Inspiration

My Prime Directive for writing this email newsletter

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A few weeks ago, marketer Matt Giaro interviewed me for his podcast.

Maybe because Matt also writes daily emails, or maybe because he’s into direct marketing, but he asked me questions I actually enjoyed answering and had something to say about.

The result is that this podcast appearance is one of my less horrific ones.

At one point, Matt asked me how I think about tying up my emails into the offers I’m making.

I told Matt how I think about that. But then I told him something that I think is much more important.

​​In fact, it’s my Prime Directive for writing this email newsletter.

It has never been to make money.

Maybe you think I’m signaling how good of a guy I am by telling you that. That’s not it. Consider this:

My Prime Directive also hasn’t been to provide value for my readers, or even to entertain them.

Nope.

My Prime Directive for this newsletter is very unsexy, very uninspiring, and a bit inhuman, almost Borg-like.

It’s simply… to keep this newsletter going day after day.

I’m writing this email from the Athens airport, waiting for my flight to Barcelona.

I’ve been in Greece for the past 5 days. It’s a kind of vacation, though each day I found a break in my “vacation time” to write this daily email.

Perhaps that’s because I’m a bit of a obsessive-compulsive beaver.

Or perhaps it’s a perfectly logical, rational decision. In the words of Morgan Housel, the author of The Psychology of Money:

“What I want to have is endurance. I want to be so unbreakable financially in the short run to increase the odds that I will be able to stick around as an investor for the stocks that I do own to compound for the longest period of time. If you understand the math of compounding, you know that the big gains come at the end of the period.”

… and I’d add, it’s not just stocks. This is also true for other assets, such as skills you’re building, knowledge you’re stacking up, content you’re creating, or email subscribers you’re attracting.

That said, just because my Prime Directive is rather inhuman — “resistance is futile, another email will follow tomorrow” — doesn’t mean I can’t on occasion try to make these emails valuable to you.

So let me take this moment to remind you of the old chestnut, which is no less true because it’s preached so often:

The best time to finally start something you have been putting off for an eternity — is today.

It doesn’t have to be an email list you write to daily.

There are plenty of other good investments out there, which you can start investing a nickel’s worth of time, energy, or money into right now.

But if you don’t hate writing… and if you happen to like flexibility and independence… then an email list of engaged readers is a good investment to start today.

And if you want some practical tips about how to do that in a way that meshes with your sense of self, assuming you’re not a natural-born salesman, then the podcast I did with Matt might be worth listening to.

The topic for that podcast was “How to send daily emails that make money without selling.”

The topic came up because I heard from a few people that it never seems I’m selling in these emails.

Of course, that can be because there are times I’m not actually selling anything, like today. (The Borg can subsist for months without food.)

On the other hand, there were also unbroken periods — stretching for years at a time — when each email I sent ended with a CTA to buy a paid product I was selling.

And yet, people somehow didn’t find it salesy… and they wanted to know how I do that.

If you’re curious too, I break it down in the interview with Matt. The link is here:

The light at the end of the tunnel

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“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“How do you expect me to respond to this?”

“How about, you love me too?”

“How about: I’m leaving.”

That’s the start of the last scene of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. In case you haven’t seen it, the movie goes like this:

The first time Harry and Sally meet, they hate each other. The second time they meet, Harry doesn’t even remember who Sally is. The third time they meet, Harry and Sally become friends. Then they sleep together, and things go south and they stop being friends.

And then one New Year’s Eve, Harry finally realizes he loves Sally, and he runs to meet her, and he declares his love. And she says, “I’m leaving.”

The fact is, screenwriter Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner both felt that movie should end like this.

​​No way should it end with Harry and Sally winding up together. That’s not how the real world works. People in those kinds of relationships don’t end up together.

That’s how the first two drafts of the movie actually went. The bitter truth.

But in the third draft, Ephron wrote this final scene, and Reiner shot it. After Sally’s “I’m leaving,” Harry delivers a speech about all the little things he loves about her, and they kiss and they wind up together, forever, in love.

And that’s how the movie was released, and it was a big, big hit.

So what’s the point?

Well, maybe it’s obvious, but you can go negative and cynical and sarcastic for the whole movie, but you gotta end on an inspiring, positive note.

​​It’s gotta make sense to people and give them a feeling of hope, at least if you want to create something that has a chance to be a big big hit, something that can appeal to a wide swath of the market.

Or in the words of screenwriter and director David Mamet:

“Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama — which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form.”

