Offers

Planning out your offers: jam tomorrow and jam yesterday

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Last summer, I was talking to copywriter Dan Ferrari about joining his coaching group.

“Where do you see yourself in 18 months?” Dan asked. I told Dan then what I will tell you now:

I have no idea. 6 months is kind of my horizon. I can’t see much in life beyond that.

Over the years, I’ve tried making long-term goals. But when the long-term rolls around, it always turns out that either 1) my goals were stupid or 2) I changed in the meantime.

That’s why I now feel that projecting more than a few steps into the future is a waste of time.

In fact, you might call it mental masturbation. That’s the term marketer Travis Sago uses to describe “jam tomorrow” plans — not plans for yourself, but for your customers.

I alluded to Travis yesterday. He makes millions in profits each year, and he’s got some unorthodox ways of doing it. For example, the way he plans out his offers.

Most businesses only focus on their current offer. If they’re smart, they think one offer beyond that. If they’re really smart, they think two offers beyond.

But not Travis. Travis says this “smart” way of planning your offers — two offers ahead — is infinitely better than not having any plan. The problem is, it’s hard to guess what people actually want ahead of time.

So Travis advises looking two offers back.

First, figure out who the clients are you want to work with long-term. Then work backwards to figure out what offers you’d need to sell those clients…. so the final, big offer you really want them to take becomes a-no brainer for them.

This might sound like a trivial shift in thinking. But Travis claims this “two offers back” strategy brings in huge results in his business and in the businesses he advises. It means 50% conversions or higher on the back end… and more importantly, it means Travis’s seminars and continuity programs, all of which cost multiple thousands of dollars, always sell out.

But maybe you’re not convinced. Maybe this still sounds vague. Maybe an example would help.

If so, write in and let me know. I’m applying Travis’s “two offers back” approach to a business idea I currently have. If there’s enough interest, I’ll go ahead and share my personal example in a future email.

The quick and easy marketing lesson hiding under Harry Potter’s robes

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A few days ago, I watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time.

Odds are, you know all about Harry Potter.

But just in case, let me summarize the first 20 minutes of the movie for you:

Harry is an unloved and unlovable dork. He’s 12 years old and the most distinctive features about him are his John Lennon glasses and his Ringo Starr haircut. In other words, this kid ain’t going nowhere.

And then he gets a letter in the mail.

“You are a wizard, Harry Potter”

Within a whirlwind few days, Harry suddenly comes into talent, money, connections, plus he’s famous and good at sports. Oh — and he gets to wear some snazzy black robes.

So what’s the lesson hiding under all this?

Well, this Harry Potter fantasy is the human condition.

We are all unloved and unlovable in different ways.

We trudge on through life, smiling and putting on a brave face. But deep down, we all keep a bit of hope that we too will get a letter in the mail saying:

“All your problems have been solved, starting NOW! By a magical accident, you are now beautiful and talented and admired and by the way all your money problems have been solved from here to eternity!”

Admit it.

That would be a sweet letter to get, if you could at all believe that it’s true.

Trouble is, Hogwarts is full up for the year.

And probably next year too.

And that’s where direct marketers come in.

Because the best direct marketers will send you just such a letter, promising to take away your biggest problems, starting now — and in a perfectly quick and easy way.

So if you’re trying to sell something, think of poor bespectacled Harry Potter living under the dusty stairs in his aunt’s house, and imagine him receiving your sales pitch.

Will it transform the little dweeb into a magical wizard overnight?

Will it get him excited enough to scrape together his meager allowance so he can send for your “From Weirdo to Wizard” course?

Because if not, you’ve got some work to do, fashioning a better offer or some better marketing.

I can’t help with the offer. But if you want help with the marketing, then I’ve got a quick and easy solution for you:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

The obvious secret to creating blockbuster products

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I talked to a potential client a couple of days ago.

He’s selling a prostate supplement. It’s going well. And he now wants to create other products he could sell to the same audience.

So he wanted to know whether I could give him advice about which products to develop based on what I’ve seen working. I told him the truth:

I don’t know that I can predict which marketplace will sell the best. But I do know of a formula for almost guaranteeing that a product you create will be a blockbuster.

