Personal Change

The best direct marketing book of the past 15 years

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Do you like books?

Do you like marketing books?

Do you like valuable marketing books that can legitimately make you millions of dollars, if you only consistently apply what they tell you to do?

If so, I got something for you.

This whole year I’ve been reading and rereading a book, without telling anyone anywhere what it is. It’s the first time I’ve come across an information resource that is so valuable that I wanted to keep it and hoard it for myself, like a miserly dragon.

This book is:

1. Published relatively recently.

2. Almost unknown. I haven’t heard anybody else talking about it, and as per Amazon, it’s not selling.

3. Written by a direct marketing legend who has little personal charisma and either little skill or little interest in building up a big personal brand. (How is he still a legend then? That’s something I will only tease for now.)

4. The most valuable and useful and impactful book about direct marketing in the past 15 years, going back to Mark Ford and John Forde’s Great Leads, which was published back in 2011. That’s according to me, somebody who has read and reread all the great direct marketing books, and some of the not-so-great, and who has made millions in sales via the ideas I’ve learned in those books.

Now here’s my deal for you:

I’m currently running my Tour de Commandments event. I’m using it to mark one year since I published my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. book.

The deal is that if you buy 5 copies of my book (or 4, in case already have a copy), I’ll give you a buncha bonuses.

My new bonus for today is that I’ll give you (well, kinda) this best direct marketing book of the past 15 years.

This book sells on Amazon right now for $15 for the paperback.

The thing is, I have no interest in going on Amazon and actually filling out your shipping details and ordering this book this book on your behalf and shipping it to your door. I’ve done that before, and it’s frankly too much work for the small offer I am making right now as part of this Tour de Commandments event.

But I also know the value of getting something for FREE.

So my deal is:

Take me up on my Tour de Commandments offer.

I will tell you the name of this book, and I will give you $15 in Bejako Bux to offset the price if you wanna buy it. You can use this $15 in Bejako Bux towards any of my courses or coaching (or anything I sell directly on my site).

(If by some minuscule chance you already own this direct marketing book, you still get to keep the $15 in Bejako Bux.)

Plus, I’ll also tell you a second resource, by the same uncharismatic direct marketing legend, equally as obscure and unknown, which I have been bingeing on for weeks now. It’s got so many valuable marketing ideas that it could legitimately be packaged up as a $30k/year mastermind. But it’s available for free, if you only know where to look, and that’s what I’ll tell you.

Plus plus, there are the other Tour de Commandments bonuses I have promised so far:

#1. “Manna for Marketers” live workshop and implementation call

Happening next Wednesday at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I will cover I’ve consciously applied these 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. in my biz. I’ll also offer you my help and input if you want to raise your hand live on the call, and ask me how to apply any of these commandments to your biz (or life).

#2. “3 lessons after $18,487 spent on running Amazon book ads”

Over the past 7 years, I’ve spent $18,487 on Amazon book ads. The majority of those ads have been for my two “10 Commandments of SOMETHING” books. I’ve put together a report on the 3 main lessons learned after 7 years, thousands of copies sold, and $18k+ in ad spend.

#3. “40 Pages to Authority: A $1k article series”

Back in 2023, the the Professional Writers Alliance paid me $1,000 to write a 4-part article series about my experiences writing, promoting, and profiting from a 40-page book (my first 10 Commandments book).

PWA made these articles available to their paying members only. But you can get them as a free bonus for taking me up on my Tour De Commandments offer.

#4. “How I made an extra $1404.53/month in Amazon royalties at the push of a button”

This report outlines a hack, which involves the push of a button — literally, that’s all there is to it — and which made me an extra ~$1.5k per month in Amazon royalties. I used this hack once, over the span of a few months, or rather a few weeks. I made money with it. And I never used it again.

I’m not saying anybody else should use this hack. I’m not saying anybody else should NOT use it either.

All I’m willing to do is to tell you what this hack is, why I’m no longer using it myself, and how you can try it out yourself, if you so choose, to make easy money off Amazon.

