Paid waiting list

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.

===

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

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.

Confessions of a shameless email taker

Some people just take, take, take. Me, for example.

For years now, I’ve been signed up to the email list of a business owner outside the marketing niche.

As usual, I don’t like to name names, so let’s give this business owner an impenetrable alias. Let’s call him Blimon Sack.

Blimon writes interesting daily emails. I know, because I read them often, and have for years.

He usually opens with some historical anecdote or curiosity. I’m eager to read those.

The second half of Blimon’s emails transition into a “takeaway” — some kind of point he wants to make — and then lead into his offer.

But like I said, I just take, take, take.

I’ve been reading Blimon’s eduselling emails for years. I never bought from him, never even clicked through to the sales page.

Not buying became a habit. Read the interesting historical anecdote… click away.

I had some vague idea of what Blimon is selling. It was the same offer every time. But if you asked me to explain it, I couldn’t really tell you, because I didn’t know.

That is, until one day. That’s when Blimon sent out a different email. He cut out the usual education/entertainment, the first half of his email.

Instead, he simply restated what his core offer is, what he had been promoting all this time. He listed everything that’s included. He stated the price. And he gave some kind of reason for getting it today rather than tomorrow.

I didn’t buy this time either, but I was damn close. I finally had a clear idea of what he sells. It sounded interesting and valuable and reasonably priced.

If Blimon would repeat this bare, “zero value,” pattern interrupt email from time to time, there’s a good chance my resistance would finally crumble and I would buy.

So that’s my “takeaway” for you.

Infotaining, eduselling, Simple Money Emails are great. They keep people reading. And they do get a good number of them to also buy in time.

But there’s always those takers on the list, who enjoy the stories and the gossip and the news, but who are “too smart” to pay for anything.

Of course, not everybody who doesn’t buy is a taker like me.

There’s also a good number of people who joined your list recently, who might not have been around for the long-gone launch of your offer, who enjoy your emails, see that you know what you’re talking about, but whose eyes still glaze over when they reach the B side of your email record, where all the sales deep cuts are.

For those people, all of them, it’s important to send the occasional stripped-down email. Not to hide your offer behind a story or a news item or even a testimonial. But to, as my former copywriting coach used to say, make your offer “on the nose.”

And if you’re wondering why you got two emails from me tonight instead of the usual, well, that’s why.

Perhaps you found this email valuable. ​​If so, you should check out my Most Valuable Email training, because it’s filled with dozens more valuable marketing ideas.

​​You can read about Most Valuable Email it in that other, “zero value” email I sent you. Or directly here on the sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

The good, the coulda been better, the ugly of my Josh Spector promotion

Last night, I finished the promotion I was running over the past week, which started when I ran a classified ad in Josh Spector’s newsletter last Sunday.

I had a free offer in the actual ad, Simple Money Emails, and a paid upsell, 9 Deadly Email Sins, for people who opted in.

I turned off both offers last night, as I said I would, once the deadline passed.

For my own benefit, I wrote up my conclusions about this experience.

If you like, you can read some of my conclusions below. It might be interesting to you if you’re looking to grow your list, monetize your list, run classified ads, or put on quick and simple offers that your readers appreciate and buy.

But as FBI negotiator Chris Voss likes to say, the last impression is the lasting impression. So let’s leave the good for last, and let’s start with the ugly first.

THE UGLY:

I haven’t made back my money on the Josh Spector ad.

I mean, I made a bunch of sales over the past week, but not enough from new subscribers, who came via the classified ad, to cover the $350 I gave to Josh to run the ad.

There’s a fair chance I will make back my money in time. But of course, there’s also a chance I won’t.

I have various hypotheses as to why it hasn’t happened yet. I might write about those down the line, but some include options in the next, coulda been better section.

THE COULDA BEEN BETTER:

I made a nice number of sales of the paid upsell last week — but at only $100 per sale.

The promotion I did last month, for Steve Raju’s ClientRaker, ended up with a comparable number of sales, but at 3x the price.

Had I raised the price higher, I prolly woulda made more money — there’s a lot of elasticity in info products. Maybe that way I would have already recouped my money on the Josh Spector ad.

But maybe it wasn’t the price. Maybe it was the copy, the core appeal.

Simple Money Emails is something I thought about carefully. I planned out that name, and the core appeal. The number of people who took me up on that offer confirms it’s something attractive.

