Direct Marketing

Nasty follow up

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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

OFFER

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Yesterday, at the bottom of a 500-world email, I made an offer.

It got a lot of qualified response, so let me rerun it, this time at the start of the email, after a big bright subject line that says OFFER.

If you might be interested in:

A 36-hour email promo that pulls in between $2-$6 per newsletter subscriber, and…

…requires little or more likely NO additional delivery (no coaching calls, no cohort groups, no WhatsApp access, no new products to create or obligations to fulfill), and…

… sells a $300+, old-hat product that you’re not selling much of any more…

… and that’s fun for your list and fun for you…

Then the fact is, I already have a system to do exactly this.

I’ve proven it myself on a few occasions.

But I would like to get some more case studies for it, and quickly.

So I’ve got an offer for you:

Are you interested in running a 36-hour promo to your list, pulling in between $2-$6 for each person on your list, selling stuff you already have, and having fun in the process?

And would you like to get my help? For free?

If you would, hit reply, and let’s talk.

Dude X’s tactical tip for cold traffic funnels

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Today, I got a tip for ya that applies to cold traffic and warm traffic alike.

I’m in the community of this dude, let’s call him Dude X, who is an expert of running low-ticket ad funnels.

Today Dude X wrote about a student of his who was running an low-ticket course to cold traffic… and it wasn’t selling good.

What’s worse, the sales the student made didn’t ascend in any way (in other words, the buyers who bought the low-ticket course didn’t buy anything more).

And this in spite of the fact that the student’s course was a really solid course, with tons of info, templates, tutorials, etc. It was something she could legitimately sell for $500… but she was selling it for $20, and struggling.

Why??? Here’s what Dude X wrote:

===

Everyone already has tons of information. They don’t need more.

What they need is a quick win. Something they can do. Something they can finish. Something that gets them a result.

So going back to this student.

When we changed her offer from a strategic offer to a tactical offer, everything shifted.

A strategic offer tries to teach everything. The whole picture. The full system. All the pieces.

A tactical offer helps people do one thing fast and get a result.

===

So that’s my tip for you. Sell an opportunity to get a quick and easy result. And since this is a newsletter all about implementation, I asked myself, how do I put this to use?

A few days ago, I floated the idea for a new offer I called Daily Emails 101.

Basically, my idea was to sell this as a low-ticket offer to cold traffic.

And even though I never properly defined what this offer would be… I suspected already that it’s too vague, that it promises too much and is likely to deliver too little in terms of actual results, and to do so to the wrong kinds of people.

After reading the thing above from Dude X, I thought to myself, what’s a small specific step that would get a quick win for the kinds of people I want on my email list?

Immediately an idea popped into my mind:

A 36-hour email promo that pulls in between $2-$6 per newsletter subscriber, and…

…requires little or more likely NO additional delivery (no coaching calls, no cohort groups, no WhatsApp access, no new products to create or obligations to fulfill), and…

… sells an old-hat product that you’re not selling much of any more…

… and that’s fun for your list and fun for you.

The fact is, I already have a system to do exactly this.

I’ve proven it myself on a few occasions.

But I would like to get some more case studies for it, and quickly.

So I’ve got an offer for you:

Are you interested in running a 36-hour promo to your list, pulling in between $2-$6 for each person on your list, selling stuff you already have, and having fun in the process?

And would you like to get my help? For free?

If you would, hit reply, and let’s talk.

Question for info product creators

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Have you ever created an info product that sold well to your own list?

Would you like to transform that product into a product that sells well to affiliates’ lists also, mine among them?

If so, hit reply, and let’s talk.

Secret offer knowledge that’s too valuable to trumpet loudly

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I’ve been going through Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts seminar recordings.

There are two great, truly great, Dan Kennedy seminars.

One is Influential Writing, in which Dan explains how to create a cult of personality in your writing. Basically, it’s what everybody with a personal daily email newsletter is doing or should be doing.

The other great Dan Kennedy seminar is Opportunity Concepts. It tackles the other side, not the copy but the offer.

Opportunity Concepts teaches you how to repackage, reinvent, recreate what you offer as an opportunity — something so new, so distracting, and so sexy that people want it based on its own merits, even if they don’t know you, even if it sounds preposterous, even if it’s expensive.

So today I’m going through Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts, maybe for the fifth time ever.

The seminar sold for $10k when Dan put it on live back in 2011.

The recordings sold for $1,500 after that, but are no longer available anywhere, including eBay or Dan Kennedy’s site.

(Don’t ask me how I got ’em, but I got ’em a long time ago, for free, though legally.)

So I’m going through Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts. And I decide on a whim to google “Opportunity Concepts.” There’s not much out there. but…

… there is a page on the Dan Kennedy’s website, saying that Opportunity Concepts has been turned into a book called Selling Opportunity.

