Motivation

3 ways for freelancers to lose less

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A few days ago, I wrote a post about loser’s games:

Situations in life where the outcome is all about what the loser does… rather than what the winner does.

I wrapped up that post with advice given to amateur tennis players. “Lose less. Avoid trying too hard. And keep the ball in play.”

To which a freelance copywritress wrote in to ask:

“How do you lose less in freelancing? Not trying too hard and keeping the ball in the game is straightforward. But I wasn’t able to figure out how I could lose less. Any insights or tips would be much appreciated by this seasoned loser.”

My answer was that losing less is about all the stuff that’s really 100% within our control, but we muck up for reasons of our own. Like…

There’s a great job that you want to apply to, but you convince yourself not to do it, or you don’t do it in time.

Or…

Client comes to you and says, “Here’s what I need” and you say, “Yes boss” instead of saying, “What’s the ultimate goal you’re looking to achieve by doing this?”

Or…

You hear 50k times that you’re charging too little and yet you still don’t raise your rates.

Basically, losing is self-sabotage and mistakes that we really can’t blame on anybody else. And losing less is not doing that.

Of course, maybe that’s just deflecting the question. How exactly do you not make mistakes and avoid self-sabotage, whatever form it takes?

I’ve got three unsexy but true ideas for you:

1. Habit. Start small and low risk. Build from there.

2. Willpower. Sleep. Eat. Drink your orange juice. Grit your teeth.

3. Self-awareness.

Because those three losing behaviors above, those are all things I did and sometimes still do. But maybe they aren’t exactly your own.

Whatever yours are, identify them. In the spur of the moment those losing behaviors just happen. You shrug them off, either blaming circumstance or yourself.

But if you take time and identify them… that can sometimes be all you need to change when loserliness threatens next.

I’ve got my own homebrewed journaling system for this. In fact I’ve got close to 30 separate journals, for different aspects of my life.

In each journal, I ask myself, what happened? What did I do right? What could I have done better?

This doesn’t always mean I never act like a seasoned loser. But when I do act like a loser, that goes into a journal, and maybe reduces the chance of it happening again. And if you sometimes play loser’s games… this might be worth a try for you too.

By the way, one of the journals I keep is all about interesting and novel ideas for emails. Because I write a daily email newsletter. If you’d like to read some of the ideas I write about, you can sign up for it here.

What gung-ho action takers don’t tell you

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This past weekend, a pro MMA fighter named Jeremy Stephens did something dumb.

During the ceremonial pre-fight staredown, Stephens pushed the other fighter, Drakkar Klose, hard. In fact, Stephens pushed Klose so hard that Klose got whiplash. So the fight was canceled, Klose got the win by default, and Stephens lost a paycheck.

It’s not the first time Stephens did something dumb for publicity.

A few years ago, during a big press conference that featured a bunch of MMA fighters and starred Conor McGregor, Stephens was seated all the way in the back.

At one point, a journalist asked Conor, who was sitting front and center, “Who do you think would give you the toughest fight from everybody here on stage?”

Conor paused for a second to think of an appropriately cocky answer. And in that moment, Stephens saw his opportunity — and he seized it.

“Right here,” Stephens said, pointing to himself and speaking in the third person. “The hardest hitting 145-pounder in the world. This guy knocks people out.”

The whole room went silent for a second.

And then Conor looked over both of his shoulders. And he chuckled. “Who the fuck is that guy?”

My point is this:

A lot of people say you’ve got to take your shot.

They tell you stories of how they saw their opening… went for it… and how it worked out brilliantly.

Well, it didn’t work out for Jeremy Stephens. He will always be best-known as the guy who got pwned by Conor at a press conference.

So my point is that, rather than jumping at your opportunity, make sure you’re ready. Because you only get one chance at a first impression.

And if you’re clenching your fists right now because you think I’m such a downer:

I’m not saying you should be super cautious, inert, or frightened of ever making a mistake.

But as for the question whether success comes down to careful preparation… or to bold action… the answer is always yes.

As for me:

I’ve been preparing for this moment for a long time. I think I’m ready.

So I’d like to invite you to join my email newsletter. It’s mostly about marketing and copywriting. Sometimes about MMA fighters, and what we can learn from them about life. If you’re curious and you want to give my newsletter a try, you can sign up here.

You’ve got everything it takes to motivate people

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“Come on, let’s play!”

“No you go ahead. It’s black magic to me.”

“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to it. It’s only judgment and memory. Judgment you’ve got plenty of… and didn’t you once write an article about how to remember just about anything?”

“Memory and judgment, huh? All right, I guess I could give it a try.”

In How To Win Friends And Influence People, Dale Carnegie tells a story about being roped into playing bridge with some friends. “Bridge? Oh, no! No! Not me,” said Carnegie. “I knew nothing about it.” And yet he wound up playing.

