Personal Change

Is there anything earthbreaking here?

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Comes a question about my ongoing MyPEEPS promotion, which ends tomorrow night:

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I know you’re selling this course as an affiliate offer.

I’m wondering if you actually learned anything new in the course or was it just a suite of fundamentals.

I’m asking because I’ve taken a number of courses in Ad buying, and most say much the same thing.

There are nuances in approaches… occasionally there’s a course that has an epiphany – something truly earthbreaking. Something that makes you go “wow…. Aha!” For me, ad temperature levels when I first heard it was interesting. I also appreciated TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU links on campaigns that I learned in another course. MintCRO’s approach for deconstructing Ads to landers was interesting – engineered, but interesting.

I’m asking you because I’ve feel you’re earnest in your emails.

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I am indeed earnest in my emails, to the point of often telling people not to buy offers that I’m promoting.

Which is what’s gonna happen here.

Because rather than, “Is there anything new here,” I think there are better questions to ask first.

Such as, how is your list doing? How many people sign up on average every day? Is that enough? If not, how are you planning to grow it in the future? And how confident are you that it will work out?

If you are happy with how things are and where they are going, great.

In that case, I would say there’s no sense in taking me up on this offer, whether or not it has anything new in it. Go attack some more promising opportunity instead, or just take the afternoon off.

On the other hand, if your list is not where you want it to be, and you have doubts around how to change that, then MyPEEPS offers a simple method, backed by Travis Speegle’s 20+ years as a media buyer, and the millions of leads he has generated for various businesses.

Plus, the “work alongside me” bonus I’m offering is there to make sure MyPEEPS doesn’t just become another set of ideas that you appreciate and find interesting… but to help you take Travis’s system, put it to use, and grow your list, so you have enough people to write to, and enough people to sell to.

And now, to answer the original question:

I haven’t been through a lot of courses on ad buying, so things that are new to me might not be new to you.

If you must have something new, two things come to mind right now.

One is at the very start of MyPEEPS, how Travis thinks about lead magnets and optin offers.

It was an “aha” to me — a new perspective I hadn’t really seen before, in spite of 10+ years of various copy and marketing books and courses.

I can imagine this simple “aha” can make all the difference in coming up with ad campaigns that work as opposed to ones that flop, and that won’t unflop, even with all the sexy tweaks and tactics that you might want to pay thousands of dollars for.

The other “new” thing for me came at the end of MyPEEPS. It was Travis’s “Reverse Course” method. I had never heard of this method before, nor even considered it. And yet:

Travis has been running one such “Reverse Course” campaign, without any change, using the same ads, for 8 years now.

He just did it again a few days ago, and brought in 40k new leads over two weeks.

When Travis runs this campaign, it typically breaks even or makes money on day zero.

And unlike many ad campaigns that run at such a scale, Travis’s “Reverse Course” campaigns actually create a huge amount of good will, instead of the usual irritation and trolling.

The “Reverse Course” method won’t be right for every business. But it is new, and for the right business or list, it is clearly very valuable.

Like I said, I wouldn’t get MyPEEPS just to find out what the “Reverse Course” method is. I would get MyPEEPS because you intend to put it to use and get value out of it.

But one way or another:

The deadline to take me up on MyPEEPS and get the free bonus — community and my ongoing support as you go — is tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

If you wanna take me up on this offer, or for the full details of how the support element works:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

The “crazy idea” I keep ranting about on Skool

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This week I launched my first-ever Skool group, helping a bunch of list owners start running ads to grow their email lists, including email lists about:

* Guitar

* Horse training

* Electronic music

* Language learning

* Real estate investing

* Weight loss and fitness

* And of course a number of marketing-, copywriting-, and online creators-related lists

My Skool group is only in a kind of pre-launch — it officially kicks off next Monday — but I’ve already been giving members feedback on their lead magnets and landing pages.

Well, “giving feedback” is too kind for what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been foaming at the mouth, banging on the table, and barking the exact same command, to different frightened group members, over and over.

It’s a “crazy idea” that somehow nobody is willing to actually put to use, not unless I yell.

This “crazy idea” is not hard to use.

The trouble is, we all feel we are using it when in fact we are not.

That includes me — I often fail to put this “crazy idea” to use, and I pay the price each time, because it makes the difference between advertising that gets a good response at an affordable rate… and advertising that gets zero response, or that gets response from the exact wrong people.

Fortunately for me, it’s easier to see and solve other people’s problems than it is to see and solve your own. That’s why I’ve been liking this Skool group.

But back to the “crazy idea.”

You might think it’s something like “tell them what’s in it for them” or “use curiosity” or “get their attention.”

NO!!!

None of those! How could you even think something like that?? Bah…

(I’m trying to give you a flavor for the tone I take inside the Skool group.)

No, the reality is, this “crazy idea” is something more mechanical, something you can do right now to produce copy that is infinitely more like to perform, and get you the right audience, at an affordable price you can scale.

And now, I’ll make you a deal.

