“Coaching crickets” so loud you cannot hear the quiet “maybe”

Before bed this past week, I’ve been reading a book about direct marketing. A couple nights ago, I read the following:

===

You need to identify all the categories of solutions available to your prospect. Make a list of their pros and cons. Your job is then to close all the doors to buying other solutions by identifying all the ways your solution is better than all those other solutions.

===

“WOW,” I said out loud. “This is GREAT advice! I should totally do this with my newsletter and with the offers I make!”

Then I shrank back a bit, and looked around my bedroom to make sure nobody had heard me.

I realized what I’d read is perfectly normal, commonplace advice about any kind of selling.

In fact, back when I used to write lots of advertorials and sales pages for clients, this kind of “dismissing alternatives” was a major part of my research process, which took probably 60% of the entire time I devoted to any copy project.

And yet…

A different part of the brain is involved when you’re solving a problem for other people than when you’re solving a problem for yourself. At least that’s how I explain to myself why I never think to apply things I knew to do so well for clients to my own newsletter and my own offers.

I once heard marketer Sean D’Souza say:

“If you wanna solve your problems, go and solve somebody else’s problems.”

That’s one reason why I recently started offering 1:1 coaching.

Of course, there are other good reasons too.

For one, doing 1:1 coaching gets me talking to the most motivated and proactive people in my audience, which makes me feel much better about what I’m doing in the world, and the impact my ideas and work can have.

For two, 1:1 coaching is market research. It exposes me to my audience’s problems, objections, and desires in a way that I never woulda thought up.

For three is that thing Sean D’Souza says. I’ve realized that my best advice to others is really advice I myself should be following as well, but that, for mysterious neurological reasons, I could never give to myself directly.

I just gave you three good reasons why you too should consider offering coaching, if you’re not doing it already.

Only one problem:

Like I wrote a couple days ago, “coaching” is actually a terrible offer.

The only way “coaching” sells is if you have built so much status or bond with your audience that they are basically buying YOU, in spite of that vague and unattractive “coaching” offer you made.

(That’s why I can kinda sorta get away with it.)

But what if you don’t have the same level of status and bond with your list yet?

From what I’ve heard among people on my list and inside Daily Email House, it’s a real problem. As one House member put it:

“I have thrown coaching to my list before, but the crickets were so loud I couldn’t hear the quiet ‘maybe.'”

A couple days ago, I talked about a new and 100% different offer you can make instead of “coaching.”

It’s a transmutation of “coaching” into something else, which sells better, is easier to deliver, and still gets you all the benefits I listed above.

Could this be something you’re interested in?

If so, hit reply and let me know.

Yes, I am selling something here ultimately. And if you hit reply and express the smallest bit of interest, my crack team of D2D salesmen will immediately descend on your front lawn, set up camp, and start a round-the-clock door knocking campaign…

No, none of that.

If you do reply and express interest, I will simply reply back, in order to find out a bit more about you, so I can see if this “alternative to coaching” could be useful to you.

If I think it can be, I will give you the full details.

If you like the sound of it, you can take me up on what I’m selling.

If it’s not a fit for any reason, you can tell me no. You won’t hurt my feelings, or sour this relationship we’ve got going on.

Does that sounds like something you can bear?

Then ask yourself whether a different, easier-to-sell offer instead of coaching could be valuable to you. If it could, hit reply and tell me so.

3 conclusions from the Black Friday Bundle

Yesterday concluded the magnificent and possibly final Black Friday Bundle.

In case you weren’t following along, there was a bundle of courses for sale by 11 copywriters and marketers, supposedly masters of persuasion and selling, myself included.

The bundle was capped at 349 copies (because scarcity, and because that’s what the last such bundle sold). But if you go to the finalized sales page right now, you will see…

349 292 seats remaining”

… and you will hear a few lonesome crickets chirping, and a melancholy wind blowing through the trees.

Clearly, the bundle under-performed. What done it? And what does it mean for me, or you, if you want to do something like this in the future?

After every promo, I like to sit down and make a list of conclusions. I did so today. Here are 3 big ones:

#1. “Only two ways to make money…”

My friend Sam, who reads these emails, yesterday sent me a quote by Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. Says Barksdale:

“There are only two ways I know of to make money. You can bundle, or you can unbundle.”