The only way to get Selling Opportunity is to sign up to the Diamond Level of Dan Kennedy’s membership/newsletter.

The Diamond Level costs $297/month.

Much better than either $10,000 or $1,500, and really a drop in the bucket considering the value of this info.

But then, on one last hunch, I decide to go to Amazon.

I search for “Selling Opportunity.”

And there it is.

A recording of Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts, sold as an audiobook published by Nightingale-Conant… for $15.

I bought it immediately, even though I already have it.

I skipped around through it, just to see if it really is the Opportunity Concepts training.

It is.

Some parts are missing (a couple guest presentations, for example).

But most of it is there.

If you like, you can get Opportunity Concepts, reinvented as Selling Opportunity, below.

I won’t trumpet it any more. You either know or you don’t know what this is worth. If you don’t, that’s okay. If you do:

​https://bejakovic.com/opportunity-concepts

Is your list too small for list swaps?

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For several decades now, I’ve been recommending list swaps as a way to grow your email list.

(List swap = you promote somebody else to your list, in exchange for them promoting you to theirs.)

The #1 objection I hear is:

“My list is too small to make it worth anybody’s while.”

How small is too small?

4 people?

100 people?

200 people?

I was recently on a call with a list owner who has a list of 1,500 entrepreneurs. He said he’s worried his list is too small to do list swaps!

That dude asked for my advice about approaching people for list swaps. What I told him is:

1. A fantastic lead magnet and solid emails will go a long way.

Right now, I’m doing a list swap with somebody who has a list of 150 people… because he’s willing to custom create a lead magnet I know my audience will get value from. Plus his emails are solid.

2. You can always offer to make things right.

If somebody’s list is bigger than yours, you can offer to promote them multiple times, now and then again in 6 months or in a year etc. (In the end, that’s the deal I ended up striking with the guy in point 1.)

3. Money can plug the gap. You can always offer to both promote the other person AND to pay them something to make the exchange more equitable.

So?

Are you convinced now?

Are you gonna rush out and start doing list swaps?

I hope so.

But if not, I gotta tell you my dark-psychology conclusion here:

I don’t think list size is really what’s holding people back from doing list swaps.

Rather, I think it’s the same old culprit that holds back pretty much everybody, pretty much all the time:

Fear of rejection.

Putting yourself out there… and having somebody tell you no or ignore you… and feeling so small and worthless because of it.

If that’s your situation, then I’d suggest, in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, that you put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals.

It would be great to not care about being rejected, or to just do stuff in spite of this fear.

But while you work on that, it can make sense to look for alternate routes to achieve your business goals.

I’d like to point you to an opportunity to do so right now.

Maliha Mannan, who runs the Side Blogger and who is a member of my Daily Email House community, has a list of 9,000 online creators and business owners and people who want to become such.

Maliha is auctioning off a classified ad spot in every Sunday edition of her newsletter… FOR THE REST OF THIS YEAR.

Bidding starts at $2.

More info here:

https://www.skool.com/anthill-club-6065/your-official-invitation-to-my-basementbackyard-party

Daily Emails 101

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Over the past few weeks, I have been spending a lot of time talking to Nick “The Knife” Bandy, and trying to persuade him to create a course that I want to buy and maybe even sell.

The background is that Nick has an email list, which he has been growing for the past year with a low-stress ad funnel to a low-ticket product that runs at a VERY slight profit, indefinitely.

In more specific numbers:

Nick’s low-stress ad funnel gets him about 100 new buyers on his list every month. And for every $1k Nick puts into this funnel, he gets $1.2k out before he’s even sent an email. He only checks in on it every few months.

Every time Nick mentions this ad funnel and this way of growing his list, my stomach growls and I start to salivate a little.

I’ve been trying to get him to create a course about this, because frankly I myself would love to have a similar funnel and would love to grow my list, with buyers, on autopilot, at profit. Come on!

The trouble is, Nick is kinda busy.

He’s got his regular $12k/month CMO retainer (part time, come on!)…

… he’s got partner revshare deals he has been kicking off…

… and because he has created one successful low-stress ad funnel, he has now decided to create a second.

I will keep pushing Nick, and maybe if I succeed, and he creates his course, I can make it available to you too.

Meanwhile, all I can do is daydream.

Today I was in the shower — no joke, and no direct response hyperbole — and I found myself thinking how I could create a low-ticket something called Daily Emails 101.

Daily Emails 101 would walk those who have or want to have an online business through the first 101 days of writing and making sales with a daily email newsletter.

Daily Emails 101 would be the most wonderful, exciting, and nichiest guide to this niche topic, and I’d make sure it inspires as well as informs.

Is this something you would want?