If you want to take me up on this Tour de Commandments offer, here’s what to do:

1. Grab five paperback copies of the 10 Commandments book (or four, if you’ve already got a paperback and can dig up that receipt as proof)

2. Forward me your receipt (or receipts, if you already got one) from Amazon

3. I’ll get you in for the Manna for Marketers workshop, and get you access to the above bonuses, as well others I release in the coming days.

If you’re in, here’s where to take me up on this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

I’ll take Problems Of Influence for $500, Alex

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Tomorrow, I will kick off of my Tour De Commandments event. Its purpose:

To commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the publication of my “10 Commandments of Con Men etc.” book, and tease you with some exciting, mysterious, life-changing bonuses connected to this book.

I already have several bonuses ready to be handed out. I also wanted to get my audience’s input for extra bonuses I could offer. I asked for this input inside my Daily Email House community. House member René Kerkdyk wrote:

===

Bejakopardy – the ultimate gameshow about how to apply the Commandment in various situations like B2B, B2C, high-ticket, low-ticket, to a list, to a cold audience, etc. You describe the situation, we answer, you demolish our answers, we learn something. Best contestant wins a shout-out to your list.

===

There are two separate ideas in here:

One is gamification, which I will definitely do as part of another bonus I am already planning.

The other is influence in “various situations like B2B, B2C, high-ticket, low-ticket, to a list, to a cold audience, etc.”

Maybe can help me with making a list of those various situations. Let’s see:

Are you trying to persuade somebody? Influence somebody? Are you trying to close a sale? A low-ticket sale? A high-ticket sale? A bedroom sale?

Are you you trying to make a good first impression? To get people to open up and share information with you? Are you trying to overcome skepticism, or objections, or even hostility?

Most important of all, are you stuck for a solution, for a way forward? Have the things you have tried so far failed you? Are you, in short, experiencing a problem of influence?

If so, write in and let me know.

If I think I can help you by applying one of my 10 Commandments to your situation, I’ll go over how I would do that in a bonus I will offer as part of my Tour De Commandments.

I can keep your name anonymous if you like, or if you prefer, I can keep your name in it and give you bit of exposure.

And if do end up giving my take on your problem of influence as part of my Tour De Commandments, I will share my proposed solution to your problem with you, whether you end up taking me up on my offer, which will kick off tomorrow, May 11. Thanks in advance.

PSA: I failed, and nobody noticed

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A few days ago, I ran a poll inside my Daily Email House community that went… nowhere.

A member, Neil Sutton, had suggested creating little 3-4 person accountability groups. I somehow called them “pods” and ran a poll to see if people would want to participate. The results, from a group of 480 members:

6 people voted “Yes! I love the idea, please make it happen!”

2 people voted “No! Other people are just barnacles slowing down the gleaming ship that is my life”

7 people voted “Ew? I mean, maybe? It would depend on who exactly I’m matched with in my pod”

I’d call that a fail, and I blame the “pods” naming misstep. Some more failures i’ve had in the past couple weeks:

– Psych Psundays. I introduced this series of Sunday emails, ran it for 3 weeks, ran out of ideas and apparently reader interest, called it quits

– Vitriol Wednesday. Based on another Daily Email House member suggestion. Designated a day to pile on hate on a guru in the industry. Lukewarm hate at best. Called it a fail that I won’t repeat.

– Auction for Svet Dimitrov. I had the idea for copy chief Svet Dimitrov to run an auction to help people get copywriting clients. Svet floated the idea to his list and I floated it to mine. Again, lukewarm interest. Call it a fail (though Svet did get a number of coaching clients out of the exercise nonetheless)

– Auction for Copy Riddles resell rights. I floated the idea to my list and inside Monetization Nastermind, another Skool group I run. Again, not enough interest to run an auction. Fail.