Whether it’s time to bundle or unbundle will depend, as all other things in business do, on where the market is, and what they’ve grown to expect.

“Bundle a buncha random copywriting courses at a discount” worked great at the start of this decade, during the corona and post-corona surge in interest for online side hustles or business opportunities, back when there were fewer copywriting courses and course creators on the scene than today.

Today, that basic approach is clearly no longer working.

Of course, bundles can still work.

I wrote just last week how I happily spent $495 on a bundle of courses. And earlier this year, a bunch of bundled trainings on AI in copywriting sold those now-impossible-seeming 349 copies.

In other words, a copywriting or marketing bundle can still work today if it has either 1) an exciting concept (the AI thing from earlier this year) or 2) a convincing reason why (eg. a clearance bundle due to the business shutting down, like that bundle I happily bought last week, though that was not about copywriting).

This Black Friday Bundle didn’t have either an exciting concept nor a convincing reason why, and given the fact that copywriting is no longer HOT, the bundle did as it did. And yet, my conclusion is…

#2. I should participate in more bundles

In spite of the milquetoast performance of this bundle, it was still a good deal for me.

I made a bit of money promoting the bundle directly. Not enough to pay for a house, but also not terrible for four emails and no obligations to deliver anything after the promo.

But much more important, I got 50+ new subscribers, most of those buyers of a $299 offer, and a few $598 buyers (who got both the front end and upsell).

At least some of those people are likely to spend thousands of dollars with me down the line.

That’s why, even though I recently wrote that promos featuring a bunch of affiliates make no sense for me to participate in, I’ve concluded I should do more of these bundles. The new subscribers and new buyers on my list make it worthwhile.

That said…

#3. I should have had an immediate offer for new buyers

I read this in a book before bed last night:

“Every touch point your prospect or customer has with your business should be monetized. Every page your customer lands on, every response to a support ticket, every action a prospect or customer takes (or doesn’t take) must be monetized. If not, you’re hemorrhaging money and it’s only a matter of time before you bleed out and die.”

I felt a little faint after I read this.

The fact is, I should have had a special offer for people as soon as they sign up, and a second offer after that, in the welcome email in which I told them they are in for Daily Email Habit, or in the delivery of the offer itself.

I should have, but I didn’t, and I still don’t.

The fact is, I am launching new offers, but it’s largely happening inside my Daily Email House community, and even there, behind the scenes.

Daily Email house is my free community where the mission is, “Use your email list to pay for a house.”

(Much more doable than you might think, since the monthly mortgage or rent payment is around $3k on average).

If you’d like to get inside this community, the front door is at the link below. But beware, because once you’re inside, one day, when you least expect it, I might make you an offer, one which you will be free to accept or reject.

If that doesn’t turn you off:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Sex and copywriting?

I got a question or two from a reader yesterday:

===

I am looking to help people have a better sex life! I don’t have as much experience helping people with this issue as I would like. Curious if this copyrighting work will be useful for me due to the sex topic nature?

===

I wasn’t 100% sure what this reader was asking — it sounded like there were two questions there:

QUESTION 1: “Is copywriting relevant if you sell ‘teach you a better sex’?”

The stock answer is that the brain is the biggest sex organ in the human body.

If you wanna take control of the brain, whether of your partner or your coaching client, then sweet, seductive words, including written words, are the way to do it.

And that’s why:

Back when I had copywriting clients, I actually wrote a good deal of copy for businesses in the sex and relationships niche on ClickBank, including sexy daily emails and sexy sales letters.

I also know of a coach on my list who has a high-ticket coaching program to make women’s sex lives better. She writes sexy daily emails.

I also know a coach on my list who has a high-ticket coaching program to make men’s sex lives better. The last I heard, he was also writing sexy daily emails, and was spending a lot of time fussing over his sexy Facebook ad copy and his sexy sales page copy.

So sex and copywriting?

Yes, sex and copywriting.

QUESTION 2. “What if I’m a coach but I don’t have a lot of experience?”

In that case, my best advice is to make a truly irresistible offer to prospects. Specifically, I’m thinking of an offer I will cleverly code name “Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer.”

The Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer is so irresistible it works even if you have little experience. The deal is simply too good for people to pass up, even if they aren’t 100% sold on you yet.

The Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer has worked to make sales for thousands of coaches, even those with little experience or credibility, across niches ranging across spiritual, business, relationships, and health. (Maybe even sex???)

But the real benefits of the Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer are:

1) The nice and quick income it provides, which translates good money even for an established coach,

2) An opportunity to upsell people into still nicer income,

3) Rapport and bonding and work with your clients and prospects, which in time overcomes that sticky problem of “I don’t have that much experience.”

This probably sounds fuzzy to you, and it is, because I don’t want to give away too much. I’m teasing this Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer, as part of my ongoing promotion of the Black Friday Bundle.

I wrote about that bundle yesterday.

11 offer creators, including moi, are bundling their offers, totaling $13 million in value (approximately), but selling for only $299.

I figure the real benefit of such a bundle is the thrill of buying a bunch of stuff, which has established real-world value, at a steep discount.

And since I figure that thrill of buying at a discount is the real benefit, rather than piling on free bonuses, which give no satisfaction, I am giving you four opportunities to buy more stuff, with established real world value, at a thrilling discount.

Yesterday’s opportunity:

1. “$25 Classified Ads.” A behind-closed doors opportunity to get in front of about 20,000 relevant prospects… advertise and test out your offers… get clients and partners… and grow your list… for what works out to $25 a pop.

Today’s opportunity:

2. Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer. A course that lays out how to make the Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer I teased above.

This course costs $997. That might not sound like any kind of a bargain, but if you consider that this Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer you make itself sells for $997, and is truly irresistible, then even one client, and this course will pay for itself.

Two clients, you will double your money.

Three clients, you will triple your money.

Four clients, I could keep going, but I suspect you see the pattern. And the pattern is that this is basically buying money at a discount.

Tomorrow and Sunday:

3 + 4. I will have more great deals to tease you with.

Of course, if you buy today, I will also tell you the other deals as I tease them out to the rest of my list.

In any case, if you wanna buy the Black Friday Bundle and get a great deal, and then have the opportunity to buy more stuff and get even more great deals:

https://bejakovic.com/greatdeals

If nobody wants your profit-making offer, give it away

Yesterday I organized a Zoom call for a few list owners.

One of these, a successful copywriter and marketer, was asking how to price, or how to persuade businesses to take him up on, his newfangled sales machine.

“Is $15k a year a good offer? The sales machine is super valuable, and has produced great results for the businesses who have used it. But it’s been a hard sell.”

I thought it was instructive that a successful copywriter and marketer was asking this question.

My answer was, if this thing produces sales so well, why not package up the results into a nice gift box, and sell that gift box instead?

In other words, instead of persuading business owners to buy a gizmo that costs $15k a year and promises to produce sales… why not persuade them to accept new money in the bank, which they can pay you a finders fee for?

In the words of marketing legend Claude Hopkins, who became the modern equivalent of a billionaire using little more than a typewriter:

“In every business expenses are kept down. I could never be worth more than any other man who could do the work I did. The big salaries were paid to salesmen, to the men who brought in orders, or to the men in the factory who reduced the costs. They showed profits, and they could command a reasonable share of those profits. I saw the difference between the profit-earning and the expense side of a business, and I resolved to graduate from the debit class. “

“Yes,” I hear someone saying in the back, “but business owners should already know that a sales gizmo isn’t really an expense, because it will help them make money. They should be smart enough to see a profit-generating solution when they see one. They should they should they should.”

Yes, they should.

But they don’t, just in the same way that the successful copywriter above should have remembered the century-old lesson that turned Claude Hopkins into a billionaire, but he didn’t.

The fact is, we have limited time and attention and energy, and doing the work of translation — of turning what we have into what we could possibly have, of what we buy into what it could do for us, of what we sell into what people really want — requires time and effort.

You can argue against this aspect of reality. Or you can work with it, and simply translate what you sell into a result that people care about, and that they can take you up on without risk.

Moving on.

I recently got a bunch of feedback from my readers, and I found that a large number of people list, as their #1 goal, getting consistent with emailing daily.

Maybe you too feel you should should should be writing consistent daily emails. But you still don’t do it.

