Guarantees

Do you make these mistakes in guarantees?

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A few days ago, inside my Daily Email House community, I invited people to share:

1. “The most you’ve ever spent on a single book, course, or coaching that got you EQUIVALENT OR GREATER value”

2. “The most you’ve ever spent on a single book, course, or coaching that got you ZERO value”

The responses were interesting and revealing. (It might be worth asking your own audience, either via email or in your community, to share the same.)

One of the responses was from a House member whose worst high-ticket purchase was a £1300 program to help build an online fitness business.

Why was this the worst?

Says the House member:

“2 weeks in, I realised this was not what I wanted to do and literally just quit. Didn’t even bother trying to get my money back because it was 100% my fault.”

This speaks to my experience with money-back guarantees.

I personally never get reassured when I see an offer with a money-back guarantee because I know will most likely never claim it, even if I never open up the product… or if I open it and find it disappointing… or if I simply decide it’s not for me.

And vice versa.

I don’t offer money-back guarantees on the stuff I sell. But I have heard-tell that people who are reassured by money-back guarantees tend, more than the mean, to make for bad long-term customers.

My point today is that risk reversal can be done differently, without promising money back.

It can be done in a way that reassures good prospects, and doesn’t reassure or invite bad prospects.

For example, there’s the guarantee I made during the “I endorse you” auction I ran last month. The guarantee there was to keep working with and promoting the winner (The Amazing Nick Bandy) until I’ve paid back the entire winning bid.

(So far, I’ve been working behind the scenes with Nick, and setting the stage for him to make his $31k, and then some, back.)

As a second example, there is what I’m doing now with the “Get you a $1k+ offer” offer I have been talking about for the past week. As a reminder, this offer is for you if:

– You have tried offering coaching in the past, or are trying to offer it now, without much success, and…

– You have a small but dedicated list of readers, meaning 500 or more folks who open your emails whenever you send one.

If that’s you, then what I’m offering is to help you repackage “coaching” into a simple 1k+ offer that actually sells for you, and to keep helping you until you’ve sold $10k of your new offer.

Sounds attractive? Then hit reply and let me know.

If I’m actually suited to help you get to where you wanna go, I’ll share the full details of this offer… including how I’m taking the risk from your shoulders and putting it onto mine, and how I’m tying my success to your success.

Hot new “no cure, no pay” repackaging of a service offer

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Long-time reader and customer Rasmus Gullaksen writes in reply to my email yesterday:

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A bit unrelated, but I came up with a new ghostwriting offer for my audience a few weeks ago. And I’ve never experienced so much demand for a service EVER. literally had 25 ish people write to be about this offer after promoting it 2-3 times on LinkedIn.

Most LinkedIn ghostwriters sell 6-8 monthly posts for X amount. But that has all the risk on the clients side (if the posts dont perform, the client still pays) and no big upside for the ghostwriter (if 8 posts do well and make a lot of money, the ghostwriter doesnt get anything more)

So I came up with the offer (a kind of No cure, no pay ghostwriting)

1. I’ll overhaul your LinkedIn profile page for $1k (so it sells better)

2. And then I’ll ghostwrite for you for free until you get a new client from your content, and only once that happen, I get a cut off the amount you make from that deal. If it takes 10 posts to get there, the client wins (10 free posts) and then they also get a new client (win for them, win for me) + I don’t make any commitment to post X times for them, I just post as many as I think are necessary + ramp up if things go well etc. I then get paid only if my content gets them results, and that only gets easier and more lucrative as time goes.

Right now im just trying to figure out what kind of business owner has the best business model for me to do this for. Currently helping a motivational speaker, a legal advisor, and a SaaS founder.

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I think what Rasmus is doing is… absolutely GREAT.

There’s lots of clever stuff going on in Rasmus’s offer above. What I wanna focus on is a super basic thing, which I believe drives this whole thing – that this is a service offer with a guaranteed outcome.

Is that really so hard?

To come up with a specific outcome for the service you provide… and to find a way to guarantee that outcome?

At least for some clients? And to then factor out your risk, by making this offer ONLY to those right kinds of clients?

If you offer services — copywriting, media buying, dog walking — maybe it’s worth thinking about how and for who you could provide a guaranteed, bundled up outcome.

Maybe it can mean you sell more easily… have an easier time with delivery… AND make more money?

Putting the idea out there.

If you already do this, and guarantee an outcome with some of the services you offer, write in and let me know.