Did you notice any or all of these failures? If you did noticed, did you remember any of them until now that I brought them up? And if you did, did you gloat and cackle at at any of these failures of mine?

I doubt it.

In my experience, nobody notices your failures, and if they do notice, nobody remembers.

And yet, I can tell you that each time I start a new project, particularly one that will be out in the open like a poll or a launch or an auction, each time the thought comes to me:

“What if it’s a big old failure? And what if a bunch of people see me fail?”

In other words, all I’ve really developed, in place of a thick skin, is a moderate ability to act in spite of feeling stressed about what will happen if I fail.

The feeling has never really gone away.

And that’s important to remember.

If you’re waiting to stop feeling nervous in order to act, odds are you will never act.

On the other hand, if you act, and if it produces a success, you’re almost sure to be filled with excitment and even confidence.

And if you act, and it produces a failure, the feeling will be much less stressful than the expectation of that failure… plus, like I said, few people will noticed and nobody will remember.

And while I’m on the topic of public service announcements, a reminder that the kickoff of my tour de commandments event is happening in 4 days

To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of this book, and possibly, my 100th review, I will be kicking off a Tour de Commandments event on May 11th.

I’ll have more details about this exciting, unique, spectacular, historic, one-time, never-to-be repeated event over the next few days, as the countdown to the start gets closer and closer to zero.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet gotten your copy of my 10 Commandments book, your copy is waiting for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Daily Money Vitamin

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A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga once prescribed an “Ad-A-Day Vitamin”:

Every day, no matter what, read a great ad.

Gary said this was a recipe to get 1% better every week.

Which is nice except it doesn’t work. Because reading alone won’t make you better, or cause any kind of a lasting change in you or your life.

(I speak here from personal experience, as a person who has read things in the past, often with great interest.)

Instead, I have something different for you.

Something that creates lasting change, not only in you but in your life, business, and bank account.

It’s the Daily Money Vitamin:

Every day, no matter what, implement one great idea.

Put the idea into action, Apply it. Don’t just read about it, don’t just nod at it, don’t just savor it like a connoisseur.

Instead, think about what the idea is telling you to do, and then do that.

Within a week you will be 1% richer. Within a year, you’ll be 67.8% richer. Within two years, you will be 2.81 times richer. After that, it really begins to compound.

Excellent. Except where do you find great ideas to implement?

Ultimately, great ideas are everywhere. In conversations with people you trust… in old books… in expensive courses… in free email newsletters like this one (ahem, I shared one with you just a few lines above, the Daily Email Vitamin).

If you start keeping track of great ideas like this today, within a year, you’re likely to have hundreds of them.

I myself have been keeping such an archive for years. At last count, it was 937 great ideas long. Here’s a very small sample:

* “To build fascination and rapport, keep asking deeper, more enthusiastic questions” (from James Altucher via his podcast)

* “Use the same link text as the subject line to get clicks” (something Ian Stanley said somewhere)

* “Trialibility is the no. 1 factor affecting adoption of an innovation” (from Jonah Berger’s Catalyst)

I once created a collection of all these great ideas which I called The Shangri La Library Of Rare And Priceless Ideas.

If you want to stock your own library of great ideas, and if you want to taking your Daily Money Vitamin today rather than never, then I’ll make you a deal.

For the next 24 hours, until tomorrow, Tuesday Apr 28 2026, at 8:31pm CET, you can get your little claws on The Shangri La Library Of Rare And Priceless Ideas, for free, if you get my Most Valuable Email program.

For more information on Most Valuable Email before the day runs out:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Public service announcement

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Every few months or so, I like to promote an affiliate offer that doesn’t make me much money, but that I still promote as a kind of chirpy public service announcement.

Today it’s time to do so again.

Because yesterday, in my Daily Email House community, I wrote about an email I sent out recently, which did well for me in terms of sales. That email was based on an idea I got from marketer Travis Sago, who I’ve mentioned often in this newsletter.