On the other hand, as I’ve written already, the upsell, 9 Deadly Email Sins, wasn’t something I carefully planned or thought about — at least as far as the packaging goes, because the content is thought-through and very valuable.

I might have packaged up that same valuable content into a different-patterned box with a different-colored bow, and sold 50% or 80% or maybe 100% more.

THE GOOD:

One good thing was that I got a buncha new subscribers.

In fact, I grew my list 7% list over past week. From what I can see from new subscribers who have custom domains, these are high-quality prospects. Whether I manage to convert them in time is probably up to me.

The other good thing was I made a buncha sales to existing readers.

One of those sales came from somebody who joined my list back in 2019 (my guess is I had ~80 subscribers at the time). Several sales came from people who joined my list in 2020… and lots came from people who joined 2021, in 2022, and earlier this year.

Most people who bought 9 Deadly Email Sins bought multiple offers from me before.

The fact they are still with me is encouraging. It means I’m doing something right both with the products I’m selling, and with this marketing, the email that you’re reading right now. It must be engaging enough to keep people around, and reading, and buying, years down the line.

THE AMAZING:

I tell myself I have to have an offer at the end of each email. My offer at the end of this email is my Most Valuable Email course, which is amazing. But don’t take it from me. Reader James Harrison bought MVE last month, and wrote me about it last week to say:

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Also, a few days ago I finished going through your MVE course. I thought it was amazing. I especially loved what you did at the end, with the MVE Riddles. Not enough courses get their students actively using their brains.

Thank you for all that you do.

===

Maybe actively using your brain isn’t something you’re into. But maybe it is. In that case, if you’d like an amazing way to do it, and to win bigly in the process:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

I predict a crippling electrical storm or perhaps a meteorite strike tonight

I am up in the Pyrenees, in theory meant to be enjoying a few days of fresh air, beautiful scenery, and time spent with friends.

In reality, I have spent the past two days staring at the computer and frantically trying to prepare for the consequences of the ad I will run in Josh Spector’s newsletter, which is supposed to send a bunch of new subscribers my way, some time between now, the moment I am writing this, and later tonight, the moment this email will go out.

The last time I ran an ad like this, this past March, in Daniel Throssell’s newsletter, my email service provider, Active Campaign, decided to completely collapse for about 12 hours.

Since I am prone to catastrophizing, I am expecting a worldwide electrical storm tonight, or possibly a meteorite strike that will entirely cripple telecommunication networks.

That’s ok. I will deal with it tomorrow.

Today, as I am finally pretty much finished with all the niggling things that this project required, I will go and enjoy a bit of the time I have left in this beautiful setting.

And now, my offer for you today:

Next Monday, I will put on a training I’ve titled 9 Deadly Email Sins, about the most common mistakes I’ve seen in the 100+ emails I’ve reviewed for various business owners, marketers, and copywriters over the past year.

If you are not interested in this training, well, I will be sending more emails over the next week to try to get you interested.

But if you are interested, you can get the full details on this training or sign up right now at the link below (nb: it’s the thank you page for the Josh Spector ad):

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

Start and grow a “tiny book” publishing business

I read an article yesterday about a new title for an old book.

​​The old book was written by Aristotle around 350 BC. It has been known for the roughly 2,372 years since as The Nichomachean Ethics.

​​But a new edition of the book has just been put out by Princeton University Press. The new title is, “How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well.” ​​From that article I read yesterday:

“The volume is part of a series of new translations of ancient texts. Aristotle’s Poetics, for instance, is now ‘How to Tell a Story: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers,’ and Thucydides’ ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’ is now ‘How to Think About War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy.'”

This reminded me of E. Haldeman-Julius. A hundred years ago, Haldeman-Julius had a publishing business that sold literally hundreds of millions of copies of what were known as little blue books — tiny paperback editions of both new how-to books and reissues of fiction classics.

As part of his publishing business, Haldeman-Julius operated what he called The Hospital, where he would operate on books that were ailing and not making sales.

The Hospital involved several possible procedures. The most extreme was a type of frontal lobotomy, in which Haldeman-Julius would do just like those Aristotle publishers did — lop off the book’s original, opaque, unsexy title, and replace it with something new and clear and exciting. Results:

“The mystery of the iron mask” => “The mystery of the man in the iron mask”: 277% jump in sales

“Ten o’clock” => “What art should mean to you”: 450% jump in sales

“Fleece of gold” => “The quest for a blonde mistress”: 833% jump in sales

Haldeman-Julius wrote up a book about his experiences publishing the little blue books. In a typical move, he didn’t apply what he knew so well to his own personal marketing. So he titled his book, The First Hundred Million.