The above little dialogue gives you a clue how. Because Carnegie’s friend used a standard way of motivating and inspiring people. Speaking of which, here’s a quick aside:

For a long time, I considered myself congenitally unable to motivate or inspire people. Perhaps it’s my own lack of enthusiasm, which I was projecting outwards.

But it turns out that, just as with the broader topic of persuasion, there are formulas for motivating people and stirring them to action.

Carnegie’s friend may have known that intuitively.

But if you can read (which you can), and if you’re willing to follow a few simple directions (and why wouldn’t you be)… then you can motivate people, whether it comes intuitively or not.

Anyways, once upon a time, I collected a list of 10 such formulas for motivating and inspiring.

The tactic from Carnegie’s anecdote above, telling people they already have everything they need to succeed, is no. 1.

If you’d like to read the rest… and maybe even apply them in your own dealings with customers, clients, and perhaps your sullen friends and family… then take a look below:

https://bejakovic.com/99-problems-and-folsom-prison-blues-how-to-write-copy-that-inspires/

How the Grinch stole V-day

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Every marketer in Whoville likes Valentine’s a lot.
But this marketer from Whoville for some reason does not.
So instead of an email that ties into V-day, too,
Here’s how Chuck Jones sold the Grinch, and why it matters to you.

Let’s set the stage:

The year is 1962. Our main character is Charles Martin Jones, better known as Chuck Jones.

If you’ve ever watched Saturday morning cartoons before Cartoon Network came out, you probably know this name. Because Chuck Jones directed a bunch of the most famous Warner Brothers cartoons of all time, the ones with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.

In fact, when 1000 professional animators were asked to rank the 50 greatest cartoons of all time, Chuck Jones’s cartoons came in 10 times among the top 50… 4 times out of the top 5… and one, What’s Opera Doc?, took the number one spot.

But in 1962, that was all in the past. Because Jones was no longer at Warners, but was now at MGM. He was pushing to get a Christmas feature made, based on a book by his friend Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.

There are lots of interesting details about How the Grinch Stole Christmas went from a book to a cartoon. But there’s only one bit that’s relevant for us today:

Once Jones created the storyboard for the cartoon, he had to go and sell it. Because in those days, you didn’t pitch a show to a network. Instead you had to find sponsors first. So Jones went around town, giving presentation after presentation of his storyboard for How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

But nobody wanted it. The cereal people… the chocolate people… the sea monkey people. They all said no.

All in all, Chuck Jones had to pitch the Grinch 25 times before an unlikely group — The Foundation for Commercial Banks — finally agreed to finance it.

And then, as you probably know, the Grinch cartoon became a huge success. It’s been playing every Christmas season ever since it came out. And Dr. Seuss’s book, which sold 5,000 copies before the cartoon — not bad for a kid’s book — started selling 50,000 copies a year once the cartoon came out, and never let up.

By now this might sound like a typical story of a sleeper hit, and of the Elmer Fudds who were too dumb to recognize it. And you know what? That’s exactly what it is, and why I’m telling it to you.

Because there are too many stories like this. Star Wars… Harry Potter… The Beatles. Giant hits to which the industry experts said no, no, no.

Did you ever ask yourself why?

You might think it’s the sclerosis of industry insiders… but something else is going on. And if you’re in the business of creating offers and you want them to become big hits, then this is relevant to you too. I’ll tell you the explanation I’ve found for this mysterious phenomenon in my email tomorrow.

Want more energy, willpower, creativity? Try “walking the dog”

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I just got back from walking the dog around the neighborhood.

It’s a beautiful spring morning outside. The streets are mostly empty because there is a 3-day lockdown in place. But a few other dog walkers were out in the jungle that makes up the heart of this city, enjoying the sun and the dew and the quiet.

The dog and I came across an empanadas place that was open, in defiance of the lockdown orders. We each had an empanada — him a chicken, me a cheese. I also got a coffee (none for him). We then came back to the apartment. I’m now ready to sit down and work.

If you love dogs like I do, you might want to know more about mine. In that case, I have to tell you he is entirely made up. I don’t have a dog and I probably never will. Even so, I tell myself each day to “go and take the dog for a walk” at least once.

I do it because I’ve found going for a walk each day is important. Otherwise I become a useless sponge at home.

But if I just tell myself, “Go outside, you lazy louse,” I will often find an excuse to not do so. It’s cold, I’m tired, I don’t feel like it, it’s better for me right where I am.

Maybe you’re wondering how this might be relevant to you. So let me explain.

Different parts of the human brain are involved when we make decisions that involve ourselves and decisions that don’t.

If you need proof, then look up cases of people like Phineas Gage. Gage got a large iron rod shot through his head and lived.

People like Gage can suffer brain damage that makes it impossible for them to make sound personal decisions. And yet, when facing an impersonal problem, they can still reason and decide effectively.