After I wrote about that, I got a DM on Skool from a Daily Email House member, who works as a freelance copywriter, and who also has his own email list and a few products he sells to that list.

Here’s that DM interaction:

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FREELANCE COPYWRITER: Hey John, how are you? I keep seeing you mention Travis Sago, and I wonder… how much of an influence does he have on you? It looks like he is the brain behind a lot of campaigns you do and sales

BEJAKO: Yep, I’ve learned a ton from the dude. Highly recommended if you are looking to do more with your email list and audience

FREELANCE COPYWRITER: As somebody who’s pretty fed up with client work and wants the email based business lifestyle, that might make sense. So is his Skool page the only way to see what it’s all about? Or is there a TSL/VSL?

BEJAKO: Pretty much everything he’s doing now is inside that Skool group. He had courses before that you can still buy separately, but they are also inside Skool if you sign up for that

FREELANCE COPYWRITER: Cool. I’ll have a look

===

I figure if this guy is interested, maybe you too will be. I’m not holding my breath though.

I’ve promoted Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin Skool group a dozen times in these emails.

I promoted it before Travis made it available to affiliates, because I was in it, and because I saw it from the inside, and because it made me money.

I promoted it after after Travis set up the affiliate program last year, because I’m still in it, and I can still see it from the inside, and it’s still making me money.

Over the past year that I’ve been promoting Ronin as an affiliate, I have made about $6k in commissions.

That might sound like real money to you, and it is pretty good money for sending a dozen or so emails, but it’s also much much less than I’ve made by promoting much less valuable affiliate offers that I’m much less personally involved with and less enthusiastic about.

It’s also much much less than I’ve made by applying Travis’s teachings inside Ronin. As for that, I can directly trace about $135k in income to Ronin:

* ~35k+ from auctions, following Travis’s “24 Hour FUN Auction” course

* ~60k+ from Daily Email Habit, which I created by following step-by-step Travis’s “Passive Cash Flow Mojo” course, about creating continuity offers

* ~$40k+ from three tiny promos, which were based around ideas I got from Travis’s “$1k a day in 1 Hour a Day” training and his “Big Ticket Email Mojo” course

On top of that, I’ve made much more money indirectly thanks to the ideas and people inside Ronin:

Copy hacks I’ve seen Travis and nobody else use (like the email I mentioned at the start)…

… affiliate offers I’ve promoted from other Ronin members…

… changes I’ve made to the way I create my own offers, which I’ve picked up both from Travis’s trainings and by looking at what he does.

So eat your vegetables.

Brush your teeth.

Don’t smoke.

And sign up to Royalty Ronin, and then start applying the ideas inside, one by one.

I figure that just like other public service announcement, most people will shrug this one off.

But maybe you won’t, at least if you too are fed up with client work and are looking for a way out. If so, I have believed for years and continue to believe this is the best deal on the Internet:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S.. Travis offers a free 7-day trial. If you sign up for Ronin and make it past the first 7 days, write me and let me know. I’ve got some bonuses with your name on them.

Last call for chocolate-chip Most Valuable Offer

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Last night while making dinner, I was listening to a documentary about the 1980s action blockbuster Die Hard. The director, John McTiernan, said:

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I’d done a movie with [producer] Joel Silver. It’s called Predator. He sent me this script. I sent it back. I said, “Thanks no.” Cause it was a terrorist story! It was terrorists take over a building and now we’re gonna wipe out terrorists. There’s no fun in terrorism. There’s no joy in it. And I said, “Couldn’t we make this a robbery?” Everybody likes robbers. You can have fun. Even a bad robber is fun.

===

Die Hard did end up being a movie about terrorists taking over a building.

But McTiernan and company managed to squeeze quite a bit of fun out of that, and so McTiernan’s point still stands:

If you’re gonna do something, you might as well make it fun, even a joy, for both yourself and the audience.

Today is the last call for Most Valuable Offer.

We — meaning the people who have already signed up and I — will kick things off this Wednesday, just two days from now.