I wanna hear your experiences. And who knows, maybe I end up promoting you and your offer, like with Rasmus above.

Have I promised too much?

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Yesterday, I sent an email in which I privately and secretly advised you to bid as much as it takes to win my upcoming auction.

The background, in case you missed it:

I will endorse the winner of this auction to my own list. What’s more, I’m offering to keep endorsing and promoting the winner until he or she makes back the entire investment.

I got a reply to yesterday’s email about that, which just said:

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maybe i should take a loan out

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This echoes something a member of my Daily Email House community wrote, back when I ran a poll to check if there’s interest in this “I endorse YOU” offer:

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The guarantee of money back really makes this a no-brainer… I’d open a 12-month no interest credit card if I needed to, to pay for this 🙂

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This gave me a great idea.

Yesterday, I reached out to Wells Fargo.

In spite of it being Saturday and not a day that bankers normally work, they got back to me right away and agreed to sponsor this auction, with a custom line of uniquely low-interest credit cards…

No, none of that.

It’s true that in preparing for this auction, I have used what I’ve learned about the people in my list across thousands of emails sent… hundreds of hours spent in individual communication with my customers… and about 5 years of making offers, some successful, some unsuccessful, all providing some data points of learning into what people on my list want, fear, and are wary of.

I’ve used that, plus more feedback from my list, to craft the grandest, sexiest, and riskiest (for me personally) offer I’ve ever created.

It’s possible I’ve promised too much for my own good. But I’m gratified to see signs that the right people are finding it pretty irresistible.

That said, I don’t want anyone going into debt in order to win. Debt for me carries bad vibes and karma, and frankly, that’s not something I want to take on.

On the other hand, if you do have money to invest in something:

I can tell you I’ve long ago stopped investing in stocks and index funds.

For one thing, I don’t know what I’m doing with those.

For another, I figure my returns will be much, much, much better if I simply spend that money to build up my email list. I don’t know any other investment that can conceivably pay me back 100% of my money on day 0, and give me 500%-1000% returns over the next 6 months to a year.

On top of that, I’ve personally found that investing in newsletter traffic is better than other forms of traffic to grow my email list, because newsletter readers are proven to open read and respond to emails.

If on top of that top, you throw in a warm and honest endorsement from the person who is sending you his trusting and engaged readers, then…

Well, I should stop myself, because I’m again starting to hype up and promise. And while I normally don’t have a problem with either, like I said, maybe I’ve done too much of both already.

If you are interested in having me endorse you:

I’ve officially set the date for this auction.

It will happen this coming Wednesday, December 10, as the Moon moves from Leo to Virgo (auspicious for new beginnings).

The exact time the auction kicks off will be 6pm CET/12 noon EST/9am PST.

The exact place will be my Daily Email House community. If you’d like to get inside in time and get familiar and comfortable before the craziness starts:

​https://bejakovic.com/house​

Should I offer to eat my shoe?

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Back in 1979, German film director Werner Herzog ate his shoe.

Herzog had once said that a fellow director, Errol Morris, would never finish his movie Gates of Heaven. Herzog was hoping to be proven wrong, so he added that if Morris did ever finish the movie, he, Herzog, would eat his shoe.

Morris eventually finished his movie.

So Herzog put on an event. The thing was filmed. A couple hundred people attended.

Herzog first boiled his leather shoe for five hours with garlic, herbs, and duck fat to make it somewhat edible. He then cut up the leather into tiny pieces. Over the course of about 45 minutes, Herzog chewed and swallowed much of the leather. The sole went uneaten.

I thought of this today because I was thinking of guarantees for an offer.

It is a well-known truth that a guarantee reassures undecided buyers and increases sales.

The standard is the money-back guarantee. You can get generous with it, and offer double-your-money-back. Or you can get creative. “I’ll eat my hat!”

But I don’t wear a hat. I don’t even own one. That’s why thought of Wener Herzog and his shoe.

I looked over to the shoe rack near my front door. There’s a pair of old white Converse All-Stars there. They’re made of canvas. I could boil them? Maybe season them? A bit vinegar? At least eat the laces?

But then I snapped out of my fantasy.

Guarantees are great. I encourage you to think about how to offer them for what you sell, and to get creative.

But I am not and will not be offering a guarantee for Daily Email Habit, the main offer I’ve been promoting over past few months.

It’s not simply that shoe canvas is tough, and my Converse have been through a lot, and that I don’t want to risk somebody actually requesting that I eat one of them.