And vice versa. There are people — perhaps you know some of them in real life — who are very skilled at navigating social situations and profiting as a result. But when presented with an abstract or impersonal problem, these people suddenly turn dull or even stupid.

I believe my “walking the dog” strategy takes advantage of this quirk of the human brain. I might not want to go for a walk, even though it’s good for me. But the dog? He needs to go, or he’s going to whine and pee all over the place. So I put my shoes on and we go out together so he can do his business.

You don’t have to go all crazy like I do. But you too can use a trick like this.

If there is something you know you want to do, but cannot force yourself into… then reframe it as an impersonal problem.

Imagine you’re making the decision for someone else. Or convince yourself you’re being controlled by an outside force. Or do it for the human race… for your family… or just for your pet — even if you have to make him up.

Figure out something that works for you. Because you might find you have reserves of energy, willpower, and creativity you never could access before. And you might even meet some cool people at the dog park, while you’re sitting alone and yelling at the air that it’s time to go home.

Woof.

Would you like to subscribe to my email newsletter? It’s where I share copywriting and marketing advice, along with pictures of my dog as we travel the world together. Click here to sign up.

Burn objections out of your prospect’s mind using nothing more than a tiny success

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What’s the Spanish word for “different”?

I don’t speak Spanish. But here’s a trick:

When a word in English ends in “ent,” you can tack on an “e” at the end. More often than not, you get the right Spanish word.

So try it now.

Tack an “e” onto “different.” You get “differente.” And that’s how the Spanish and about 200 million South Americans would say it in their own tongue. Same with persistente, permanente… you get the gist.

With a few simple rules like that, an English speaker gets around 3,000 words in Spanish for free.

Not bad. Definitely enough for basics of conversation. Also more than most adult language learners ever manage to memorize.

I learned about this in a teach-yourself-Spanish course called Language Transfer. This course is available for free online. But if it wasn’t… everything I just told you would be a hell of a thing to put into a sales letter to promote and sell this course.

Because demonstration is the most powerful form of proof.

And if you can demonstrate to your prospect that he’s already on his way… then much of his skepticism and doubt will disappear.

By the way, this is not limited to language learning only.

As just one example, there’s Gene Schwartz’s famous “BURN DISEASE OUT OF YOUR BODY” ad. It ran successful for over 20 years. I’m sure that part of its success was that, under subhead three, it gives you an exercise you can try for yourself. “Sit or stand, with your hands simply extended in front of your chest…” You will feel the energy flowing, and your heart getting stronger.

One final point:

You don’t need to give away the farm. Just give your prospect a tiny success, right there on the sales page. If you can do that, you will burn objections out of his mind. What’s going to be left is an innocent and pure desire to buy your product… and find out what else it can do.

Ok, now for business:

I write an email newsletter about marketing and persuasion. If you like, click here to subscribe to it.

An admission about my own incompetence

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“I’ve started to write short stories,” a friend told me today.

I asked him to tell me more.

“I wrote the first one three weeks ago. It’s about a man who believes inanimate objects have souls. So he goes around giving proper burials to chairs and tables. He finds an old wardrobe left out next to the trash and that’s when the story begins.”

I listened to him summarize the adventures of the man as he drags the wardrobe to his back yard. I leaned in and I laughed and I was pleased with the ending. Which reminds me of something I read recently,

“Genius is as common as dirt.”

That comes from an essay titled, “Against school.” John Taylor Gatto, the guy who wrote the essay, was the New York State Teacher of the Year way back when. But he turned against the school system once he realized the real problem.

It’s not apathetic kids… or underpaid teachers… or an outdated curriculum.

The problem is that the purpose of school is, first and foremost, to break kids, so they become fit to serve.

Maybe you don’t agree with this. So let it just sit there as an idea to be aware of. But here’s a personal admission:

I feel I have zero creativity or ability to solve problems. Of course, that’s not really how I am. I’ve solved problems before and I’ve created stuff, too.

But I sure feel uncreative and incompetent. I think the reason why is that, through long and arduous training in the school system, I’ve learned there is always a right answer, and you either have it at your fingertips or you don’t. And I almost never do.

Of course, having the right answer at your fingertips is not really how creativity works. And if you ever doubt your own creative abilities, maybe it will be worth turning a critical eye towards your school years, and looking for a bit of that “common as dirt” genius that’s probably sleeping somewhere inside you.

But let’s get to business:

Remember how I mentioned I create stuff on occasion? One thing I create every day is an email about copywriting, marketing, and, now and again, Marxist ideas about the education system. If you’d like to test out this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Try not to enjoy reading this post

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Hypnotist Mike Mandel says that there is a magic power word, which you can use to get people to fail. What’s more, if you find yourself using this word to describe your own actions, expect that you will fail also.