But now I have a problem:

I’ve just pulled back the curtain. And what’s behind the curtain is not so nice. So how can I end this email on an inspiring, positive note?

Well, I can admit to you that the world is a large and complex and often unjust place. But it does have its own structure. And just by reading these emails, you’re finding out bits and pieces of that structure, and that helps you make more sense of the world you live in, and it helps you shape and influence the world for the better.

I can also tell you that the above bit, about Harry and Sally and Nora and Rob, is part of a book I’m working on, the mythical “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Con Men, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Propagandists, and Stage Magicians.”

I’ve been working on this book for a long time. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, do you know about my other 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters?

It also collects bits and pieces of the structure of the world, and it can help you understand and shape that world for the better. In case you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Riveting, personal story to fill my mistake quota

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Hold on to your seat, and prepare to be riveted by the following true and very personal story:

Two days ago, I meet up with my friend Adrian. Adrian suggests we go out to dinner tonight, just him, me, and my dad. (Adrian is also friends with my dad.)

I say fine.

Adrian and my dad and I text yesterday to confirm the place and time for the dinner. We quickly agree.

But then it turns out Adrian’s wife would like to join also, along with their 3-year old daughter. Oh, and can we move dinner three hours earlier because of his daughter’s bed time?

I’m not thrilled by the idea — the early dinner, the wife, the kid. I honestly tell Adrian the earlier time doesn’t work well because I also have a family lunch to go to in the afternoon.

He says he’ll check with the wife.

Throughout the rest of yesterday, there’s more tussling over WhatsApp. And then finally, in the early evening hours, Adrian decides to go back to the original plan, the original time, and the original company for the dinner.

TA-DAAA! The end.

Now that you’ve read this, I want to apologize. I know this story was only riveting in how stupid it was.

​​But how else to get the following point across in a way that sticks?

A couple months ago, I bought a book called Suddenly Talented by Sean D’Souza.

Sean you might know — he’s an Internet marketer who’s been in the game since before Google, and I’ve written about him often in this newsletter.

Sean is best known for his unorthodox marketing ideas. But he’s branched out also — to courses and workshops about cartooning, photography, and learning and skill acquisition, which is what Suddenly Talented is about.

I actually haven’t read Sean’s book yet.

​​But there’s a WhatsApp group for everyone who’s bought the book, where Sean holds court and explains his ideas about how to get good at anything, and quick.

One idea will probably be familiar to you — it’s to get okay with making mistakes, whether you’re drawing, learning a new language, or trying to write a daily email.

But Sean takes it one step further.

​​In his own workshops, he actually gives his students a mistake quota.

​​​In other words, he tells his students that they have to actively and consciously make a certain number of mistakes before he will let them even attempt to do the thing right.

Result? I don’t know, but I can guess:

1. People loosen up. They realize that a mistake is not as fatal as it might seem in their imagination.

2. People actually learn something, by actively dancing around the “right” thing to do. In the words of Claude Debussy, music is the space between the notes.

“Fine fine,” you might say, “enough with the poetry. Does this really work?”

I don’t know. But it sounded interesting enough to give it a try. That’s why I opened with the pointless and uninteresting story above.

Don’t open your emails like I did.

Or do. Do it to teach yourself that hey, even a terrible email doesn’t really cost me anything, and hey, maybe I’ll even learn something by doing things wrong.

Are you convinced? Are you not convinced? It’s okay either way.

But in case this email triggered something in your brain, you might want to check out my Most Valuable Email training. It comes with a swipe file of 51 interesting ideas, many of which have proven valuable to me and to the people who have gone through MVE, sometimes even paying for the entire course.

If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

I don’t want people to see me fail

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It finally happened.

Yesterday afternoon, I reached the entrance to my apartment building and, for the first time ever, I realized that I’d left my keys at home.

I’ve been paranoid about this for months, ever since I started living alone again.

I don’t know any of my neighbors. The friends I have in town are away more than they are here. My landlord takes days to respond to my text messages.

If I were ever to lock myself out, who the hell would let me back in?

Fortunately, a few weeks ago, I acted on this paranoia.

I hid an extra key to my apartment somewhere inside the building. That meant I would just need to get inside the building and I could get back into my apartment.

Like I said, yesterday I finally forgot my keys.

But as I stood there at the building entrance, with a backpack full of groceries and a large leek in my hand, I refused to ring any of my neighbors to let me in.

Instead, I sat down on the bike rack that’s right in front of my building.