The deadline to take me up on Travis Speegle’s MyPEEPS list building course, which my Skool group is a free bonus for, is this Sunday at 12 midnight PST.

If you’d like to sign up for MyPeeps and get into the Skool group, you can do so at the link below:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

But if you would not like to sign up for MyPEEPS or get into my Skool group as a free bonus, at least not yet, then hit reply and tell me your #1 objection or hesitation. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings even if you are brutally honest.

I would like to hear what’s been holding you back, and you will help me close out this promo.

In return, I will write you back and tell you the “crazy idea” I’ve been teasing this whole email. In other words, I’ll reveal the #1 piece of feedback I’ve been giving inside the Skool group so far, and probably will keep giving as we launch for real next week.

Last call for tonight’s mystery bonus

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One of the pros of working as a freelance copywriter is that, along with getting paid, you basically get a free MBA.

I knew nothing about business before I got started as a copywriter.

But offer to write a sales page for somebody… and they will take you behind the curtains of their business and tell you everything — how they get their customers… what they sell them… what they really sell them, after that first sale… how much they charge… what has worked… what hasn’t.

You can ask whatever you want, however intrusive, and the client will answer, in detail, and truthfully.

I don’t miss much about working with clients, but this ongoing business education is one thing I do miss.

Good thing is, coaching people — successful business owners, or copywriters working with successful businesses — is almost as good.

So for example:

A few months ago, one of the copywriters I coached inside Shiv Shetti’s PCM mastermind was writing an email promo for a business coach.

The business coach was selling a $5k program. You had to get on a sales call to get in the program.

So far, so standard.

The one unusual thing was that the business coach offered a sexy bribe just to get people onto the sales call.

Whether or not that’s a smart thing to do is a question for another time.

For now, all I’ll say is that, thanks to coaching the copywriter in charge of this promo, I actually got to look inside the sexy bribe. It was a “plug-and-play email funnel” to 1) generate passive income and 2) get more qualified leads on your email list.

I can tell you this:

* The strategy was really far from being anything NEW

* Calling it “passive income” was a bit of a stretch, or at least creative repackaging

But the truth remains, this little email “funnel” was highly valuable for this business coach and her clients.

And it also happens to be something I have used myself, on multiple occasions, for years now, to offset the cost of ads I was running to various email lists, or even to remove those costs altogether.

I will be revealing this little “funnel” in a mystery bonus that will disappear at 12 midnight PST tonight.

In case you are interested, the time to move is now. And in case you have successfully managed to avoid all my emails about this offer until now, the details are below:

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The background:

I will be building up a new list I’ve launched via paid ads, starting at $10-$15 a day, and aiming to get 10-15 subscribers for that money.

If you like, you can follow the same process I will be following (a course by an expert list builder, which costs $495), plus you can get my live copywriting feedback and marketing insight as a free bonus.

Like I wrote yesterday, I will be promoting this offer for another week.

But if you decide you want to jump in by the end of today, at 12 midnight PST, I will do two things:

1. I will put you into the Skool community as soon as I open it up on Monday

2. I’ll give you a special mystery bonus to say thanks. This special mystery bonus is about a strategy that’s not covered in the list-building blueprint I will be following… but a strategy that I’ve used in the past to offset the cost of running ads, and in some cases even eliminate it

Of course, don’t decide now if want to join me or not. Simply decide if this sounds interesting to you, and and if it does, hit reply and say so. I can get you the full details, and you can decide then, and maybe even in time for today’s mini-deadline.

Sunday morning startler

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This morning I went out for my usual walk, and as I stepped out the elevator at the bottom of my building, I felt something odd inside my shoe, right at the toe.

Probably just my sock crumpled up? Or maybe a pebble?

I sat down on the stairs to investigate.

I took off my shoe and shook it. Nothing fell out.

I looked inside. Nothing.

I reached to straighten out my sock and— GAH!! — I instinctively threw something away.

In the dim light of the building lobby, I took a closer look at what I had just touched and tossed.

It turned out to be a live gecko that had been stuck to my sock. It must have crawled into my shoe during the night and gone to sleep.

It’s no big mystery how the gecko got inside my shoe.

The Mediterranean house gecko is endemic to the Barcelona area.

I’ve often seen the little guys inching their way up the outside walls of my building.

For the record, I live on the 9th floor.

It must take a whole evening for a gecko to slowly make his way up the wall to where I live. But I guess it doesn’t matter to them. They like high places… time is passing anyhow… and so they might as well climb.

Now that I’ve opened up this fascinating topic, let me go full-gecko:

You might know the Geico Gecko slogan, “15 minutes could save you 15% on your car insurance.”

Well, I got an update for you:

“$10-$15 could get you 10-15 new subscribers on your email list.”

For the past few days, I’ve been promoting a new offer with that promise. The background:

I will be building up a new list I’ve launched via paid ads, starting at $10-$15 a day, and aiming to get 10-15 subscribers for that money.

If you like, you can follow the same process I will be following (a course by an expert list builder, which costs $495), plus you can get my copywriting feedback and marketing insight as a free bonus.