I want to talk to anyone interested before they sign up to make sure I can be of use to them, and that’s why today is the last call.

The public goal of Most Valuable Offer is to launch a paid live workshop to your list by the end of April, with my direct help, guidance, and feedback.

The secret goal of Most Valuable Offer is to make your live workshop fun.

Of course, you don’t have to make it fun. But why not? It’s not hard to do, and it will be more enjoyable this way for both you and your audience.

Plus, if it’s fun, it will make it more likely they pay attention, put your info into action, and profit from it. And all that makes it more likely they come back to you for more help, many more times in the future.

In case you are interested in joining us for Most Valuable Offer, the time is NOW. For the full chocolate-chip info so you can make your decision:

https://bejakovic.com/mvo

[Psych Psundays] Cops and robbers

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For the past couple weeks, I’ve been running a new email series I call Psych Psundays. The first week, the response was good. The second week, it was also good:

#1. “Wow. Thank you, John.”

#2. “Lovely email John – many thanks for writing it – I loved reading it. Great storytelling.”

#3. “These Psych Sundays are helpful.”

#4. “Honestly this came at the right time for me. Just started a new creative strategist role – my first time writing ad scripts – with a new supplement brand. Since this is my first time doing this, I’ve been fighting similar thoughts like “This isn’t right for me, I only know email”… big imposter syndrome stuff. Been taking the next step and fighting those thoughts, leading up to submitting my first ads, was wondering if they’d be ripped to shreds, but the only real feedback I got was “good ads 🔥”… So it’s been a trip.”

This third week, Psych Psundays continues, and threatens to bleed into Pself-Help Psundays instead.

Will this be the end of this series as readers unsubscribe in disgust?

Or will I tell you something interesting and possibly valuable?

Let’s see.

I will start by admitting that last week I rewatched the 2002 Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. You might know it better in the 2006 remake version by Martin Scorcese, called The Departed.

The movie tells the story of a drug kingpin and a police captain, each of whom plants a mole in the other’s organization.

The cops and criminals keep clashing, pulling away to try to outwit each other, and clashing again.

This coming together and pulling away is precisely what makes the movie tense and fun to watch, all the way to the final showdown, where everybody loses and order is restored to the universe.

Compare that to an article I read a while back about a man named Daniel Kinahan. The article asked a simple question, “An Irish drug dealer, Daniel Kinahan, commands a billion-dollar cocaine empire from the U.A.E. Why isn’t he in prison?”

The background was that Kinahan’s father, Christy, grew up middle class in Dublin, but got into the drug trade. Christy was smart, polite, and careful. Unlike everybody else in the drug business, he was not an addict himself.

Still, in the first few years of his career, back in 1987, Kinahan Sr. got caught and served a few years in prison.

After he got out, Kinahan Sr. made changes to how he was running his drug trafficking business to make it less likely he would get caught.

When his son Daniel took over, there were even more changes introduced, and the risk was reduced even further.

The result is that the Kinahans have been running one of the world’s biggest cocaine organizations, but continue to live free in Dubai, and apparently the police cannot or will not touch them.

Frankly, not much of a story there, and definitely not worth a movie.

A couple weeks ago, back in the inaugural Psych Psunday email, I mentioned I was reading a book called Games People Play. The book is a catalogue of “games” — repeated personal interactions that are played for ulterior motives and payoffs rather than the obvious reasons.

One game described in Games People Play is called “Cops and Robbers.” It’s about real-life cops and robbers, or at least some of them.

The game of “Cops and Robbers” is played for a combination of excitement and security. The excitement comes from being chased. The security comes from being caught and put back to the same place where the robber is used to being, whether that’s the local slum or prison.

But here’s the bit I found interesting. Not every criminal plays “Cops & Robbers.” From Games People Play:

“There seem to be two distinctive types of habitual criminals: those who are in crime primarily for profit, and those who are in it primarily for the game — with a large group in between who can handle it either way. The ‘compulsive winner,’ the big moneymaker whose Child really does not want to be caught, rarely is, according to reports; he is an untouchable, for whom the fix is always in. The ‘compulsive loser,’ on the other hand, who is playing ‘Cops and Robbers,’ seldom does very well financially.”