If it’s not happening, and if it’s important to you, maybe it’s time for to take a different tack:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How to 3x your price and have clients say it’s still too cheap

Inside my recently resurrected Daily Email House community, I ran a poll asking folks if they have ever made an offer for $1k+.

I got a response to that from Jordan Parker, who owns Parker Labs, which from what I understand is a kind of boutique agency that provides operations support for online creators. Jordan wrote:

===

I have the dumbest story on this from 2 years ago:

Decided I want to practice downsells… but in sales calls.

And I SUCK at sales calls.

(I’m too eager to solve problems and forget to, you know, sell)

So, I intentionally threw a few extra things in & offered my typical $10k offer for $30k – planning to have this cool moment where I scratch the extra features off on one side as I scratch off the price & write a lower price on the other.

Perfect plan. Perfect visual anchor for the downsell.

Except…

The person just said “yes” instantly, and I didn’t even get to try my plan.

(he actually said it’s too cheap)

Sure, $30k isn’t that much for most businesses (and my IT agency’s usual deals had at least 1 more zero), but for some reason when I was the person closing it felt like a LOT. I was pretty surprised after.

(and just mildly annoyed that I didn’t get to test my system 😅)

But if you want to up your prices, give it a shot – list a bunch of stuff and get ready to cross out some of it. Many people will want everything. Getting everything feels nice.

And you always have an out and your old price as a “backup”

===

Upsells — addons you make to your core offer — are often seen as allowing your customers to spoil themselves, or maybe a play to their inertia.

The typical example is buying a new car, when a customer ends up agreeing to the the “nitrogen-filled tires” or “key replacement insurance,” simply because they are not thinking right at the moment.

But that exploitative way is not the only way to do upsells.

There’s a good chance people need your upsells to actually get value out of your core offer.

Your prospects can sense this on their own. Or maybe, they are simply eager to solve their problem completely, and so they put themselves into your hands, since they have decided to trust you.

My point being:

Rather than asking “What’s the amount I’m most likely to get my customer to pay,” ask yourself, “What’s the amount that’s most likely to fix their problem fully?”

If you ask yourself that, and if you bundle all of the resulting upsells and downsells and crosssells into a single sale, you can 3x your price, like Jordan did above, and still have your prospect say it seems too cheap.

In other news:

When people ask to join Daily Email House, I ask them what their #1 goal is right now.

A buncha people have replied something along the lines of writing emails consistently, even daily:

#1. “Learn to write engaging and persuasive daily emails”

#2. “Get back to writing consistently”

#3.”Mail daily”

#4. “Consistency”

If writing emails better and consistently is your goal, then I have my simple Daily Email Habit to offer you.

Every day, you get a prompt to write a daily email, which is based on my own experience writing thousands of sales emails, both for clients and for myself.

Every day, you also get 2-3 “hints,” which are really a steady drip of how-to info on influential and persuasive writing.

When you combine this with any email software (​Beehiiv​ works fine) and the ongoing support inside ​Daily Email House​ (free), you have most of what you need to succeed.

One thing that’s still needed is your own commitment. Only you can provide that.

If you have it, and you want my help in getting consistent with writing daily emails:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Sell a copywriting “mini-mentorship” in a box

A copywriter who recently finished my Copy Riddles program (not sure he wants me to share his name) wrote me a couple days ago and said:

===

I want to share a quick story, so you understand the true impact Copy Riddles has had on me.

I’ve been wanting mentorship for over a year to know I’m heading in the right direction, and getting better at what I do. It’s why I took an in-house copywriter role with the hopes of having a senior mentor me. Alas, after all the promises, I was just used to handle multiple roles.

So, I made the decision to quit, and do my own thing — properly this time. But in my last few weeks at the company, I came across you (through Parker Worth), and you know the story there, I shared it briefly on one of the calls.

But another reason I bought CR, was I hoped it would act as a “mini mentorship.” Now — 10 or 11 weeks later — I can tell you that CR delivered exactly that. The calls really helped put things in perspective. And it’s just refreshing to finally get what you’ve been searching for.

===

I have been selling Copy Riddles since 2021, and have had a good number of people go through the program.

I’ve had lots of nice testimonials come in about the quality and usefulness of Copy Riddles. And I’ve also had a few people, like the copywriter above, write in with greater praise, about how the course had some unexpected impact on their career.