It’s a secret I learned from master copywriter Gary Bencivenga. In Gary’s own words, great products are “those with a clear-cut, built-in, unique superiority supported by powerful proof elements.”

Now, this might sound obvious. Or maybe too abstract. So let me give you a few real-world examples of what “powerful proof elements” really mean in practice:

# 1. RealDose Nutrition is an 8-figure weight-loss supplement company that I’ve written for. Their main product is called Weight Loss Formula No. 1. It’s a combination of four ingredients, each of which has been shown in clinical studies to improve a different hormone related to weight loss.

​​RealDose sources their ingredients in the same way as in the clinical study and they use the same dosage (hence RealDose). At core, their marketing simply consists of saying, “Our product works, and here’s the science to prove it.”

# 2. Another supplement company I’ve written for is Vitality Now. The face of that company is Dr. Sam Walters, who at one point formulated nutrition bars for NASA.

​​Unfortunately, Vitality Now isn’t in the business of selling nutrition bars. If they were, they could make a killing simply by saying, “The same nutrition bars used by NASA!”

# 3. I’m currently going through a magalog written by another famous copywriter, Parris Lampropoulos. This magalog is for a boner pill called Androx. One of the ingredients in Androx is cordyceps — a mushroom from Tibet that was used at the emperor’s court in China for its libido properties.

​​Thanks to this, Parris can open up the sales message by talking about how the Emperor had to have sex with nine different women every night, and how this was the supplement that made it possible.

With products like these, which have such powerful proof elements built in, the marketing writes itself. Or as Gary Bencivenga put it:

“It’s your mission to come up with a product so inherently superior that, as soon as it’s effectively explained, demonstrated, or sampled, your prospects have no conclusion to draw except “I want it!”

I hope that’s the kind of product you’ve got (or are looking to make). And if that’s the case, and you just want good ways to explain and demonstrate to your buyers WHY your product really is superior, then you might like my upcoming book:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Honeymoons on Hog Island

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There’s a tense scene early on in the James Bond film Casino Royale.

Jimmy, dressed in khakis and a black button-down shirt, sits down at a high-stakes poker game.

He keeps winning. By the end of the night, he even wins himself the keys to the bad guy’s Aston Martin, and indirectly, to the bad guy’s sexy wife.

Exciting stuff.

And set in a beautiful location, on an unnamed tropical island.

The real-life location of this scene is a private island in the Bahamas, currently worth about $2 billion. The island features exclusive casinos and some of the world’s most expensive hotels (including the The Atlantis, which offers a room for $25,000 a night).

Merv Griffin owned the island at one point, and reality-TV star Donald Trump was a major investor. All of which begs the question:

What’s the name of this magical place?

Why, I’m surprised you don’t know it. It’s none other than…

Hog Island.

Ok, it’s officially Paradise Island now, since around 1959.

But it certainly was Hog Island originally, until big tourist development started up, and the then-owner decided it was time for a rebranding.

Come to Hog Island — your wife is already here

The point being that names matter.

It’s hard to imagine James Bond paying a trip to Hog Island, even if it were packed with dangerous women and beautiful cars. It’s equally unlikely that even with the fanciest hotels and most romantic beaches, Hog Island would ever seem like an acceptable destination for a honeymoon.

But here’s something else to notice:

“Paradise Island” isn’t a terribly creative name. Yes, it’s good enough to sell an island in the Bahamas. But it wouldn’t do much to promote a rocky, rainy, wind-swept isle off the coast of Scotland.

All of which, I think, has some practical applications.

For example, if you are starting out as a freelancer on Upwork, you may be tempted to spend a lot of time on your profile page. Which title should you give yourself? What should you say in the description?

Sure, those things matter, just like the name “Paradise Island” matters. But they are only one part of the total picture of Upwork success and they won’t win you jobs by themselves.

So what to do?

I’ve got lots of advice on the “positioning” part of getting on Upwork. But I can also tell you about the entire process of becoming a $150/hr freelance copywriter. In fact, I’m putting together an entire book on the topic right now.

It will be out in another couple of weeks. And then I will put it up on Amazon.

If you want to sign up to get notified when it’s out, mix yourself up a Vesper martini, unholster your Beretta, and take aim at the deadly link below:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/