I found this distinction between “pros” and “C&R players” interesting. It’s the difference between the “Cops & Robbers” players as dramatized in Infernal Affairs, and the Kinahans, the real-life untouchables and compulsive winners, who don’t really make for a good story, but who do live rich and free.

This distinction between “pros” and “players of Cops & Robbers” goes way beyond the criminal world. If you ask me, this same distinction applies pretty much everywhere in life, including the direct response industry.

Publicly, the DR industry all about dramatic transformations and secret push-button solutions that will make you lose weight or turn you into a millionaire in the next 24 hours.

Privately, behind the scenes, the DR industry is built on the Recency-Frequency-Monetary Value formula.

Basically, it’s about selling the same thing, over and over, to people who have been buying for years, people who actually have ulterior motives than making money or losing weight quickly, even though that’s what they they are paying for.

And this is where we veer from Psych Psunday.

Psychology is good at classifying and diagnosing. For how to change, you gotta go to a different section of the bookstore, the self-help section.

For example, I once read a book called Straight-Line Leadership. At its core, it’s about the distinction between “straight-line people” and “circle people.”

It’s the exact same distinction as Games People Play makes, between “pros” and “people who play Cops & Robbers.”

The difference between Straight-Line Leadership and Games People Play is that Straight-Line Leadership tells you that you can become a straight-line person today.

You don’t have to keep quitting or “being caught” once things are going well. You can simply keep going in a straight line, onwards and upwards, like a compulsive winner.

And if you do encounter a setback (eg. you get thrown into jail, like Kinahan Sr.) you can simply come out of jail, make some changes, and get back on the straight line.

A master of direct marketing once wrote:

“One of the greatest lessons I learned about direct marketing over the years is that if it ain’t boring, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re juggling too many balls, running around frantically putting out fires all the time, if every day is a constant uphill battle to succeed… then… something ain’t right. This business, when done correctly, should be dull, boring, slow moving (even at high speed), and mostly automated.”

So there you go. To have a real shot at getting rich and free, get your kicks from somewhere other than your business.

Or don’t. Get your kicks from your business, keep playing Cops and Robbers, experiencing exciting ups and downs.

Many people do it, and there’s no shame in it.

But in that case, you can spare yourself the frustration of wondering why those ups and downs are always there, and realize they’re there because you want them on some level.

And now, a reminder that my Most Valuable Offer launches this coming Wednesday.

With Most Valuable Offer, I’m offering to give you my direct help so you can run a successful launch of a paid live workshop by the end of April, which you can then keep selling, in an automated way, until the stars fall from the sky.

For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/mvo

Knee deep in trying to create an offer

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Here are three stories of me being stuck up to the knee, and then unstuck, when creating an offer:

STORY 1, Feb 2020.

I had the idea to write a book about insight, working title, Gospel of Marketing Insight.

I collected a bunch of ideas, wrote out a bunch of note cards, organized the note cards, created an outline, started drafting chapters, gave drafts to people for feedback, got feedback.

I wasn’t really happy with what I had. I took a break. I came back to it. I started the process again.

Again, I wasn’t really happy with what I had. Again, I took a break. Again, I came back to it and started process… again.

And so on.

STORY 2, Nov 2024.

I had spent a few months going through Travis Sago’s Passive Cash Flow Mojo course from start to finish, several times, and taking notes, and reflecting, and coming up with ideas.

My goal was to come up with an idea for a continuity offer I could create.

I finally hit upon idea I liked — “a daily prompt for a daily email.” So I interviewed people. I came up with prompt categories and examples. I listed ideas for back-end offers.

“But I’m not just trying to sell a continuity offer,” I told myself.