I’m telling you all this because yesterday I made an unusual offer:

I’ll sell you the right to sell Copy Riddles yourself and keep all the money.

There are a lot of copywriting offers out there in the world, but there aren’t a lot of great offers.

Copy Riddles is one of the great offers, both because of the results it delivers to customers (see above), and because of the baked-in sellability of the course (see the sales page for that).

And now, if you like, you have the opportunity to sell Copy Riddles yourself.

If you have your own list, you can sell Copy Riddles to your list and keep all the money from every sale you make, from here till eternity.

If you want to create a little cold traffic funnel, and put some lower-ticket items up front, and then use Copy Riddles (a $1k course) as the “main course” that makes it likely your funnel is breakeven or better on day zero, you can do that — and keep all the money.

If you already have lower-ticket copywriting offers, and you want to put a proven higher-ticket upsell behind them, you can put Copy Riddles into your upsell flow — and keep all the money.

Or of course, if you are an enterprising guy or gal who is not afraid to reach out to others who have lists, cold traffic funnels, or offers that are in some way related to Copy Riddles, you can partner with them so they provide the flow while you provide a valuable new offer — and split the resulting money with them, however the two of you agree on it.

Along with the right to sell Copy Riddles and keep all the money you make, I will also provide you with the marketing that has sold this course for me in the past — emails, copy angles, social proof, and promo ideas that have worked.

If you’re interested, hit reply, and we can talk in more detail.

Over $1M ($1,000,000) and 20 years of loving labor went into this brilliant Unannounced Bonus

This week, I’m running an “Unannounced Bonus” promotional event for my Copy Riddles program.

Copy Riddles, as you might know, uses a clever mechanism to download A-list copywriting skills into your brain, over the course of a few short weeks.

I’ve been selling Copy Riddles since 2021. I have had a lot of customers go through the program. I have had only glowing feedback.

But I’ve been talking about all that for years. Odds are, you know it already.

So today, I want to share with you the special “Unannounced Bonus” I’m making available if you join Copy Riddles before this Sunday, July 20, at 12 midnight PST.

That bonus is a lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine.

I’ve written about Lawrence lots of times in my newsletter — he’s “the world’s most obsessed ad archivist.”

Ad Money Machine is Lawrence’s subscription service where, each day, he shares direct response winners from the past and the present. Two points to highlight about that:

First off, these are not just random screenshotted ads from newspapers.com. As Lawrence says on the Ad Money Machine site:

“I’ve invested over a million bucks on subscriptions and products to keep my name (and aliases!) seeded on direct mail lists.”

The vast majority of these ads, packages, and promos are not available online — anywhere, except inside Lawrence’s membership site.

The reason is that he’s spent the time, effort, and money to get himself on the lists of the biggest and most successful direct marketing companies, so he can see all their marketing — the front ends, being mailed out to specialized direct mail lists, as well as all the mysterious stuff that goes on in the back, to customers only.

Because of this, Ad Money Machine is effectively a collection of “businesses in a box” — the winning ad copy, offers, and funnels across a range of markets, from health, wealth, self-help, along with a bunch of quirky ones thrown in (fishing, stamps, “grass plugs”).

Second off, Lawrence isn’t “just some guy,” and Ad Money Machine is not even his primary business.

For over two decades now, Lawrence has been working as a direct response copywriter and operator, focusing on direct mail.

That means that, when it comes to Ad Money Machine, Lawrence doesn’t just share winning ads and promos. He also puts them in context, using his own decades of experience, and he explains why these ads worked and how they connect to deeper principles of copywriting and direct marketing.

A few bits of feedback Lawrence has gotten about that, from top direct response copywriters and marketers who have paid him thousands of dollars for his ad archives and commentary:

“Brilliant examples, great commentary. This one just gave me an idea for a newsletter we’re about to launch that I think will hit large. I don’t know where you find this stuff, but I’m glad you do.”

— John Forde, A-list copywriter and co-author of Great Leads

“My jaw is literally black and blue from hitting the floor over and over again as I got to see the techniques you’ve uncovered. I never dreamed many of these things were even possible, let alone how easy you’ve made them. The word ‘miraculous’ comes to mind.”

— Ken McCarthy, founder, System Seminar

“If Lawrence has got a product for sale, you should get it!”

