Offers

Announcing: pre-Black Friday Copy Riddles stable price

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Day 2 of The Copywriter Club live event in London.

​​I’m trying to finish all my work — this newsletter, plus my health newsletter which goes out each Thursday — before 9am so I don’t have to lug my laptop to the conference venue.

​​Fortunately, a reader writes in:

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Hi John,

Greetings!

Are you planning to make a Black Friday/Cyber Monday offer, especially of your Copy Riddles course?

The reason I ask is so that I can start saving for it and blissfully ignore other offers.

===

The grand answer is no, I’m not planning any kind of Black Friday offer on Copy Riddles or any of my other courses. In case you’re curious, here are two reasons why:

For one thing, I don’t know when Black Friday falls. Maybe there are ways around this significant obstacle. But even if there are, the following obstacle remains…

Black Friday typically means discounts. And several years ago, I copied and adopted, without shame or remorse, Daniel Throssell’s policy of not running sales or discounting offers down from an established price.

My reasoning is simple:

I sell expensive offers to a small batch of dedicated buyers. I never want one of these buyers to open a new email from me and be faced with a cheerful message, informing them that a course they bought from me now costs hundreds of dollars less — “Haha, sucks for you, shoulda waited for Black Friday!”

I’ve consulted clients who run regular discounts to large lists. They say they’ve never ever gotten a complaint from earlier buyers about a new sale.

I can believe it. But I still won’t do it. I can imagine that if I found myself on the other end of such a deal, I wouldn’t complain either, but I would still feel soured. And I would think twice when buying the next time.

One of the greatest copywriters of all time, Robert Collier, once said that the most effective appeal he knew to get people to buy is to say, “The price is going up.”

Well, the price of Copy Riddles is not going up, at least today. (It’s also not going down, today, tomorrow, or ever.)

So the only urgency I can appeal to today is if you actually plan to go through this course and profit from it.

The sooner you buy it, the sooner you can go through it, and the sooner you will take your copywriting skills to a new level. If you do this honestly, it will be worth much more to you than any discount on this course that I could offer. In case you would like to get started now:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

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/

Challenge offers vs. set-up offers

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Yesterday, I sent out an email, “Maybe I can help you publish a book fast.”

At the end of 600-odd words where I talked about Spider-Man, my old IT job, and a recent podcast appearance I made, my offer was that if you have a business, or better yet a business plus a bunch of good content sitting around, then maybe I can help you shape that content into a book that can go on Amazon and turn you into the David Copperfield of your niche.

I had no idea whether anybody would reply.

​​I certainly had no idea whether anybody qualified would reply.

But I did get a number of qualified replies, more than I even hoped for, much less expected.

There’s clearly interest and demand there. That should have been obvious up front, when you think of the fact that ghostwriting has been a thing since Confucius, and that plenty of successful businesses, offering various done-for-you book services for bizowners, have sprung up over the past decade or two.

Still, the unexpected number of qualified replies reminded me of an ancient fairy tale.

Maybe you’ve heard this fairy tale before. But maybe not, at least not the full details:

Once upon a time, a young prince named Gary lost his Social Security card.

Gary went into the Social Security office. He was shocked to discover that the office was packed with elderly villagers, waiting in huge lines, treated like cattle, bossed around, or sent away to come back and plead their case another day.

A few days later, young prince Gary shared this experience with someone at the local newspaper.

The newspaper guy told Gary how, as a public service, the newspaper used to run a Social Security info form, hidden at the bottom of page 74.

Readers could clip out that form and send it back to newspaper to find out what level of Social Security they are entitled to. The newspaper would then forward that form to the Social Security Administration.

But the newspaper stopped offering this public service — it became too much of a pain in the ass. Because even though the ad was buried deep in the newspaper, it got replies from 17% of the circulation.

Young prince Gary’s ears perked up. He thought for a moment. The outcome was his magical “How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age” ad.

The ad coupon offered the same Social Security form, which Gary would forward to the SSA. Plus it sold a $3 booklet, with the same title as the headline of the ad.

Result? $800,000 in 1970s profit, or about $5 million in 2023 money.

The point, in Gary Halbert’s own words:

“Think About Looking For ‘Set-Ups’ Instead Of Challenges!”