I wanted to create something people would actually open and and read and use.

I got stuck on that last part. I had ideas, but they were vague. So I said to myself, “One of these days, I’ll sit down and flesh these ideas out, and then I’ll be ready to launch this new continuity offer.”

Days dragged on, then became weeks.

STORY 3, March 2026.

Another book idea, working title, The Art of Charging More.

I already had a bunch of content I could use in the form of emails I’d written.

Same story as book 1 above. I had an outline for the structure. Actually I had more than one outline. One step forward, two steps back. I was not really happy with what I had in any form. I decided to put the book aside because didn’t really know how to proceed.

So that was how I got stuck in three cases. Here’s how I got unstuck.

Well, maybe you can already guess.

For the past few days, I’ve been telling you about something I call Most Valuable Offer, which is basically a paid live workshop, with a publicly announced delivery date that’s coming up soon.

That’s what I did in each of the three situations above:

That unwritten book about insight? It became my Age of Insight training.

The waffling about how to make my daily prompt for a daily email both consumable and valuable became? That gave birth to my 3rd Conversion training, after which I finally did launch the daily prompt continuity offer, which is now called Daily Email Habit.

The book about pricing that I set aside? It spawned my Price Increase Promo Challenge, which I launched a few weeks ago. It might also lead to other live and paid workshops, after which I might finally be able to put together the book.

If you want to launch an info product, make it good and useful, and somehow overcome mental blocks, procrastination, perfectionism, or simply gaps in the material that you have collected, then I can personally recommend running a paid live workshop, with a deadline coming up soon.

It forces you to put out something by a given date, coming up soon…

It forces you to make your material good without trying to make it perfect…

It creates ideas and assets you can reuse, resell, or integrate into future offers…

It gives you an injection of cash…

… because while you’ve been stuck on a given offer, maybe you haven’t been making any other new offers, which translates into not making new money.

So for all those reasons and more, I recommend running a paid live workshop, with a deadline coming up soon, or, as I’ve termed it, launching a Most Valuable Offer.

And if you want to launch a Most Valuable Offer by the end of this month, April 2026, you can now get my help.

You get my experience and help in launching your new Most Valuable Offer, but just as importantly, you get a deadline, because this is happening now and not later.

For the full info:

https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/would-you-like-a-chocolate-chip-most-valuable-offer

What’s up with my hiring

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Last week I wrote an email saying that I’m hiring an assistant. I got a buncha replies to that, some encouraging, others frustrating.

I wrote back to everyone to say I’m working my way through the replies, and that I will be in touch if I think there’s a possible fit there.

I’ve had a few people proactively follow up with me since. “Do you have an update regarding my application?”

The update is that on Friday I hired somebody. I’m also interviewing a second person to hire on Monday. I figure, now that I’ve decided on hiring, why not go big?

The guy I hired yesterday, marketer and computer programmer GC Tsalamagkakis, is somebody I’ve known for a good while.

He has been active in my Daily Email House community for over a year. He was one of the top bidders in my “I endorse YOU” auction. We’ve talked on multiple occasions previously. I know he’s worked with and gotten results for other people I know and respect.

GC wrote me flat out saying that he’s not applying to be my assistant, but that maybe he can help me automate some of the stuff I’m doing or want to do?

We talked and defined an easy test project.

GC wanted to do it for free.

I told him I appreciate the sentiment but I insist on paying him, both for his sake and for mine.

He quoted me a price.

I thought it was too low. So I decided to pay him 4x what he had asked me.

Do you think that makes me a good guy? Or a creep who’s trying to virtue signal by writing about it here?

You can think what you like, but I can tell you I’m neither very good nor am I trying to signal whatever goodness I have here.

This is simply me working myself mentally into this hiring game.

A couple days ago, I mentioned a discussion I’d listened to between Frank Kern and Dean Jackson, about sticking to what you’re irreplaceable at, and hiring out for everything else. Said Frank:

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There’s three ways to get rich. You can invent something. You can inherit something. Or you could invest. And I think all business people are ultimately investors.