And I started to wait.

And wait…

And wait… until finally somebody came out of the building, and I could rush in beside them.

Maybe you’re wondering if this email will ever get to a point. So let me get to it now.

Why didn’t I simply ring some neighbors, politely explain the situation, and ask if they would let me in?

Brace yourself:

It’s because I hate to ask and be rejected…

Because I never want it to be known that I need something, which I might not get…

Because I don’t ever want to try and be seen to fail.

Stupid, right? Even nonsensical? Particularly in such a low-stakes, perfectly natural situation as just ringing a doorbell to ask a neighbor to let me in?

If you think my reasoning yesterday was stupid or nonsensical, I completely agree with you.

In fact, that’s why I’m telling you about it. Because it’s easy to recognize stupid and nonsensical reasoning in others, and maybe draw a conclusion that you can apply to your own life.

This “don’t want people to see me fail” is a strong instinct inside me.

On occasion I indulge it, in small, trivial things, like yesterday.

But in other situations?

Let me just focus on the business stuff.

Every time I write and send a new daily email to thousands of people, a voice inside me says, “What if people think this is dumb?”

Every time I launch a new offer, that same voice says, “What if this bombs? Everybody will see!”

And every time I have an idea for a change in this newsletter, the voice pipes up again. “But what if it doesn’t stick? People will know I tried and failed…”

The fact is, people don’t know I tried and failed, not most of the time, and certainly not most of the people.

That’s because nobody looks at my emails and offers with 1/1000th of the care and devotion with which I look at them.

And as for the people who actually notice when I do mess up, or when I try something and it doesn’t go like I planned — those people actually tend to like me better for it. Go figure.

In a second, I’m gonna pitch my Simple Money Emails program. But before I get there, maybe there’s something you can learn from my sitting outside my building yesterday, leek in hand, and waiting and waiting.

Specifically, if you’re afraid that:

1. You will write daily emails and they will be bad, or that

2. Nobody will sign up for your list, or that

3. People will sign up for your list and then (gasp!) unsubscribe, or that

4. People will sign up for your emails but not buy from you, or that

5. Worst of all, you will start sending daily emails, but not be able or willing to stick with it, and the whole world will know that you tried and failed at this new experiment…

… then I’d like to propose that nobody will notice, and if they notice, they won’t care.

I can tell you this because each of the above has happened to me. (Regarding #5 above, this newsletter, which has been running non-stop for close to 6 years now, is my third or fourth attempt to stick with writing daily emails. I failed every other time.)

My point being:

In spite of all of those awful, horrible things happening to me, and even though I’m a sensitive soul, I’m still standing. I’ve actually learned a bit in the process, and I’ve built something valuable as a result of it all.

Maybe you can do so too.

And if you fail?

Nobody will notice. And if they do, they won’t think bad of you.

​​The table stakes are very, very low. If you try and fail, you haven’t lost much, if anything.

On the other hand, if you manage to stick with it, the upside is huge.

And now, for my Simple Money Emails program.

You don’t need this program to start your email list or to start writing daily emails.

But if you want a bit of support and guidance along the way… if that will help you get started… and if you want to get going now instead of just waiting, waiting, and waiting some more… then Simple Money Emails can be a good investment.

If you’d like to find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

A hard way to live

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There have been periods of my life — years at a time — when I’ve made a habit of walking up to strange but attractive women on the street, giving them a compliment, and starting a conversation.

It’s surprisingly hard to do.

Not because of the women. The worst that ever happens from their side is a polite thank you and a smile.

The best that ever happens — well, I’ve had two long-term relationships that started in this way.

No, the reason it’s hard is because of my own fears, insecurities, and the stories I tell myself.

For example, if I see an attractive woman walking on an empty street, I will think, “It’s not a great place to go talk to her… she will be freaked out because there’s nobody else around.”

On the other hand, if I see even one other person around, I will think, “It’s not a great place to go talk to her… everybody will be standing around and watching.”

In other words, right is bad, left is bad, and you don’t want to go straight either.

A hard way to live, no?

I’m telling you this because yesterday I wrote an email promoting a new book by Travis Sago. As I said in that email, I’ve listened to Travis and learned more from him this year than from anybody else.

Even though Travis doesn’t sell any courses for less than a few grand, and even though his yearly mastermind costs something like $50k, this book is a $9.99 summary of his best marketing ideas.