The title “The First Hundred Million” doesn’t exactly scream READ ME! A much better title would have been something like, “Start and grow a ‘tiny book’ publishing business.”

As it was, The First 100 Million first went out of print, and then became obscure. You had to be a real student of the human psyche, and of the info publishing biz, to get yourself a copy. Somebody truly obsessive, possibly maniacal.

Somebody like legendary copywriter Gary Halbert, who once wrote in his newsletter:

“Indeed, The First Hundred Million is a book that contains a precise and valid statistical measurement of America’s inner most needs and greeds. So why didn’t I mention it in last month’s newsletter when I listed the greatest marketing books of all time? Simply because I didn’t have a copy of it and I wasn’t sure it was obtainable.”

Thanks to his unique connections, Gary did manage to find himself a used copy back in the 90s.

Fortunately, we live in a much more connected era, where even out-of-print books can be tracked down easily for a price.

For example, you can now get a paperback of The First 100 Million on Amazon for $19.95.

Carl Galletti also sells copies on his site for $29.97 (original) or $49.97 (expanded).

Or if you like, you can get The First Hundred Million for free.

​​I’ve tracked it down for you, via the University of Illinois library, at the link below.

I’ve already read this book once. I plan to reread it again next month. ​​Why? Why, to start and grow a “tiny book” publishing business.

​​In case you’d like to do something similar:

https://bejakovic.com/100million

10 lessons from the ClientRaker promo

As I write this, it’s 12:36pm on Thursday July 20th, Central European Time, which means that it’s now some 16:36 hours after I finally stopped promoting Steve Raju’s ClientRaker.

Whenever I complete a promo, I like to force myself to look at the dead hulk, lying there on the ground, and ask myself what I see. Sometimes this triggers insights in my little head which I can use on future projects.

So here are 10 curious things I saw during the ClientRaker promotion. Maybe one of them will give you an insight you too can use on a future project:

1. Whenever I sent an email saying that others are buying, and showed proof of that, I made more sales.

2. Building Steve up, and specifically, diagnosing him as a “certifiable genius,” a slightly nonsensical term, also created a spike in sale.

3. I managed to screw up my affiliate links and as a result I could honestly write an email that said ClientRaker is so good I am promoting it without getting paid. From what I can tell, this one email drove more sales than any other. The lesson is clear. Make it clear in whatever way you can that the current promotion is not a cash grab, but first and foremost a benefit to the reader.

4. To date, ClientRaker has only Steve as a successful case study. I called this fact out. Based on the responses I got (I couldn’t tell by the sales), this turned a liability into an asset.

5. I converted about 1.5%-2% of my list. I don’t know the exact numbers because of the screwed up affiliate links for some of the sales.

The only numbers I have to compare to are from my Most Valuable Email launch, which did 4.7% of my list at the time. However, since my list grown since them and since ClientRaker sells for 4x what I sold MVE during its launch, I made more money with this promotion than with the MVE launch. I call that a solid win.

6. I sent out 12 emails over 6 days. My total unsubscribe rate, over the entire 6 days and 12 emails, was 0.4%. I am clearly not pushing my readers enough.

7. Multiple people wrote in to thank me for promoting this offer. Several did it after I wrote an email about my snafu with the affiliate links. And this morning, long-time reader Kasper Lal wrote in, after watching the first ClientRaker training. Kasper’s subject line read “I didn’t believe you…” and the email read:

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I have to admit, when you promoted Steve’s program I was a bit skeptical about that “revolutionary” way of using ChatGPT. Thought it would be just another batch of “expert prompts.”

Boy was I wrong…

Steve dropped so many paradigm changing bombs I’m still in awe.

Thanks for selling me on that chance!

===

8. I found it much easier to wholeheartedly promote somebody else’s excellent training that I usually do when promoting my own trainings, which I also aim to make excellent. When I combine this with the sales made, the satisfied buyers writing in to thank me, the fact I don’t actually have to do any of the delivery, then I have to admit I would be happy to do an affiliate promo like this every week if I could. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find somebody like Steve Raju hidden away with a brilliant training that hardly has any previous exposure.

9. I got zero complaints about the emails I was sending, either about the volume or about topics, such as “‘Too many single moms'” in my Facebook DMs.” Again, makes me think I am not pushing my readers enough.