Yes, it’s possible to take a poor offer, tweak it, add to it, rename it, reposition it, and hype it up with A-list copy. It can sometimes turn a loser into a winner.

But it’s a challenge. And as Gary says, you don’t want any challenges.

You want to make an offer that sells itself in spite of bad marketing, or with no marketing at all.

You might scoff and throw your arms up in frustration at that. But Gary’s fairy tale above, and my email from yesterday, show that such set-up offers are out there, if you only keep your antennae up.

And now here’s my offer:

If you have a business, or better yet a business plus a bunch of good content sitting around, then maybe I can help you turn that content into a book that can go on Amazon and turn you into the David Copperfield of your niche.

​​In case you’re interested, hit reply and we can start a conversation about where you’re at and how I might be able to help you.

Deadline to get 4 copywriting bonuses that made the Infostack promo

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Today is the deadline, in just 3 ominous hours from now, to get the Infostack copywriter’s bundle along with my special bonuses.

​​I won’t send any more emails about this offer before the deadline hits.

In case you missed my emails over the past few days:

The core Infostack offer is a bundle of 14 different copywriting courses, trainings, and ebooks, my 10 Commandments Of A-List Copywriters among them.

​​All these products sell on their own for a total of $555, but get the Infostack bundle and you can get them all for a grand total of $49.

I’m also offering some free bonuses to entice you to sign up. Speaking of which, I’ve gotten a bunch of replies during this promotion along the following lines:

“I purchased the Infostack package for your bonuses.”

“… this fine offer from infostack which I leaped on and mostly to get your bonus packages.”

“Grabbed it. And to be completely honest, after reading through Copy Riddles a bit, I swiped this offer specifically for your bonuses.”

“I wanted the Dan Ferrari gems [bonus #4 below], so here we are.”

​​[From an email sent to Infostack support, forwarded to me:] “I’ve sent you TWO requests, yesterday and today, to cancel and refund this transaction. I sent the requests through the Contact link on your website. I did this because I wanted John’s bonuses.”

I also got one person writing me to say about the Infostack bundle, “I don’t think this one will sell. They have again left out the values under each item.”

I won’t share specific sales numbers for this promo — what good are they to you — but I will say that by my standards, the promo did fine. And I’m writing this before the final batch of sales that always come in the last few hours.

That just goes to prove the old direct response adage that people will often buy the bonus rather than the core offer.

So if you ever find yourself stuck selling something bland (rather than SUPER or ideally SUPER Ultimate), then you can always help yourself out by taking a sheet of parchment, reaching for your goose quill and ink stand, and carefully writing down the following heading:

“10 ideas for cool bonuses to make this offer sell better”

That’s how I came up with my own bonuses for the Infostack Bundle. In case you’re curious, here they are:

1. Copywriting Portfolio Secrets ($97 value)

In this training, I show you how to build up your copywriting portfolio in the fastest and most efficient way, so you can start to win copywriting jobs even today. I show you the best way I’ve found to win 4- and 5-figure jobs I REALLY wanted, even when I wasn’t qualified for them, and how you can do it too.

I previously sold this training for $97. But it’s yours free if you take me up on my Infostack offer, which also includes my…

2. No-Stress Negotiation For Well-Paid Copywriters ($100 value)

This guide outlines my 7-part negotiating system, which I adapted from negotiation coach Jim Camp. This system kept me sane while I still regularly interviewed and worked with copywriting clients. Follow these seven principles, and you will end up making more money, working with better clients, and being able to stick to it for the long term.

I only offered this guide once before, as part of the $100 Copy Zone guide, which also featured….

3. How To Get Set Up On Upwork

This free bonus is an excerpt from a short self-published book I wrote once, How to Become a $150/Hr Sales Copywriter on Upwork: A Personal Success Story that Almost Anyone Can Replicate. It tells you how to actually get set up on Upwork — the details of your profile page, your description, your title.

If you combine this bonus with the two bonuses above — Copywriting Portfolio Secrets and No-Stress Negotiation — you have a great shot of winning a job on Upwork by the end of this week, or even today.