And yet, in reply to my email yesterday, I got the following message from a reader:

“It’s only got 42 reviews… not great”

I’m featuring this reader reply because I recognized myself in it. Maybe you can recognize yourself too.

Specifically, maybe you can recognize the part of the brain that likes to make living hard. It says things like:

“It’s only got 42 reviews… not great. It can’t be, if nobody else is reading it.”

Or…

“It’s already got 420 reviews… not great. Everybody else has read this, so I can’t get any advantage from it.”

The fact is, a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes in a new or old package, whether it’s popular or fringe.

I’m currently re-reading the Robert Collier Letter Book, which was published 100 years ago and which has hundreds of 5-star reviews. I’m also reading Travis’s book, which was published a month ago and has 42 5-star reviews.

I could give you more proof to back up Travis’s credibility.

Would more proof matter to you?

Maybe. Or maybe that part of your brain that likes to make living hard would still pipe up with a new story.

One thing I’ve learned over all those years of walking up to women on the street is that you don’t always have to accept all the stories your brain serves up.

Life can be easier, more successful, and actually more pleasant that way.

Also, if you’d like to get Travis’s book, and maybe learn something valuable, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sandwich

Last call for Water Into Wine

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Tomorrow evening, at 8pm CET, I’ll put on the Water Into Wine workshop with a few people.

This is the last email I will send about this workshop. I’ll take the remaining time to talk to people who’ve expressed interest and any who might still do so.

One thing I’ve heard in these conversations is that people default to a few set ways of positioning their offers.

Sometimes those default, set ways work.

​​Other times they don’t, or they fatigue after a while.

​​But people are stuck with their existing positioning ideas, and cannot see new opportunities.

This reminded me of the most popular TED talk of all time, by Sir Ken Robinson, a British expert on education.

Robinson used to live in Snitterfield, England, the birthplace of John Shakespeare, the father of William Shakespeare. Says Robinson:

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Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don’t think of Shakespeare having a father, do you?

Because you don’t think of Shakespeare being a child, do you?

Shakespeare being seven?

I never thought of it. I mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody’s English class, wasn’t he?

[the crowd laughs]

How annoying would that be?

[more laughter]

===

Robinson’s point in that TED talk was that we all have loads of creativity, but we have it beaten out of us in school.

Well, maybe not beaten out of us, just beaten into hiding.

So yes, you had ample creativity once, and you probably have ample creativity still.

​​And creativity is one option for repositioning your offers like I’ll be describing during tomorrow’s workshop.

But creativity is not required.

I’ve gruesomely dissected this method of repositioning to take the creativity out, and to make this a step-by-step process you can follow.

It will still require testing and some work, but it won’t require superhuman creativity — just the right knowledge of magic, and that’s what I’ll give you.

Assuming that is, that you’re on the workshop call tomorrow.

Again, this is the last email I will send about it.

If you’re interested, the only way to get in is to first write me an email and express interest.

It might make sense to hit reply right now, so we can talk and see if this workshop is a good fit for you.

2 words to 8 figures

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Two years ago, I worked for a short while with a business owner who was simultaneously running three 8-figure direct response businesses.

He first started a Google ads agency getting leads for local bidnises. That grew to 8 figures a year.

Then he created a course teaching others how to start their own Google ads lead-gen agencies. That grew to 8 figures a year.

Then he started a publishing business, finding other good bidnis opportunities and marketing them using what he had learned with his own course. And I guess you can guess how big that grew.

All this was eye opening to me at the time.

This guy was reading the same books I was reading, He was talking the same language. He was using the same copywriting and marketing tricks and techniques. And yet, the results for him were three 8-figure business.

The fact is, I have no interest in running three 8-figure businesses.

Still, this made me realize the power of the knowledge I’m hoarding in my head and sharing in these emails. It also made me think I should think a little bigger.

Anyways, I wanna share one valuable thing with you that I learned during a call with this bidnis owner.

He marketed his course (bidnis #2 above) via YouTube ads. One of those ads got over 100M views.

As you can imagine, the ad made the usual promises of stacks of cash in your bank vault… never again having a boss… and walking barefoot on the beach in soft light.

But what about the actual deliverables?

Did the ad talk about those in any way? Did it describe the business opportunity to make people feel this was a real and achievable promise?

It did.

It did so using two words only.

Those two words were not “lead gen” or “ad agency” or “local business,” or anything like that.

Instead, the ad used two words that were completely unexpected. And yet, those two words sold the course and made the promise feel real and achievable in a way that none of those obvious phrases could have done.