10. I did proactively kick one guy off my list. After the deadline had passed. For doing nothing more than asking me some questions. About ClientRaker. But that’s a story for another time.

For now, let’s get to my offer to you for today:

If you have bought ClientRaker and have gone through the first training, write in and tell me what you thought of it.

In exchange, I will send you the transcript of a call I did with steve, or a part of this call. I had Steve walk me through setting up LinkedIn profile — what actually to put on there, what’s important, what doesn’t matter.

I did this out of laziness, expecting Steve would tell me stuff I already knew. But as Kasper says above… boy was I wrong. Steve told me great stuff I did not know, had not thought about, and would not ever think about, including a tip for that most dreaded part of a LinkedIn profile, and that’s the photo.

Steve’s tips are yours if you want ’em, in exchange for you telling me what you thought of Steve’s first call. Simply hit reply and write away.

The world’s most handsome email marketer gives me some unsolicited advice

Two days ago, I started promoting Steve Raju’s ClientRaker training, about getting richer, nicer, classier clients using AI and LinkedIn.

Reader Fotis Chatz, who writes for Ning Li and positions himself as the “World’s Most Handsome Email Marketer” on LinkedIn, bought ClientRaker yesterday.

​​But being excessively handsome is not enough for Fotis. So he wrote in to give me some unsolicited advice about my launch:

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Just bought it.

Your story about him using A.I. is what “got” me. I’m already using FB with a lil bit of success, curious to see what I can do on Linkedin.

Btw, have you considered creating a bonus specifically for this offer? We did it a lot when I was working with Igor (Kheifets). We’d promote an affiliate offer and either give a product of ours that would cover something missing from the offer, or create something from scratch. Great way to make way more sales and win some affiliate leaderboards.

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What Fotis wrote might be unsolicited advice but it’s welcome advice — because I happen to agree 100%. I’m all for creating valuable bonuses, whether for my own offers or for affiliate offers.

I didn’t do it in this case because 1) I’m swamped with other work and 2) because I believe ClientRaker is so attractive that it will sell on its own.

That said, I might create a bonus in the future if Steve ever offers ClientRaker again and if I promote it again. I’ve had several ideas for what I could do, including a training based on the Authority Audits I’ve been doing this week, or another on how to feel comfortable asking for more money.

If that stirs you a bit, I can guarantee you this:

Every time I’ve offered a bonus for an offer, I made sure to also send it to everyone who bought that offer before I did the bonus.

I want to make it a brain-dead simple certainty in your mind that won’t ever be harmed by taking me up on any of my offer early. But you can certainly be harmed by taking me up on an offer late.

In the current situation, if you wait to take me up on this offer, you can miss the current launch window. You may scoff — but life has a way of getting in the way.

And if life does do that, it might mean you won’t be able to get ClientRaker ever — there’s no guarantee Steve will offer it again since he also has lots of things going on and doesn’t need this extra bit of money.

Or you might have to pay more. Because if Steve does run ClientRaker again, I will use all my persuasive skill to get him to double or triple the price.

And most importantly, you will miss out on any new clients you could very conceivably get just by following the simple, paint-by-number instructions Steve lays out inside this training.

If you actually do what Steve tells you to do, and you win yourself a new client or two in the next month that you wouldn’t have otherwise, that can legitimately be worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to you — depending on who you work with and what you deliver.

Point being, if you’re considering ClientRaker, it can make sense to get it now rather than wait. The following page has the full details if you want some help making that decision:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

I’ve decided to let Arnold Schwarzenegger shortcut his way into my coaching program

Two days ago I was told that The Austrian Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has started sending out daily emails.

I was curious so I signed up for his list. A fun thank-you page popped up:

“Come with me if you want to subscribe! Check your email! DO IT NOW!”

Good job, big guy. But I wondered about the actual content — will Arnie write it? He’s already had an A-list career as a competitive athlete, a business man, a movie star, and a top-level politician. So why not an email copywriter?

But no. It turns out Arnold employs two editors-in-chief who write the actual emails. Inspiration + diet + health advice. The content feels correct but a bit bland, a bit too earnest, a bit too how-to.

I skimmed the first day’s email. I skipped the second day’s. I’m not looking forward to the third day’s.

The point is unavoidable:

Arnold Schwarzenegger has figured out the importance of daily email, even at this stage of his enormously successful career. Some kinds of influence you just can’t shortcut or replace.

Unfortunately, he’s delegating the writing of the emails to these two editors-in-chief. That’s already a huge minus, because what his audience really wants is something that feels like real, one-on-one contact with Arnie.