And finally, my bonus stack also includes…

4. Dan’s Timeless Wisdom (priceless, or $25k+)

Between August of 2019 and March 2020, I was in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group. As you might know, Dan started out as a star copywriter at The Motley Fool, and went on to become one of the most successful, most winning, big-money direct response copywriters working today.

Inside his coaching group, Dan dispensed copy critiques, marketing advice, and mystical koans to help his coaching students get to the next level.

At some point, I had the bright idea to start archiving the best and most valuable things that Dan was saying. I got 25 of them down, and they are all included in this document, which has until now only been shared with Dan and his coaching students.

(By the way, I never tallied up the exact and rather painful amount of money I paid Dan for the coaching. It was north of $25k. I do know I made it all back, and then some, in just the first two months after I stopped with the coaching, thanks to just one tip I got from Dan.)

So there you go. If you want the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Stack for its $555.86 worth of value and inspiration, yours for just $49…

… or if you want my add-on bonuses for their $25,197/∞ value, yours free…

… then here’s what to do:

1. Buy the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Bundle at https://bejakovic.com/infostack

2. You will then get an automated email from ThriveCart with a link to a special, members-only page on my site where you can access the four free bonuses above.

Important:

The deadline to get both the Infostack bundle and my bonuses is tonight at 8:31pm CET. After that, my bonuses go back to Barbieland. So if you want them, I suggest you get them now.

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.

===

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.

===

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.

===

For when you’re ready:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

201 good reasons to get on Daniel Throssell’s list today

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Back in April, I sent an email to announce the last day ever to buy Copy Riddles.

One of the people who replied to that email was Daniel “I just got an entire city boycotted” Throssell. Daniel wrote me to say:

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This is gutsy, I imagine it’s a cash cow for you!

You know, I have been meaning to ask you for a while if I could promote this one as an affiliate. I have always found it an excellent idea for a course.

But this might be a great opportunity now:

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Daniel went on to propose a plan. I’d leave Copy Riddles open for one final promo, to his list only. It was clear we’d both make a lot of money this way.

We went back and forth for a while. But ultimately, I said thanks, but no. It would be a cash grab, and people would feel it.

Daniel and I agreed to leave it at that.

But now, I’ve decided to bring back Copy Riddles.

Yes, like Daniel says, Copy Riddles was previously a steady money-maker for me. And yes, I’ve now increased the price dramatically from what I last sold it for.

But like I wrote a couple days ago, I’m bringing back Copy Riddles for reasons other than a cash grab.

I’m proud of this course. It’s felt bad seeing it collect dust on the shelf.

Plus, ​​I got a dozen or more unsolicited messages about how great a product it is, and some about how not making it available is a crime against people who want to get copywriting skills.

​​I even tried to sell it off wholesale to a new forever home, but that didn’t work out.

So I’ve brought Copy Riddles back.

​​And since Daniel asked to promote it earlier, I thought would be only fair to write him now to see whether he’s still interested. He said yes, under one condition:

That I offer a special price, only for people on his list.

We agreed on a $200 discount from the new Copy Riddles price.

At the same time, I want to give a fair chance to anyone from my own list to get that same discount, since I won’t be offering it again in the future.

So I’m telling you right now:

If you want to get Copy Riddles, and you want to get it for $200 off what it now sells for, then get on Daniel’s list today. Because his email about Copy Riddles, along with the special discount code, will go out tomorrow.

So that’s 200 good reasons right there to get on Daniel’s list today. And if you need one more:

As I’ve written before, Daniel gets results from his email list that nobody I know can match. The stock explanations for Daniel’s success are his storytelling chops, mixed in with his willingness to embrace conflict and self-promotion.

Fine.

But here’s another reason for Daniel’s success you may or may not have thought of:

His offers.

​​Daniel’s offers are how he beat out a dozen other top email marketers during the infamous 2021 Black Friday campaign. It’s how he made the classified ads he ran this spring (mine among them) a big success for everyone involved. It’s why I ended up providing a unique and sizeable discount on Copy Riddles only to people on Daniel’s list.

Not only are Daniel’s offers unique and creative, not only are they pretty much irresistible to his audience, but they end up making his positioning and authority and relationship with his audience only stronger after each promotion.