My reason is simply that I actually want Daily Email Habit to be useful to the people who join.

The basic offer I’m making is to help you start and stick with the habit of sending daily emails.

What I offer is help getting you over initial hurdle of what to write about each day… guidance to making your daily emails more effective… and savings of time and brain power.

But you still have to put in the work.

I don’t want to encourage uncommitted or undedicated people to try out Daily Email Habit by promising to eat my shoe, or by offering any kind of guarantee.

As I wrote a few days ago, I’m even trying to turn people away if they don’t know what they’re getting into. Daily Email Habit only really makes sense for people who are committed and dedicated to write daily and profit from it.

If that’s you, Daily Email habit can be a great help. I have a growing wall of testimonials and case studies on the sales page from people who started their own daily email habit and who profited as a result.

If you’d like to read some of their stories, or start your own habit that can lead you to similar results, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The best argument against money-back guarantees on the Internet

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I was just listening to an interview with Vic Conant, the president of Nightingale-Conant.

As you might know, Nightingale-Conant is a big info publishing company. For decades, they dominated the self-help and sales audiotape market, with lots of big-name gurus on their roster. Their original guru was Earl Nightingale, who influenced Dan Kennedy and everyone on down.

One question posed to Conant was about the most profitable idea he’s used to market his products online or offline. Here’s what Conant replied:

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It’s been this ‘open accounts’ idea. When we advertise, we typically say, “Try this product for 30 days on ‘open account,’ or at our risk for free, basically. We’ll send it out to you, you try it, and we have the risk on our side.”

My dad came up with that idea back in about 1978. We were asking at that time for people to send in $50 and we’d send them the product. And that just wasn’t working to a great degree. We tried this and it worked very well and because of that our business exploded.

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The interviewer, Michael Senoff, asked a clarifying question:

“When someone orders, do they put a credit card down, but it’s not charged until 30 days later?”

Conant shook his head. “No. Typically it’s nothing. Just strictly bill-me-later.”

I thought this was very interesting. Because I don’t offer money-back guarantees on my expensive courses, like Copy Riddles.

​​I certainly don’t give them away for free for 30 days and then work to collect my money.

So should I start? For that… let’s go on with the interview.

Michael Senoff asked the obvious followup question. “They responded well, but how is it on the side of your collections? What percentage have you found you have to go chase money?”

Vic Conant replied:

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We have a very sophisticated collection effort, but it’s basically using guilt. And we’re very sophisticated in picking lists.

In direct marketing, in mail, you pick a list and you test that list. And if you test a list that returns all the products or doesn’t pay, then you don’t use that list any more.

So we tend to use very strong lists like Business Week subscribers, or people that don’t have time to screw around.

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So there you go. That’s the best argument I’ve heard against money-back guarantees on the Internet, at least the way business is typically done.

On the Internet, you’re not testing in slowly to very strong lists of buyers.

Instead, most businesses, including mine, have an open-door policy. Pretty much anybody can find my website, join my list, have the opportunity to buy. There’s no way to know if that’s a serious business owner with no time to screw around… or an unserious opportunity seeker with all the time in the world for screwing both me and himself around.

But still.

If you’re anything like me, your ears perked up at that original question, “most profitable idea,” and Conant’s reply “open account.”

I thought for a bit. Is there any way to do something like that on the Internet?

I realized I already am doing it.

Really, that’s the point of free daily emails such as these.

​​My courses such as Copy Riddles are very expensive.

​​The point of my free daily emails is to demonstrate — expertise, trustworthiness, valuable or interesting ideas. That’s the open account. And then, once you feel comfortable, you have the opportunity to buy into the next level.

I realize that might take a while, maybe much longer than 30 days. That’s okay. I have time, and I have additional arguments and email ideas. Here’s one I will close with today, from automotive copywriter Kevin Cochrane, who bought into Copy Riddles a while back:

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Copy Riddles was a measuring stick for me as a copywriter. John charted a course through the persuasion pathways that separate the pros from the posers. The structure is clear. The examples tie direct response history to present applications. The exercises offered a practical way to test and implement the lessons.
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I write for the automotive retail space, which is watered down by legal teams, compliance guidelines, and plenty of regulation. The course has helped me plunk the guts of what makes a solid bullet into more and more of my work.​​

If you’re hemming and hawing about whether to join, read a week’s worth of John’s daily newsletter as a trial run. You’ll know what to do after. (Hint: the paid stuff in Copy Riddles is even better somehow.) This is the kind of course you’ll refer back to again and again.

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For when you’re ready:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

My superior MVE guarantee that trumps Gary Halbert and John Carlton

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In my email from two days ago, I shared John Carlton’s “Notorious ’20 Clicks’ Report’. This report collected, in shorthand format, 20 of Gary Halbert’s “first-choice” marketing tactics.

​​In that email, I said this report is potentially the most valuable thing I will ever share in this newsletter.

Most valuable, yes. But not necessarily new.

For example, “Click 20” in the report is pretty standard marketing advice you’ve probably heard a thousand and one times:

“Reverse the risk — you shoulder all the risk, so buyer is ‘covered'”

Gary H. advised his clients to offer longer guarantee periods… 30-day holds on checks… even double-your-money-back guarantees.

Bah, I say. That’s kids’ stuff. It pales in comparison to how much risk I am willing to shoulder with my Most Valuable Email offer. It goes like this:

1. If you like my emails, find them insightful, and want to write something similar…

2. If you already have or are willing to start an email list about marketing or copywriting…

3. If you have read or at least skimmed my sales page, or what there is of it, so you have a clear understanding of what my offer is, what the price is, and what my promises to you are at that price…

… if and only if all three of these are true… then I guarantee the Most Valuable Email is for you. You will find it both fun and valuable.

On the other hand:

If you don’t fulfil any of the above three conditions… or you don’t know me too well… or you don’t trust me too much… or you have general vague doubts or uneasy feelings about taking me up on my MVE offer… or you want to “test drive” the content to see if it’s right for you… or, best of all, if you have been studying copy for years and have seen it all and are determined that unless I show you something new within the first 2 minutes then you will demand a refund…

Then I 100% guarantee the Most Valuable Email training is NOT for you. Don’t buy it, and save yourself, and even more importantly, save me, a bit of headache and frustration.

How’s that for shouldering risk?

After all, Gary H. and John C. were willing to take on all the risk — up to but not including risking the actual sale.

On the other hand, I am willing to risk you will not buy at all from me if this offer is not right for you.

Maybe that seems silly, or counter to the basic principles of greed-gland marketing. That’s okay. I feel it will serve me well in the long run.

Anyways, now you know what I guarantee when it comes to the Most Valuable Email.

And if you meet criteria 1 and 2 above, and you are interested in this training, then all that’s left for you is to read or at least skim my sales page so you can meet criterion 3.

If you want to do that now, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Unusual guarantees, vol. 3

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To start, here’s a bit of futuristic auto news:

A few weeks ago, Mercedes introduced its Drive Pilot technology. It’s much like Tesla’s AutoPilot. It drives the car for you at low speeds. But Mercedes announced an important twist.

If you put your Mercedes on Drive Pilot and the car decides to run over somebody, crushing their foot… or severing their spine… or perhaps even killing them… then you will not be legally responsible.

​​Instead, the Mercedes corporation will be responsible.

So what’s new here?

Well I thought about that for a sec.

After all, what Mercedes is offering sounds just like a guarantee. But I realized it’s a special kind of guarantee, not often seen.

After all, the typical guarantee is something like this:

“Buy this Mercedes. If you’re not happy with it, or if it kills someone while you’re behind the steering wheel, you can return the car and get all your money back.”

A more extreme version is the double or triple money-back guarantee:

“Buy this Mercedes. If it kills someone while you’re behind the steering wheel, and you end up in jail for it, and you no longer want your Mercedes, just return it to us, or have your friends who are on the outside return it on your behalf. And we will refund your full buying price, plus we’ll give you an extra ‘We’re so sorry you’re in jail’ compensation, totaling 200% of what you originally paid.”

Maybe when I put it like that the point becomes clear.

The money you get back for a product that fails is often inadequate. Even when it’s all the money you put in, or even when it’s more. Your total cost is still greater, and sometimes it can’t be quantified in terms of money.

Of course, you’re not selling self-driving cars. But this idea can be used even for some modest direct response offers.

Perhaps you’re wondering how.

That’s something I will tell you about, or rather demonstrate, in an email soon. For today, I will just tease you with this:

I think the key is not to promise money in return. The key is to argue that your offer will make your buyer better off, in every way — whether your product works as intended or not.

In case you want more detail than that, the sign up to my email newsletter, and watch out for my upcoming emails.