Direct Marketing

A couple days ago, I wrote an email about a “nasty follow up” script, which I got from a follow-up expert, to move along a potential auction partner who had started dragging his feet.

The script ran:

“Ok no sweat. You wanna put bringing in auction cash on the back burner until 2027? 2028?”

It didn’t feel very in character or natural for me to send this, but I closed my eyes and sent it nonetheless. I then wrote an email about it, which drew a lot of response from readers. A few samples:

#1. “Haha doesn’t sound like you at all”

#2. “That’s pretty polarizing. If you don’t care, then no problem. I’d probably just move along to something else until/if he changed his mind.”

#3. “Having just finished negotiating with a guttural-ly screaming 8 year old after he was forced to get a haircut (because he was looking like a mildly-clean hobo) my gut instinct would be to tell the guy that ‘putting the project on hold for so long doesn’t work for me. Good luck!'”

#4. “This guy broke his word to you, you could argue disrespected you. Would you want to do business with someone who doesn’t do what they say they will do? Also, his feelings aren’t your responsibility. If he feels bad because you’ve pointed out the incongruity between his words and actions… that’s not you being a dick.”

#5. “Curious how this works out. Not something I’d send but it doesn’t mean its wrong haha”

About how it’s working out:

It’s been two days now and the update is… nothing. Silence. No word from the dude.

Is he mad? Is our partnership over before it even started? Did I make a huge mistake?

Last night, I talked to the same follow-up expert, who also happens to be the person who referred the potential auction client to me in the first place.

I told the follow-up expert I had sent his message verbatim, and that I haven’t gotten a response since. He nodded in approval. “He’s always been slow to reply,” he said with a chuckle. “Here’s what I’d tell him next…”

In other words, in this follow-up expert’s world at least, the follow up doesn’t stop. Not until you get a clear yes or no, or better yet, “scram!”

This is all kinda new to me, at least when it comes to 1-1 interactions.

Fortunately, I’ve internalized it pretty good when doing 1-many interactions, specifically, when I’m hiding behind my email software and writing to thousands of people at the same time.

My approach is to keep following up… day after day… until my readers either tell me to scram (they unsubscribe) or they tell me yes, in the form of buying something from me.

I’ve found this simple habit — sending out a sales email every day — to be completely transformative to me, in terms of money, in terms of how I am able to work, and personally too.

If you would like to have something similar in your life, I’ve created a service to help you get started, and to make it easier to keep going. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How would you move the following interaction along?

I have this potential partner. He was referred to me for an auction, because he has a nice-sized community and assets he could legit auction off, and he wants to monetize them all better, without doing much work.

So as per auction protocol, I wrote him a pre-auction-poll post — basically a way to float the idea for an offer to auction off, and see if there’s interest enough.

I sent him the copy a couple weeks ago to post in his community.

“Love it,” he said. “Will run this next week.”

Next week came.

Next week went.

The guy ran a price-increase promo during that time, so I figured, “Ok, maybe that takes precedence. Let’s wait it out.”

This week came… and the guy started promoting something else. No sign of my pre-auction-poll post.

I followed up with him yesterday to ask if he’s still interested in running an auction.

“Yes!” he said. “Let’s say next week. Lots of irons in the fire at the same time.”

So in a nutshell, two weeks ago it was next week… this week, it is again next week. Mañana, mañana.

So? How would you move this along?

I’ll tell you how an expert in followup would move it along.

Not me. I’m not the expert.

I’m talking about somebody with much more experience in 1-1 selling, and following up with people.

I chatted with said expert today and asked what he would write to my potential auction partner. The followup expert gave me this move-it-along script:

“Ok no sweat. You wanna put bringing in auction cash on the back burner until 2027? 2028?”

I winced at this.

It sounds kind of passive aggressive. Even nasty. Or maybe it just sounds like it’s gonna make my potential auction partner feel bad and possibly cause some kind of conflict.

Will it? Won’t it?

I just sent it over to my potential partner right before writing this email. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, I would like to point out a very simple but incredibly powerful fact of life.

The fact is this:

You can feel however you feel, and still act alongside that.

In other words, there’s no need to feel natural and easy and pleasant all the time without exception.

There’s also no need to suppress fears, doubts, or negativity you might actually be feeling.

You can feel however you feel, without suppressing it, without feeling guilty about it, without thinking that you need to wait until you change your inner state… and you can still act, alongside that turmoil or tension inside of you.

And with that bit of inspiration, I’d like to point you to a discussion about increasing your prices, which I started today inside my Daily Email House community.

At the end of that discussion, I made an offer, to run a price-increase challenge together this month, in a group, with support and feedback so you don’t feel alone, uncertain, and in danger of making a big mistake.

If raising your prices is something that you know you should be doing, but you just don’t feel great about it, maybe now is a chance to act alongside how you feel?

In case you’re interested:

https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/price-increase-promo