There’s lots to be learned there. And you can do so for free — even if you don’t vibe with Daniel’s style otherwise — by getting on Daniel’s list and paying attention just to the offers he makes.

So there you go. 201 good reasons to get on Daniel’s list. Here’s the link, in case you’d like to do so right now:

https://persuasivepage.com/

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.

Announcing new financed payment structure for Most Valuable Email

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This past May I went to the one and only copywriting conference I have ever attended. Trevor “Toe Cracker” Crook, who organized the conference, got up on stage on day two to give his presentation, all about creating outrageous offers.

Trevor had something like 9 points to cover. And then he got into the 10th, which was a pitch for his paid offer, something called Silent Sales Formula.

The structure of Trevor’s offer went like this:

* Access to Trevor’s Own The Casino training (a $5,970 value)
* 3-7 Zoom calls with Trevor for the rest of 2023 ($5,000 value)
* All for an affordable $497 today, and then “9 financed payments of $497 every 30 days”

Trevor made it clear this was not a subscription offer, and you could not hope to cancel after the first month, or really at any other month.

I remember talking to some of the marketers and copywriters after the fact. We were all confused by that payment structure. It seemed to put a kind of anti-demonstration on Trevor’s otherwise excellent presentation about great offers.

It turns out I and the people I had been talking to were probably wrong, and Trevor was probably right.

I say “probably,” going by the other successful marketers I have seen since, offering exactly the same pricing structure:

I saw Sean Anthony do it recently for his High-Ticket Email Conversion Workshop ($590 today + 4 more payments of $590). I saw Justin Goff do it last week for the 7-Figure Email course he was promoting ($97 today + three future payments of $297).

You might think this is just a payment plan.

But for all these folks, there was no option to pay in bulk, and there was not really any talk of the total price. It seems the main reason for this pricing structure is a kind of reverse price anchoring. What you pay today is quite affordable, and the rest… well, the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

As you might know, I am all about taking effective marketing strategies and putting them into practice.

And so I would like to announce I am stealing this idea from Trevor and Sean and Justin.

I have changed the payment structure for my Most Valuable Email course.

Before, the course was much more expensive than it is today — though still grossly underpriced for the value it delivers.

But I’ve changed all that with my new financed payment structure for MVE.

Now, you can get started with Most Valuable Email for just $97 today + 3 financed payments of $1, each 30 days.

You might not believe me. You might think I’m a joker. You might think I’m trivializing an otherwise valuable marketing idea. So check for yourself.

In order to do that, you will have to click through to the page below… scroll past all the big claims I make about MVE (build your authority, grow your email list, create exciting new offers out of thin air)… skirt the towering wall of testimonials… turn right at my guarantee that puts John Carlton and Gary Halbert to shame… and then click on the “Yes I want to learn the Most Valuable Email trick” button.

You will then see my new financed payment structure in action.

I don’t make any promises about how long I will keep this generous payment option up, but right now it’s there. Check for yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Paid waiting list

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For the first two years of this newsletter, I never made any offers.

Why?

​​Because, like Phineas Gage, who had a steel rod rammed through his eye socket, I apply a different part of my brain when I judge myself than when I judge others.

When I judge others, I yell at them if they don’t include an offer in each email. “Put something, anything, at the end of your email.”

I’ve told people to at least put a link to something free and interesting. And it’s certainly better to end your email with a link than with nothing.

Of course, it’s better still to have a paid offer, and to have the chance to get paid.

But what if you’re creating something big and heavy, something that won’t be ready yet for months or maybe a year?

​​And what if in the meantime you don’t want to get distracted by creating another offer, something quick and cheap… or by finding quality affiliate stuff to promote… or by hawking your mutton as a “consultant”?

I wanna share a story with you. It came from Dan Kennedy’s email newsletter a few weeks ago. You might know Dan as a direct marketing and copywriting genius, but he also had a background in person-to-person sales. And here’s Dan’s bit about that:

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​A story I did not have time to tell in my presentation dates back to my extensive work with a group of retirement communities in Florida. Often, their salespeople had soon-to-be-retirees and seniors on tour who were visiting from up North, had homes to sell, adult children to deal with, etc., and came over for a look while on vacation. They could not immediately be sold a home site.

We invented a series of lesser “things” they could and would buy: first, a 30, 60, or 90 day hold on a particular lot location; if not that, a 30, 60, or 90 day ‘first notification option’ on a location (meaning, if someone else wanted it, they’d be called before that new buyer was allowed to have it). Next, a 3, 6 or 12-month price lock, for a fee. All these fees were credited to purchase but non-refundable otherwise.

​​Three different ‘products’ to be sold when the product could not be sold. The conditional close is better than no close at all. A real sales pro HATES not closing.

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I don’t know about you, but I do know about me, and me was very impressed by this story.

I had heard of people taking free consults, and turning those into paid diagnostic reports.

I had heard of people taking free lead magnets, and turning them into paid front-end offers.

But I had never heard of people taking a free waiting list, and turning that into a source of income — not until Dan opened my eyes.

I tried to think about what’s really going on here, how to generalize this idea. I haven’t figured it out. Maybe you can clue me in.

The best that I came up with is that there is value to your prospect that you might not be charging for now. Access… flexibility… convenience… security… extra value, above and beyond your core offer. These are all things you can sell ahead of time, even before your main thing is ready to sell, or even pre-sell.

Or maybe what’s going on is simply what Dan says at the end. Making a sale is nicer than not making a sale. So think about what you can sell, today, even if it’s just a promise or a future option.

Fortunately, I have an offer to put at the end of my email tonight. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with anything I just told you about. ​That’s also something I would yell at other people about… but that I foolishly allow myself.

But my lack of proper selling tonight doesn’t change the fact that my offer tonight is valuable.

​​In fact, it’s most valuable, if only you spend an hour learning it, and then spend a lifetime applying it. In case you’d like to find out the full story, and maybe buy:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

I’ve caught James Bond stealing, and I would coach him to do it all over again

by

I recently watched several old Bond movies, including the first one, Dr. No.

I was surprised by the scene that introduces the debonair Bond, which only happens 10+ minutes into the movie.

Of course, it’s at a high-end casino, at a baccarat table surrounded by women in gowns and men in tuxedos. A beautiful, aristocratic brunette is playing against a man not yet shown on camera. She keeps losing, getting more and more angry, and insisting on playing again.

Her off-camera opponent drawls with a Scottish accent. “I admire your courage, miss…?”

“Trench,” she says with a touch of irritation. “Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, mister…?

The camera finally shows the handsome secret agent. He’s lighting a cigarette and looking immensely bored. “Bond. James Bond.”

Did you catch that?

“Bond. James Bond.” The most iconic item of Bond legend, along with the 007 designation and the stupid martini.

But even though it’s the main catch phrase people have associate with Bond for decades, it wasn’t his in the first place.

Mister Bond, James Bond, was simply mirroring what he had just heard from miss Trench, Sylvia Trench. You can even say he stole the cool introduction from the poor woman, along with her heart, and then made it his own.

And why not?

Over the past week, I’ve been lucky to draw the attention of a very successful and accomplished business owner, investor, and marketer.

He replied to one of my emails and gave me surprising encouragement and advice, including about creating high-ticket offers. $5k. $10k. $25k. Here’s a bit of what he wrote me:

“High-ticket copy offers are everywhere. I say the best artists steal from everyone to create completely new things that bring great value to the world. You might do just that as you create your value ladder, which I hope you are doing as you read this now.”

I read that yesterday morning, thought about it through the day, and started to apply it last night.

Today, I want to share it with you, in case you too have a list, and maybe even some offers, but nothing yet in what you might consider the high-ticket range.

Maybe like me, you’ve been thinking and waiting to create an offer in those higher price ranges. But like that very successful business owner wrote me, such offers are everywhere. You can mirror them, model them, and make them your own. Starting right now.

And if you want my help with that:

I offer coaching. I promote it as being coaching on writing daily emails. I do that because there’s something sexy to people about the idea of copywriting and email.

But the fact is, with the people I’ve coached so far, the coaching has been as much about creating new offers, or lead magnets, or ads, as it has been about writing emails. But don’t tell anybody that, because for some reason, email copywriting is really the thing that people want to be sold, and anything else might distract them.

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 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’ll get on a call to see if it’s a fit. A real fit.