You might know the business owner I’m referring to.

You might have seen his YouTube ads — in fact, odds of it are good, considering the reach his ads have had.

You might therefore know the two words I’m dancing around above.

But if you don’t know, or you just want to make 100% sure, or you simply want to hear me go into this topic in more detail, then you might like my upcoming Water Into Wine workshop.

During this workshop, I will tell you a magic formula for describing your offers in a way that makes them feel real and achievable.

This isn’t anything new.

Smart marketers, particularly direct marketers, have been doing this for 100+ years.

But I’ve helped my clients, when I had clients, do this for their own offers. I’ve also done it for some of my more successful offers.

And if you’d like to know how you too can do it, then here’s a bit more info on the Water Into Wine workshop:

===

Next Thursday, June 27th, I will host a little workshop with a few people.

I’m calling it the Water Into Wine workshop.

It will be all about a specific technique for repackaging and repositioning your offers so they sell better.

If you currently have an offer that’s not selling, this technique can start selling that offer for you.

On the other hand, if you have an offer that’s selling already, this technique can sell your offer more easily and for more money.

The ticket to join the Wine Into Water workshop is $197.

The workshop will happen live on Zoom, next Thursday, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. It will also be recorded. So if you cannot attend live, you can still get your hands on this info and apply it to your own offers as soon as next Friday.

I’m not sure whether there will be a ton of demand for this workshop. In any case, I’ll cap the number of folks who sign up to 20 maximum.

Are you interested in joining us?

If so, just reply to this email.

I won’t have a public-facing sales page for this offer, and replying is the only way to get more info or get in.

Of course, if you reply to this email to express interest, it doesn’t oblige you in any way. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have and help you decide if this workshop is or isn’t right for you.

Not even Cialdini could coax, talk, or shame a solution to this problem

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Towards the end of chapter 4 of Bob Cialdini’s book Influence, Cialdini shares a personal story that I want to share with you today.

I want to share this story with you because it serves my purpose.

But you might want to read this story because it can help you achieve your purpose as well.

Here goes:

Robert Cialdini, a world-famous expert in influence, persuasion, and communication, wanted to get his 3yo son to learn to swim without wearing an inflatable inner tube.

Each year, a bunch of kids in Arizona, where Cialdini lived, drowned in unattended pools. Cialdini wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen to his boy.

So he tried a direct appeal — “Let’s teach you how to swim, son.”

NO!!! was the response. ​​Cialdini’s kid liked water, but he was terrified of getting in without the inflatable inner tube.

No matter how Cialdini tried to “coax, talk, or shame” his 3yo son, the boy wouldn’t let go.

Fine. Cialdini hired a graduate student of his, who was also a lifeguard and swimming instructor, to get his son to learn to swim.

Nope. Once again, the kid refused.

Not even the lifeguard’s professional techniques could overcome the boy’s fear of swimming without the inflatable inner tube.

Fast forward a couple days. Cialdini’s kid was attending a day camp.

One day, as usual, Cialdini went to pick his son up. And he saw a shocking, never-before-seen sight:

His kid was running down the diving board at the pool. He reached the end of the diving board and jumped into the deep end. No inflatable inner tube.

Cialdini rushed over, ready to dive in the pool and to rescue his certainly drowning son.

Except the kid wasn’t drowning. He was swimming.

Cialdini was stunned. He helped his kid get out the pool. And he asked the boy how come he could finally swim without his inflatable plastic ring.

Response:

“Well, I’m 3 years old, and Tommy is 3 years old. And Tommy can swim without a ring, so that means I can, too.”

You can probably imagine a bright-red handprint on Cialdini’s forehead as he slapped himself upon hearing that.

Point being:

We’re all looking for some kind of confirmation that what we’re trying to do is actually possible.

Examples from others can help there. But in order for it to actually help, those others must have the same limitations we have.

If you’re 3 years old, it doesn’t help much to see a 26-year-old lifeguard swimming without an inflatable plastic ring. But when you see 3-year-old Tommy do it, then that means something.

And now to my purpose:

If you are not yet writing daily emails for your personal brand, or if you are not yet successful with it, then next Thursday I’m putting on a workshop called Daily Email Fastlane.

A key part of this workshop will be the common elements I’ve seen among three daily emailers I have coached over the past 18 months.

​​These three coaching students have stood out to me in terms of the money they make, the stability of their income, and simply in how much they seem to enjoy their business and their life.