What is this magic word?

I’ll tell you but be careful. The word is “try.”

Mike has all sorts of technical explanations for the destructive power of try. But my best evidence (and maybe yours, if you give it a try) is just by looking inside my own brain software. Whenever I found myself saying, “I’ll give it a try,” or “I’ll try my best,” deep down, I found I was expecting to fail. And often, fail I did.

I’m telling you this for two reasons:

First, it might be worth kicking the word “try” out of your own vocabulary, down to the curb with the rest of the head trash. It might take some time to find other words that will express what you want to say. But when you do, you will probably find the effort was worth it.

Second, if you write copy, then you can use the word “try” to get other people to fail. Why would you want to do such a cruel thing? Well, a classic example is the three-pronged road at the end of so many sales letters:

“So here are your options now. Option one is you can go back to what you were doing before, pulling your hair out and picking at your skin while your unsolved problem mounts and your family looks at you with growing suspicion each passing day.

“​​Option two is you take the breakthrough system I’ve just described to you and TRY to implement it yourself. But you know how that’s going to turn out, don’t you?

“​​And then finally, you’ve got option three, which is to accept the risk-free offer I’m making you today. And then just try not to shout with joy when your problem is finally solved…”

Finally, I’d like to announce that I write a daily email newsletter. Try not to sign up for it. But if you find you aren’t successful, then click here and follow the instructions.

A lesson in reality for lazy copywriters

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I blame my parents. They gave me a pleasant and carefree childhood. How selfish of them.

Had they been more forward-thinking, they would have put me to work early — washing dishes after dinner, taking out the trash for my allowance, maybe even a part-time job at the local shoe-shine stand.

As it is, I never had to work until after puberty had had its way with me and then left me alone. By that time, it was too late.

I grew up lazy.

In spite of my best adult efforts to become fluent in “work,” I find that whenever I try to speak that language, I have a heavy accent and the whole thing seems unnatural.

But this email is not about me. This email is about you. Because if you’re looking to become a successful copywriter, it will take work. As Victor Schwab wrote,

“My personal nomination for a heraldic shield for the advertising business would be an obese briefcase, rampant on a field of copy paper.”

Schwab advised young ad men to pack their briefcases full of client papers and take them home for extra work, after work. Because more than talent, more than knowledge of marketing and persuasion, success at copywriting requires work.

Perhaps that thought horrifies you. So let me leave you with something more positive, this from copywriter John Carlton:

Think of yourself as being in a movie — you may not have total control over everything, but you have a lot MORE control than you naturally believe you have.

Write your script the way you want, and then go for it.

Accept reality, but never accept your own lame excuses for not making things happen with as much input from you as you could muster.

The point being, if you don’t like working long hours, you can certainly organize your life in time to avoid that.

If you want to get paid better, you can get there too, and more quickly than you think.

And if, say, you hate working for clients, there are plenty of ways to make a good living today by writing for yourself.

Sure you have to work. That’s reality. But even if you never grow to love work, you can make your life much more like you want than you imagine right now.

By the way, if you want to work at reading a message like this from me, each day, you can subscribe to my daily email newsletter.

Star Wars on Earth or elsewhere

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“It’s Star Wars on Earth!”

That’s what Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer said after reading a May 1983 article in California Magazine. The article described a special flight school for the Navy’s best pilots.

Bruckheimer knew he had to make a movie out of it. So he bought the rights to the magazine article — title, “Top Guns.” He got two screenwriters who loved flying to drop the final ‘s’ and start developing it into a script.

A couple days ago, I sent out an email with a Top Gun theme. That made me track down and rewatch a fantastic documentary I saw once on YouTube about the making of Top Gun.

The documentary is called Danger Zone. It’s got interviews with the film’s producers… the editors… the stars… the cameramen… the special effects guys… even Giorgio Moroder, the Oscar-winning composer who wrote and produced the iconic songs.

But it’s not just my boyish love of Top Gun that makes this documentary so interesting.

For one thing, it shows how complex it is to produce an hour and a half of seamless entertainment… how many specialists are involved… how much thinking lies behind seemingly simple parts… how many layers of subtlety go into even a jockish, commercial, fantasy flick.

But that’s not the biggest lesson I got from it all.

The biggest lesson — and what I want share with you tonight — is the role of chance and obstacles in the final result.

I won’t retell all the “this can’t possibly work” stories from the making of Top Gun. Watch the documentary for that. But if you’re interested in doing any kind of complex, creative work, the lesson is timeless:

Things will break. There will be deviations from your original plan. You will run into obstacles that threaten the very project.

That’s all normal. Expect it. Accept it. And with a bit of luck and good timing, the final result you produce will be stronger for it — Star Wars, in whatever market or niche you’re in.

Finally, here’s a blockbuster recommendation:

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