I mean, if I were to create Daily Emails 101, and if I were to promise to get you a deal on it that nobody else will get, not outside of this email, would you put down, say, $5 today to have the option to buy Daily Emails 101?

Hit reply and let me know.

If you say yes, and you’re serious enough to put down $5, maybe I’ll create it… maybe I will sell it to you for an unimaginably sexy price when it’s done… and maybe, when Nick does create his “low-stress ad funnel that grows your list at a profit” course, I will be ready to unleash it on the world, a few copies at a time (I’ll even put your name inside of it to say thanks).

The ecstasy and agony of shopping for what you really want

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“Congratulations, it is now your turn,” the computer told me. “You have 10 minutes to make your purchase.”

I rubbed my palms together. “Here we go,” I said.

As long-time readers of my newsletter know, I’m a tennis fan.

I used to play tennis when I was kid. I sucked at it. So for most of my life, I’ve instead gotten my kicks vicariously, by watching pro tennis on TV.

This year, I’ve decided I’ll go to see tennis for real.

There’s a big event in September, happening in London, called Laver Cup. It was started by tennis legend Roger Federer. It’s a kind of invite-only competition of the world’s best and most charismatic players, who compete in two teams: Europe vs. the world (aka colonizers vs. the colonized).

Tickets for the Laver Cup went on pre-sale yesterday at 11am my time. You had to be signed up to the waiting list via email, which I was.

At 10:55am, I was nervously waiting in the digital waiting room for the pre-sale to start, and for my turn in the digital queue to arrive.

At 11:04am, I got the go-ahead. I could now proceed to pay an obscene amount of money for uncomfortable seats to watch grown man clobber a little yellow ball of fuzz for three days straight.

Like I said, I rubbed my palms in excitement, and…

“Your spot in the queue has expired,” the computer told me before I had a chance to do anything. “Please rejoin the queue for another spot.”

What… How? When???

Long story short, the ticket-selling website that was supposed to take my money for Laver Cup tickets wasn’t working right, at least for me.

At first, it was telling me my spot in the queue had expired. It kept sending me back to the waiting room to rejoin the queue.

Then, as I kept flailing around in a panic that my tickets would get swept up by somebody else, the site started marking me as a bot, scammer, scalper, even though I was scrupulously following their instructions on how to buy tickets.

I spent the next hour trying again… refreshing the page… closing down tabs… switching browsers… switching from my laptop to my phone… switching wifi on and off… sending links to a friend to buy tickets in my stead… and waiting on hold with customer support, who, after hearing me out and being very understanding, told me to go to wait and try again in an hour.

Which I did.

All with no result other than frustration and agony.

I’m telling you this story mainly to vent, because I never did manage to buy the stupid tickets.

But, since I make a point of squeezing a marketing lesson out of everything, let me squeeze one out here as well.

In direct response land, where I tend to live, we are used to doing a lot of persuading, convincing, and pushing to get prospects to buy. And even then, typical conversion rates are 2% or lower.

It can warp your mental picture, and make you think that people are begrudging you the money they send you.

The fact is though, if you find a buyer in heat, the way I was yesterday, they will fight and strive to overcome all sorts of obstacles to give you money.

My most dramatic experience of that, as a seller, came during the last 15 or so minutes of the auction I ran in December.

Every few seconds, people were bidding thousands of dollars more on the offer I had put up on auction, and strategizing how they can be the ones to pay the most before the deadline (the winning bid came in at $31k).

Yesterday, I ran my second-ever auction.

The offer on auction was “behind the scenes” data of auctions I will be running in the coming months, weeks, and days (including a new one, tonight, for a partner).

I won’t tell you how my auction yesterday did, since that’s info that I’ve sold to people yesterday, as part of much more detailed “behind the scenes” data.

But I have gotten messages today about my auction yesterday, like the following:

“I couldn’t be there (4 kids bath and bed) but would love to learn from the metrics! Is there a way I can do that?”

I’m considering making some for of my “behind the scenes” data available, to a limited number of people, even outside the auction.

If this is interesting to you, then hit reply and tell me what are you most curious about in the “behind the scenes” auction data I’m offering to share.

If I do end up making this offer available, you will have to reply like this to be able to get it. In other words, a kind of waiting list of the eager, though I promise to be less maddeningly arbitrary and glitchy than the Laver Cup site.

1 hour from now: My “Behind The Scenes” auction kicks off

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My “Behind The Scenes” auction kicks off in 1 hour.

Here are 3 reasons, all from earlier today, why you might want to participate:

1. Today, I got login details to a moderator account for a community of 6k members, in preparation for an auction I am planning to run, built around an offer that sells for $10k.