My claim is that seeing inside these guys’ businesses can help you overcome your own self-imposed or real limitations.

​​Because among these these three daily emailers, you can find at least one who has faced the kinds of problems that you might be facing now:

– a small list
– an unpromising niche
– leads without money
– imposter syndrome
– a genuine lack of credibility

And yet, these three guys turned out successful. Maybe seeing their examples can make you successful also, and quickly so.

If you’d like to join me for this workshop to try it for yourself, here’s where to dive in:

https://bejakovic.com/daily-email-fastlane

I teased, promised, and threatened, and yet it’s not here

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I woke up this morning, confused about where I am and what time it might be.

It’s day one of my U.S. trip. I’m only just beginning the adjustment to the time zone change from Europe. I expect the adjustment to continue until it’s time for me to fly back to Barcelona.

In my confusion this morning, I checked my inbox and saw the many dozens of emails that had accumulated since yesterday. One email stood out.

“Uh-oh,” I said to myself. “That’s a problem.”

Because yesterday, I teased, promised, and threatened that today I would start promoting an exciting and legit business opportunity for working copywriters.

Well, as that email informed me, this promo has now been postponed.

As with most legit business opportunities, you gotta get on a call before you can buy. And as I found out this morning, the guy who does these calls is “taking a step back for urgent personal reasons.”

So I will not be promoting this exciting and legit business opportunity in my email today. Instead, my teasing of this business opportunity continues, and I will be promoting it in the future.

Meanwhile, since I had to adapt my plan for today, I’d like to share the following quote with you. It’s from one of the most successful direct marketers of all time, Joe Sugarman, of BluBlockers fame.

​​Joe was talking about a glaring objection in a product he was selling once. And he wrote:

“I recognized this as a problem that had to be addressed in our copy. And since I look at problems as opportunities, I wondered, ‘Where is the opportunity in this serious and rapidly growing problem?'”

I read this in the early days of my business and marketing education. And that “problems as opportunities” bit has stuck with me ever since.

Here’s a second quote I read only yesterday. It comes from Brad Jacobs, who started 7 billion-dollar companies so far in his life, and who recently published a book about his experiences, titled How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. Jacobs writes:

“Embrace everything that comes your way, the good and especially the bad. And don’t just accept adversity — figure out how to capitalize on it.”

So there you go. My tip for you for today, via Joe Sugarman and Brad Jacobs:

Train yourself. Change your mind. And the next time you come across a problem — big or small — tell yourself to look at it as an opportunity. In time, this attitude may lead you to a few billion dollars.

In my case, the fact that my planned affiliate offer for today fell through is an opportunity to promote something of my own.

So let me remind you of my Simple Money Emails course. It’s all about writing easy and fast emails that you can use day after day to adapt to problems and opportunities in your business, and even to use them to build credibility and trust with your audience.

For more information on Simple Money Emails:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

The uncertain result of my Newsletter XP promo

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Yesterday, ex-Agora copywriter Thom Benny, who I met up with in Barcelona last month, texted me and asked,

“How is the Newsletter XP promo doing?”

I threw up my arms at this. “How am I supposed to know? There’s a deep fog around the Bejako household, and I can’t see past my own nose.”

The Beehiiv people don’t normally do affiliate deals for this course. I had to ask them over and over to let me promote it.

When they finally agreed, it was a bit of a technical kludge to make it happen. So there’s no affiliate portal. There’s no direct way for me to know how many sales I’ve made.

I saw a buncha clicks. Two people wrote me to say they bought. I wrote my contact at Beehiiv now to ask what the final result was.

But if I had to bet, I would bet I made 3x-4x the money for writing these 7 emails than I ever made for any equivalent campaign I wrote back in my freelance copywriting days.

So let me repeat the core idea I was selling during this whole promo, even though I won’t get paid anything for it now. It’s this:

Start a newsletter. Or start growing a list. Or find another little asset that you can invest into regularly.

It might bear no fruit today. But keep watering it. And you will be pleased and surprised one day soon.

This concludes the first of three affiliate promotions I promised to do over the next few weeks.

The next affiliate promo I will do involves a writing course for business owners who want to build an audience on social media.

I’m going through this course myself right now. And I find myself repeatedly surprised by how well-done and insightful it is.

To make this offer even sweeter, I will add in my own free bonus. It will be equal in price to the actual course I am promoting.

This bonus is a rare training I once put on, after years of research. Several people told me this training has influenced their own writing a lot. But more about all that soon.