That’s all we do. So if you think about that, and you think about the hiring of a “who,” it’s not an expense, but a means to multiply capital.

I pay my “who” that does the automation stuff close to 300 grand a year.

And people are like, “My God, you could get it so much cheaper.”

And I say, “Well I might-could, but assuming I’m getting about a 20% annual return on my investment in a ‘who,’ would I rather get 20% of 50 grand, or 300?”

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That 20% return is pretty much how the math will work out for the test task that GC did for me.

He’s automated some stuff for me that was previously spread out across a couple software subscriptions.

As a result, I will be able to shut those subscriptions down, and save enough over the coming year to make back what I paid GC, and make about a 20% return on top of that.

There is a bigger point here, and it applies to you also. I’ve heard it stated in different ways:

“Turn costs into a profit center.”

“Find a way to make it work for you.”

Or, like Frank Kern says above, “Think of it like an investment.”

This applies if you’re hiring, yes. But it also applies if you’re buying courses, paying for subscriptions, running ads, or simply spending your money and time. All these could simply be costs. Or, with a change of perspective and bit of determination, they could be opportunities to multiply capital. It’s your call.

How business owners can stop chasing every shiny object like a dog chasing soap bubbles

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I have a new plan. I’m trying to get in shape. I’m walking walk two hours a day as part of my plan. I’m listening to podcasts and courses to keep myself occupied while I walk.

I want to share a good idea with you that I just heard while walking around Barcelona in the rain, getting in shape, and getting wise at the same time.

The idea came up in a discussion between Dean Jackson and Frank Kern.

Both Dean and Frank are successful, influential, long-tenured Internet marketers who have made, I’m guessing, tens of millions of dollars for themselves and prolly hundreds of millions for clients and partners.

The discussion I listened to today was about focusing on what you’re irreplaceable at, and getting others to do the rest. Familiar enough stuff.

(It’s the “who not how” distinction, which Dean originated, and which his partner Dan Sullivan then turned into a best-selling book.)

At some point, Frank Kern threw out the following, less familiar thought experiment.

Imagine, says Frank, that you are a typical small business owner who has gotten to a certain level of success by working hard, and who is trying to get to the next level by working even harder.

The classic “10 million irons in the fire.”

And then imagine, in Frank’s words, that:

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… you are personally enjoined — legal term there — you are personally enjoined from doing any of this stuff yourself, except coming up with ideas.

Which means now you have to pay for the “who.”

What that would bring — and I know the listener is probably like, “okay don’t tell me I have to do this, this is horrible” — what that would bring is incredible clarity and purpose in the execution of the ideas.

If you had to pay to execute on every idea, you would immediately get yourself out of the “I’ve got 10 million irons in the fire” thing. Because you’re paying for it, right? So it’s like, well crap, if I’m paying all that…

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Maybe I found this insightful because I’m actually in the process of hiring an assistant, and maybe I’ll even end up hiring two. Always insightful hearing what you want to believe.

In any case, if you’re running your own business, particularly if you’re a “solopreneur,” one-man band, one-woman show, this might be a worthwhile thought experiment to put to yourself the next time you come across a hot new opportunity you cannot wait to jump on.

“What if I were enjoined to not do any of this myself, and I could only pay somebody to implement this for me?”

If your answer is a shudder, then consider whether this hot new opportunity, which you don’t find worth paying money to implement, is worth paying for in a different, much scarcer currency, namely your own time and energy.

On the other hand, if you find that you are okay hiring, then you’ve got options. You can still do it yourself. Or you can hire. Or you can even hire two people.

Anyways, I gotta go make popcorn and drink a beer. That is not part of my getting in shape plan. But it is important.

Meanwhile, if you want to hear Dean and Frank’s full discussion — recommended if you are more busy and less productive than you like — here’s where to go:

https://www.morecheeselesswhiskers.com/podcast/147