— Marty Edelston, founder, Boardroom Inc.

About that last comment from Marty Edelston:

Ad Money Machine normally sells for $97/month. I subscribed to it at that price for over a year, starting in 2023. At that time I even promoted it to my list, for free, without being an affiliate, simply because I thought it’s such a valuable service.

Then back in 2024, Lawrence offered a rare opportunity to buy a lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine for $997 one-time. I knew I’d keep paying Lawrence monthly for a long time, so it was a no-brainer to take him up on this offer. I paid the $997 and bought the lifetime subscription.

Now, I’ve partnered with Lawrence so people who buy Copy Riddles during this week also get a FREE lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine, the same subscription I paid $997 for. I also got him to agree to extend the same benefit to previous Copy Riddles buyers.

(If you’re wondering why Lawrence would possibly agree to this, it’s because I’ve made the same deal to his lifetime subscribers — they can get Copy Riddles for free. Being a savvy direct response guy, Lawrence knows the value of growing his list with a bunch of people who are 1) interested in direct response copywriting and 2) have paid $997 to get better at it.)

Over the course of the coming week, I’ll have much more to say about Copy Riddles, about Ad Money Machine, and about Lawrence himself.

But frankly, I’ve never offered a deal this good before, at least if you too are interested in direct response copywriting and want to get better at it. In case you already know you want this deal, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

P.S. If you are already a Copy Riddles member, I sent you an email about how to claim your free lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine. In case you didn’t get that email, write me and I’ll get you set up.

Copy Riddles customers hit jackpot with “Unannounced Bonus” scheme

If you are a Copy Riddles customer, I sent you an email earlier today. That email talks about an unannounced bonus you can get right now. I personally paid $997 for this offer last year. But thanks to my threatening and cajoling and deal-making on your behalf, you can now get this same offer for absolutely free.

The chance to grab this unannounced bonus for free is valid until next Sunday, July 20, at 12 midnight PST. So if you haven’t yet seen that email I’ve sent you or acted on it, it might be worth doing so now.

And if you are not yet a Copy Riddles customer, I’d like to share something that can be useful if you sell your own courses or create your own offers.

I have a long-standing policy of doing right by previous customers. It has worked well for me — customers stick around, are always grateful and excited when I run a new promo to promote an offer they already bought, keep reading my emails and buying new offers.

But this “Unannounced Bonus” scheme has developed into a sales argument as well.

Because I promote my courses with special events and special new bundles of bonuses, and because I make those available to previous customers, the sooner somebody decides to buy, the more they end up benefiting in time.

For example, had you bought Copy Riddles a couple years ago, you would now also have:

* Copywriting Portfolio Secrets (which I later sold for $97)

* Horror Stories For Sales (which I later sold for $200)

* $2k Advertorial Consult (which a business owner paid me $2k for, and which lays out my entire process for writing advertorials that drove tens of millions of dollars in ecom sales)

So if you have offers of your own, it might be worth considering implementing an “Unannounced Bonus” policy like this, and then announcing it loudly, not only your customers, but also to your prospects, and using it as a sales tool.

Of course, that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

I will be running a promo for Copy Riddles over the next week. I will talk in great detail about that $997 bonus which will be available for free during the promo, plus I will give you a couple other good reasons why you might want to get Copy Riddles now rather than later.

But why might you want to get Copy Riddles at all? I mean, at $997, it’s a very, very expensive course.

My claim is that Copy Riddles allows you to own A-list copywriting skills more quickly than you would ever believe. If you want to find out how Copy Riddles does this, the mechanism behind why people say it’s “the best course I’ve ever taken, bar none” and “the most brilliant course concept I’ve ever seen,” I’ve written it all up here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

3 FREE Bejako gift cards

A while back, I was listening to Dean Jackson’s More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast.

Dean, as he often does, was talking about marketing for local businesses — chiropractors, dentist offices, lingerie shops.

Says Dean, rather than discounting your services or products, simply give away gift cards. This preserves the perceived value of your offer, and yet lowers the barrier for people to try it out.

I’m sharing this in case you also pull teeth or straighten spines or sell purple panties.

But useful ideas like this not much use unless you put them to work.

And so, let me lead by example and try out Dean’s idea right here and now.