2. This morning, I got a message from an auction partner I have already written a pre-auction poll. He wrote:

“I’ve received several very positive, ‘I want to win’ kinda emails. And here’s the latest in the screenshot. Lots of $1 but I think you said that’s expected. I’m good to push forward.”

3. Just a few minutes ago, I got a new potential auction partner contact me over Skool and say:

“Are you down for a short call early next week to plan our first auction in [his community?”

The behind-the-scenes details of those three partner relationships and the auctions that might come from them, and other partners and other auctions, are effectively what’s on offer today.

I ran my first auction back in December 2026. It made $31k.

I will be running more auctions with partners over coming the days, weeks, and months.

I am willing to give you a behind-the-scenes look into all those campaigns.

I will share offers (both public and behind-the-scenes)… sales numbers… DMs used to sell… my “day after” conclusions.

I will also share the sources of partners I’ve been getting, the strategies that led to getting them, my experiences working with them.

Think of it like a reality TV show, which actually teaches you something incredibly valuable, while you’re enjoying yourself and not even trying.

All starting at a bid of $1.

Only available inside a popup Telegram group I have set up just for this occasion.

Curtains go up at 7pm CET/1pm EST/10am PST.

If you’d like to be there to witness or participate (all participants will get a prize), here’s where to go:

https://t.me/behindthescenesauction

How to get your list to pay you to create your own lead magnet

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A couple days ago, brand strategist Chavy Helfgott posted a little case study in my Daily Email House community. Maybe it’s something you can profit from.

Chavy wrote:

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I’ve been working with John on monetizing my list, and after several weeks of asking lots of questions to my readers, we realized the following:

1) Creating a lead magnet was something that would solve problems for many of my readers

2) I myself don’t have a proper lead magnet with which to steadily grow my list with high quality subscribers

So – John conceived of the idea of running a live cohort for a minimal price, in which I would build a lead magnet for myself while showing the cohort members my process, and giving them feedback as they create theirs.

Jan 29 – initial tease to my list and LinkedIn to gauge interest

Feb 4 – official “launch” with an email describing the live cohort

Feb 13 – registration closed

Total marketing: 12 emails to my small list & 10 LinkedIn posts

Zero ad spend.

15 days from concept creation to launch closing.

4 cohort members paying me $99 each.

Our first call is on Monday, and I’ve already built a template that is on its way to becoming my first sellable info-product.

And of course, I started creating my own lead magnet, which will probably be a summary of this lead magnet building process.

So – if you, too, are a barefoot shoemaker, perhaps you can also let your audience pay for the privilege of coming along for the ride as you make your own shoes.

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Like Chavy says, we all have important things we want to do, need to do, aren’t doing….

… so why not create an offer out of it?

You can do like Chavy is doing, and run a cohort program. Charge people some nontrivial but very easy price, and guide them through the same process you are following.

It makes sure you do what you need to do, plus it builds an offer for you, plus it gets you buyers you can sell other things to.

Pr you can do like I’m doing with my “Behind The Scenes” auction.

Fact is, for the past few months now, I’ve been creating “systems” docs for several things I do or want to do better, in which I put real-world data, make hypotheses based on that data, and create systems that get me better results over time.

I’ve created such “systems” docs for promos, for followup, and for auctions, among other things.

Except, I’m not as diligent as I should be at updating these docs and putting in the data and making hypotheses and creating ever better systems.

So I figured, why not turn my “auction systems” doc into an offer, take other people for the ride, get paid a bit of money to actually do what I should be doing?

That’s what’s happening tomorrow.

In case you missed my emails about it over the past few days… I’ll be running an auction.

Bidding starts at $1.

The offer on auction is the “Behind The Scenes” of the auctions I have run already and will be running (I currently have 8 auction partners who are at various stages, and all are still moving forward).

The “Behind The Scenes” I will share will include offers on auction (both public and private)… sales numbers… interesting marketing… sales DMs… “day after” conclusions… along with the “auction system” I am devising based on all this data.

I’m thinking to make bonuses available as well for tomorrow’s auctions, Such as, how I have and will be getting auction partners… a live ride-along with me on an auction, plus a share of the money made… and other bonuses that are suggested by auction participants in real time.

Maybe tomorrow’s auction will be a flop, and winning bid ends up at $13.

Maybe I will be able to do like Chavy, and make a bit of cash, a few hundred dollars or more, by taking people along for the ride with me.

In any case, I figure I will get something out of it, in the form of the “auction systems” doc I should be creating anyhow, plus data (from tomorrow’s auction) that I can put into that doc to make my auction systems better.

If you’d like to participate in the auction (I will have a prize for anyone bidding), here’s where the auction will go down, tomorrow, Tuesday, at 7pm CET/1pm EST/10am PST:

https://t.me/+_qLpIllO2IZlM2Q0