To top it off, the content is lacking spice.

For all these reasons, and as a way of saying thanks to the entertainment that Arnold Schwarzenegger provided early on in my life, I’ve decided to take the following dramatic and unprecedented step.

I offer coaching on writing daily emails. My goal is to get business owners writing daily emails effectively and efficiently. That means:

1. People should enjoy reading your emails.

2. People should do what you tell them to do as a result of your daily emails (Arnold is promoting his Pump Club and preselling his new book, set to be published in October).

3. Writing these daily emails should be manageable, so it fits it into your otherwise busy schedule — in between shooting your new Netflix action show, pumping iron, and trying to mediate the war in Ukraine, for example.

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 since Arnold has shown so much promise in so many other fields, I’ve decided to accept him into my email coaching program, without the usual screening call I make everyone else go through.

I’m just waiting for word of this uniquely good news to reach him. Once this happens, I will probably get an email from Arnold, and we will coordinate our busy schedules and find a regular time to talk that works for both of us.

I have little doubt that his daily emails will improve dramatically very soon after, and we will make that October book launch a huge success.

And while Arnie and I work to get our schedules synced, I might take on another coaching student.

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 will get on a call to see if it really is a fit. Except Arnold, nobody gets to skip this step.

If it is a fit, then we can start working together towards the goal. As someone asked Arnold once, “What is best in life?”

I don’t have his exact quote in front of me. But he responded with something like:

“Crush your readers’ indifference… see money driven to your bank account… and hear the lamentation of your competitors.” With daily emails, of course.

AI bros make $4.20, I make $0.36, it’s still a win

A couple weeks ago, I read a mostly mindboggling email from Scott Oldford, who has been buying up newsletters and newsletter-related services.

Scott’s email was all about about an AI newsletter he bought recently for some undisclosed sum.

The acquired newsletter has 22,000 subscribers. Its creators have been running Facebook ads to get new readers, and paying $1.40 per new reader.

So far, so grim. But please pay attention to the next fact, because it’s remarkable:

That AI newsletter was making 3x that ad spend right at signup time, right when people opted in, without selling anything.

Did that last line make you pull down your glasses to the tip of your nose, and look at me with suspicion? It should have.

Direct response logic says that if you can acquire a customer at breakeven or slight loss, you’re doing well.

Granted, these newsletter subscribers aren’t necessarily customers, but they are a list of people who are potential customers, and they are certainly valuable as an audience in other ways.

Now let me repeat the rather shocking point again:

These AI bros are building that list of subscribers, not at a slight loss, not at cost, but actually getting paid 3x what they put in to acquire each new reader.

What tricky flamingos. How are they doing it?

Well, that’s my offer for you today. It’s called Sparkloop. It’s basically a network of coregistration partners.

If you’ve ever signed up for a Substack newsletter, you’ve seen this approach in action. Once you opt in, a window of newsletter recommendations pops up. “Would you like some more, sir?” it says. And there on the plate are 3 or 4 or 20 different other newsletters, which you can opt into with just a click o’ the button.

That’s what Sparkloop does as well, except it’s not limited to Substack newsletters only, but it can be integrated on almost any platform.

That’s how those AI bros were making 3x their ad spend right at optin time, without selling anything. They had Sparkloop installed, and they were recommending a bunch of other Sparkloop-network newsletters.

Now a word of disclosure:

I have been using Sparkloop myself. Its little window pops up when somebody signs up to my new health newsletter. I have made money from Sparkloop. But it’s nowhere close to what this AI newsletter is making.

The fact is, I’m not making $4.20 per new subscriber… but more like $0.36, at least on day 0.

Still, money is money, and Sparkloop is helping me offset the cost of ads I’ve been running.

Plus, Sparkloop allows you to promote newsletters inside your newsletter as well, which means that if you email regularly and promote other newsletters each time you email, you can hope to make a buck or two more per subscriber in the very first month.

So there you go. If you have a newsletter, and have nothing great to promote yet… or you’re simply looking for other ways to monetize your email list… then try out Sparkloop. I’ve done it, it works, and I’m happy to recommend it to others.

You can sign up for Sparkloop at the link below. Yes, that’s an affiliate link. Yes, I will get paid if you sign up. No, you don’t have to use this link, and no, I won’t ever know if you circumvent my link and go straight to Sparkloop and sign up there. But in case you don’t want to do that:

https://bejakovic.com/sparkloop