My cart software doesn’t have native support for gift cards, the way you might have at a local Target, with a total balance that gets decreased with each purchase.

But I’ve hacked it a bit and created the three following “gift cards”:

BEJAKOGIFT1

BEJAKOGIFT2

BEJAKOGIFT3

Each one of these gift cards is worth $30, one time. You use the gift card by inserting it into the “Have a gift card coupon code?” slot on any of my order pages. Once the $30 is used up, it’s used up for good. (Try one of the other two gift cards, maybe they still have money on them.)

Incidentally, $30 is just what a month of my Daily Email Habit costs. So if you’ve been curious about Daily Email Habit, and if it could help you start and stick with daily emailing, you can now try a month on me via one of the gift cards above:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The inspiration for my concluded “Buy 5 paperbacks” promo

This morning at 9am Central Europe Time, I concluded my Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle promo, which has been running since Monday.

As a result of this promo, I sold a couple hundred paperback copies of my original 10 Commandments book. I had multiple people who bought tell me they will use the books as giveaways to their own lists. I got a big jump in Amazon rankings.

Altogether, I call it a success.

I did this promo as a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see if it would work for me. I’m happy with how it went, so I will repeat it, some time down the line, with new bonuses, for my new 10 Commandments book.

Over the past few days, a few people wrote me to say this was an original and interesting promo and offer. And one reader wrote in to ask, “Are you doing a version of Daniel Throssell’s book launch?”

No, Daniel was not the inspiration for this promo. For one thing, it was hardly a book launch — my original 10 Commandments book has been out for 5+ years. More importantly, I don’t even know what Daniel’s book launch strategy is.

That said, my book promo/offer was not original. I copied it exactly from what I saw another marketer doing.

I knew odds were excellent it would to work for me also, because I saw it worked very well for this other marketer.

In fact, this other marketer got me to buy five paperback copies of his book, which are still sitting in their Amazon box, collecting dust, on a shelf right across from the couch where I’m writing this email right now.

I bought those five copies in exchange for a bonus that the marketer was offering, which got me intrigued and which I wanted to get.

And that’s my meta-lesson for you today:

Lots of people are out there sharing marketing how-tos and tutorials and ideas, including in free newsletters like this one.

Maybe all those tutorials and ideas are proven advice. Or maybe they’re not.

But there is a whole other class of marketing and money-making education, which is 100% proven, and which you’ve already paid for, so you might as well get use out of it.

I’m talking about all the offers — books, courses, back scratchers — that got you to buy, and the process by which some marketer or business owner got you to buy them.

Keep a track of those offers and those sales processes. And ask yourself, what did it? Get to the core. Then apply it to what you do. Odds are excellent it will work for you as well.

In case you’re curious, I can tell you that the marketer I imitated for my Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle was Travis Sago.

Some time last year, Travis made people an offer to buy five paperback copies of his book Make ‘Em Beg To Buy From You on Amazon. In return, he would give you a bonus called Shogun Traffic Method, about a source of traffic that converts for any niche or offer, starting at $50 or less.

I had a pretty good idea already of what the Shogun Traffic Method was. But I’ve learned a ton from Travis before, and I decided it was a worthwhile investment. Plus, he piled bonuses on top of his bonuses — including some that were even more intriguing than the core Shogun Traffic Method itself.

As far as I know, Travis ran this promo only within his Royalty Ronin community.

It’s another good reason to be inside Royalty Ronin. Not only is this a community of 500+ Internet marketers who are doing creative deals, often starting from nothing… not only do you get Travis’s ongoing education and inspiration and advice in the community… not only is there a library of Travis’s expensive courses and bonuses (including the Shogun Traffic Method)… but you get to see Travis running creative new promos himself.

The bad news is, that means Travis might get you yet again, so you pay him for something on top of the already expensive $299 that Royalty Ronin costs each month.

The good news is, if you do find yourself paying Travis for something new, you’ve likely just learned a valuable new way to sell (most of Travis’s promos are creative and new in some form or another). You now have a new strategy you can profit from, if you only apply it to what you do.

That’s likely to pay for that new offer you just bought, and maybe even for a few months of Royalty Ronin itself.

If you want to find out more about Royalty Ronin, or maybe give it a try yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin