me to get real good at writing emails. How good exactly?

Good enough that I had an Agora publisher find my email archive, and then contact me out of the blue and offer me work.

Good enough that I’ve had a genuine guru in the industry, somebody who’s made tens of millions of dollars for himself and hundreds of millions of dollars for others, reach out to say he loves what I’m doing and that we should connect.

Good enough that, on the rare occasion that I have something coherent to sell, like my last month’s Copy Riddles run, I do fantastic.

But even with all that, my emails are still not good enough to keep up a sustainable relationship with my audience. Not long term. Not without selling all the time.

Because sooner or later I slip up. The “value” I deliver ends up a little dry and chalky. And I can see the effect. Over time, I lose people, their attention, and their engagement.

Selling something all the time would fix that. It would give folks who read my stuff a certain excitement and juice that a regular content email simply cannot replicate. Not every day.

Maybe you don’t believe me. So let me give you a demonstration. See if it convinces you.

I’m putting on a new training. It’s called Invisible Email Manipulation. It features me, in a top hat, pulling back the curtain on some of the main tricks I use to write these emails.

Like I said, I’ve been forced to get very good at writing these emails to keep people engaged… in spite of having nothing to sell most days.

I find I keep going back to the same few tricks, over and over. That’s because my tricks are powerful, and because they are different from the tricks other copywriters are using.

Maybe you’d like to learn my tricks, so you can apply them to what you or your clients are selling. If so, here’s what to do:

1. Write me an email and…

1. Let me know that yes, you are interested in Invisible Email Manipulation and…

2. Let me know one thing you did NOT like in the last copywriting training, course, or program you bought. I’m trying to position myself as being different. And no better way to do it then to be different from crap people don’t like.

So if you are interested, write me and let me know.

In return, I’ll send you the what/when/where/how/how much of this training. Plus, if you write me in the next 24 hours… as a reward, I’ll give you a discount code for 40% off the price everyone else will have to pay.

A critical look at Daniel Throssell

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A few questions for you:

How would you like to triple the size of your email list… while doubling (yes, doubling) your open rates?

How would you like new prospects who are so grateful for your non-stop marketing… that they write in daily to thank you?

How would you like to have people buying your products in unseen numbers… even before you make any effort to advertise those products?

You might this is a pipe dream. But this dream is real. And attainable. In fact, here’s one way to do it:

Get Daniel Throssell to promote you.

Before you throw up your hands in frustration, hear me out. There might be some profit in it for you.

As you might know, Daniel Throssell is a copywriter with a popular email newsletter. A few weeks ago, he and I did an “email swap.”

I wrote an email in this newsletter to promote Daniel’s list. I said Daniel’s writing is funny and entertaining. That’s what I could see on the surface.

But then a wave of people hit my site, following the email Daniel sent to his own audience about me. And I realized something deeper is going on, under the surface. It’s best summed up by a new reader who wrote me to say:

“I’m here because Daniel Throssell recommended you in his emails, and I’m about 50 emails deep into his list and will pretty much do anything he tells me to do at this point 😂”

When Daniel and I first discussed the email swap, he said he could get 10% of his entire email list to click through to my site.

I didn’t say so at the time, but I thought that was nonsense. I know how my own smaller list responds. Even if I’m selling free money, 10% won’t click through reliably. Plus I’ve managed much bigger lists for clients, and I know response only goes down with size.

And yet, I was wrong. Daniel did what he said he would do. Even more than that, in fact.

It wasn’t just idle clicks either.

Like I mentioned above, Daniel’s readers rooted through my site. They found an offer I hadn’t even made public (my Copy Riddles September launch). Some bought it right then and there. Many others bought it over the coming days — many more, in fact, than people who had been reading my newsletter for months or years.

By the end, I got literally hundreds of messages from new and engaged readers and customers. They told me how Daniel sent them and how they are sure they will like my stuff also. And my open rates, if those mean anything any more, are now double what they were before.

You might think I’m writing this as a way of saying thanks to Daniel. That’s not what this is about.

I’m writing this because I want to share something valuable with you. Because I’ve seen first hand the engagement that Daniel’s emails command.

You probably haven’t had a chance to experience that first hand. Instead, you’ve probably only seen Daniel’s online persona. Like a friend of mine who wrote me a few days ag to say, “I just unsubscribed from Throssell’s list. He was starting to annoy me.”

That’s a shame. Because this past Sunday, I promised you a resource. One that shows you how to create a responsive list beyond anything I’ve ever seen.

Well, I was talking about Daniel Throssell and his emails.

Whether you like Daniel’s online persona or not… my advice is to think twice, and look beyond the surface. It’s what I’m doing.

I’m reading each of Daniel’s emails and looking at them critically. Beyond the entertainment. I’m trying to read between the lines, and see what he’s doing. And I’m thinking about ways I could apply it to my own marketing. It’s already bearing fruit.

I suggest the same to you.
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Because odds are, you won’t get Daniel Throssell to write an email promoting you.

But if you do what I’m suggesting, and you look critically at what he’s doing… and you model it yourself… then the pipe dream I described above — including engagement and sales — is still attainable to you.

​​And if by chance you’re reading this… but you’re not signed up to Daniel’s list… then here’s where to go:

https://persuasivepage.com/

An email marketing and business-building topic

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Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash despises his band’s biggest hit, Sweet Child O’ Mine.

​​Slash came up with the famous intro riff as a joke, by playing a “circus tune” that mocked the popular guitar technique of string skipping. But the rest of the band picked up on the joke riff and developed the song.

They recorded it, and in 1988, it became their one and only no. 1 hit. Now, 30-something years later, the video for Sweet Child O’ Mine has over 1.2 billion views on YouTube.

You can file that away as “useless fact #754 that’s stayed stuck in JB’s head for the past 20 years.” Except there is a point to it:

If you create anything, even some bastard form like sales emails or blog content, you might start to get bored. Your taste and interests might evolve away from where your audience is. You might veer off and cover topics that you haven’t covered before, and stop covering topics that your audience wants.

Examples of this:

1. I used to follow a guy online who wrote a blog about picking up girls and self-improvement topics. All right. Then he started writing book reviews of the manly pulp novels he was reading. No. Delete.

2. I recently heard Gary Bencivenga talk about email marketing for his olive oil business. “If we don’t put ‘olive oil’ somewhere in the subject line,” Gary said, “we can’t get people to open up the emails at all.”​​

3. My own email newsletter. It’s mainly about persuasion, marketing and copywriting. Whenever I get away from those topics, I feel the pulse of my list slow down. I never tried pushing it… but I bet that after a week of off-topic emails I’d hear the flat line of no pulse at all.

So my point to you is to beware.

Your audience came to you for a reason. If you don’t respect that, even in spite of your own fancy and evolving tastes, you will miss out on those blockbuster #1 hits… and pretty soon, you will lose ’em altogether. And then you’ll be left singing like Axl:

Where do we go?

Where do we go now?

I’ll tell you where you go. At least if you’re interested in persuasion, marketing, and copywriting. You go to my email newsletter. Available for free here.

Stupid email from: tricks

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A few weeks ago, I got an email with the subject line, “Once in a lifetime sit in….on this?? 😳.” The email was from “Your Official Invit.”

“Hm,” I said. “Who is this Invit and what does he want?” I opened the email.

It turned out to be from Clickbank, promoting their Platinum Summit event. I don’t remember ever getting any emails from Clickbank before.

Then a few days passed and I got an email from “A story you’ll love.” Again more trickery. It was really Clickbank again.

Then more emails. From “Your first sale.” From “Your boss.” And from “Future John.” Clickbank. Clickbank. Clickbank.

I finally unsubscribed.

I’ve never seen these stupid email from: tricks done well. And by done well, I mean done so it didn’t piss me off and so it made me want to buy whatever they were selling. Or even just read the email.

And so I thought I would certainly never try this myself.

But, maybe… maybe I will change my mind.

Because it turns out it can be done well. I saw Dan Kennedy do it well.

Dan of course never sent emails. But he did send sales letters and package inserts from characters like Viva The “Broken English” Cleaning Lady and Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant. The Oscar one starts out with a cartoon of a scowling elephant with boxing gloves on. Then there’s a headline which reads:

John, A Nasty Note From Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant
You might want to read carefully. You’ve already won a prize. Not that I think you deserve it.

This works. Not because it comes from Dan Kennedy. But because it’s entertaining and builds up the relationship instead of tearing it down (not that there ever was one, Clickbank).

I’m not sure I will ever figure out how to do this with made-up characters in email.

But maybe, if in the future you see an unfamiliar email from Casper The Clickbank Camel… consider it might be this guy right here.

Oh. But I forgot. You’re not subscribed to my email newsletter. If you’d like to fix that, so you and Casper can stay in touch, then here’s where to go.

Killing me softly with free stuff

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Last week, while snooping on marketers who sell copywriting courses, I landed on the page of a well-known guy in this space.

He’s got a copywriting course for sale normally. But right now, you can’t buy it.

Instead, you have to sign up with your email for a free mini-course. Which I did, in the hope of getting to see the actual course sales letter.

Instead, I got a bunch of lessons, telling me to do stuff. Videos to watch, and checklists to read, and templates to fill out.

“I don’t have the time,” I tried to argue, “and I really just want to see the sales page.”

No matter. Each day, the emails kept coming. More well-meaning teaching in my inbox, which I didn’t have the time or willpower to absorb.

Eventually I stopped opening them. And then today, I got a follow up:

“I have another free mini-course for you…”

I felt like Lauren Hill when she sings, “I prayed that he would finish… but he just kept right on.”

Now in all fairness, I was never really a prospect for this copywriting course. But even so, I think the following still holds:

A free course, and in general, any free “hard teaching,” is like an earthquake. One is kind of exciting, if it’s small and only happens rarely.

But two or more? Especially if they’re big? You start to wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and panting, because you’re still having flashbacks from the last one, when you felt powerless and out of time.

So if you are trying to shake up your prospects with well-meaning content, full of specific steps they have to read and do… stop it. Be a little kinder.

Send them some other stuff. Which won’t overwhelm or cause PTSD.

What kind of other stuff?

That’s a good question.

But you know. I won’t bother you with that here. However, I might talk about it, at some future time, in my email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.