10-15 new subscribers a day is not exactly a rocket launch.

But like my shoe gecko shows, a bit of progress, repeated consistently, gets you up to high places, and sooner than you might think.

Like I wrote yesterday, I will be promoting this offer for another week.

But if you decide you want to jump in by the end of today, at 12 midnight PST, I will do two things:

1. I will put you into the Skool community as soon as I open it up on Monday

2. I’ll give you a special mystery bonus to say thanks. This special mystery bonus is about a strategy that’s not covered in the list-building blueprint I will be following… but a strategy that I’ve used in the past to offset the cost of running ads, and in one case even eliminate it

Of course, don’t decide now if want to join me or not. Simply decide if this sounds interesting to you, and and if it does, hit reply and say so. I can get you the full details, and you can decide then, and maybe even in time for today’s mini-deadline.

Just suck it up

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HER: “Are you upset with me?”

ME: “No, I’m just in a bad mood.”

HER: “What’s wrong?”

ME: “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

HER: “Ok… but is it something I did?”

ME: “No, but I really don’t want to discuss it.”

HER: “I see… but maybe I can help? If you would just tell me what’s wrong…”

This is the kind of conversation I’ve had a thousand and one times with various girlfriends.

Whenever I’m feeling upset, bad, uncertain, miserable, the last thing I want to do is discuss it.

In my experience, bad moods tend to pass — sleep fixes almost anything.

​​But when I try to give a form to my bad moods, when I crystalize the dark clouds in my head into little droplets called words, then somehow all that negativity becomes real and permanent. And if I go one step beyond, and share those words with somebody else, it becomes doubly real and permanent.

HER: “Are you still feeling bad about X?”

ME: No. [thinking to myself, no, I wasn’t, until now.]

This is not to put the blame on any of my ex gfs. I know they were just trying to help. I also know I’m the odd one out, and that most people actually feel better when they discuss what’s bothering them.

BUT!

I was still pleased to come across a study a while back, published in the prestigious journal Science, that pretty much backed me up.

Two cognitive scientists at Cambridge had a hypothesis that suppressing negative thoughts not only would not harm mental health… but would actually improve it.

They set up an experiment where they trained some 120 people, across 6 countries, in the techniques of sucking it up. The result was just as they predicted:

– no paradoxical increase in negative thoughts
– less frequent, less vivid, and less anxiety-producing negative thoughts

So there you go — just suck it up.

Or don’t.

It’s likely that this Cambridge study is just a swing of the pendulum. We’ve been told for so long that it’s important to express what you feel, it was inevitable somebody somewhere would try to say otherwise.

And I’m sure that if you like to talk things out when you feel bad, there are plenty of studies to back you up also.

Maybe it’s just like Walker Percy said, that modern science cannot say anything about you specifically as an individual.

That’s my bit of inspiration for you for this Sunday.

​​If you want some more, you can find it in my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Most of those commandments have to do with copywriting and marketing. But a few have to do with thinking and living. As you can imagine, those are the most valuable ones. If you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The myth of mindfulness for the overworked and overstressed

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True story:

Before my mom retired, she was a pediatrician.

​​The small pediatric hospital where she worked kept piling on more and more patients, year after year, while not increasing the number of doctors.

My mom, and all the other doctors at the hospital, had to work longer and longer hours, hurry more and stress more, sleep less and think less.

Eventually, a kind of doctors’ mutiny formed. The doctors pushed back against the administration, saying that this was irresponsible, that they cannot handle the load any more, that patient care was suffering.

The administrators listened and nodded with understanding. “You’re absolutely right,” they said. “Something has to change.”

And so next week, the administration brought in a mindfulness coach to conduct a mindfulness training, and teach the overworked and overstressed doctors to breathe in more deeply, express their gratitude more freely, and work more efficiently during their 13-hour shifts.

I’m telling you this because maybe you’re telling yourself, “I’m not getting enough done. I’m too slow.”

And maybe you are — God knows I am.

But maybe you are just working too much. If so, no amount of productivity and efficiency training will help, and the only real solution is simply to work less.

This isn’t about mindfulness, but a change in how you make money… the kinds of clients or customers you work with… how much you charge them… and where you draw the line about what’s acceptable and what’s not.

Those are big questions. I won’t pretend I have all the answers for you, or a push-button Jack-in-the-box that will give you those answers.

But since this is a newsletter about marketing, let me point out some relevant facts:

– It’s easier to have time if you can sell to hundreds or thousands of people in parallel

– It’s easier to charge more if you have a captive pocket of people who look to you as an authority

– It’s easier to draw the line if you know for certain you’re not beholden to any one customer or client, because there’s more of them out there, and you know how to get at them

There are different ways to take advantage of these facts, and to make them work for you.

My personal choice is to have a small online audience, in the form of an email list, and to write them daily emails, and to make offers to them on occasion.

I’ll have an offer about building up an email list soon. Meanwhile, if you want to know how I write emails, and make offers inside them, and how you can do the same:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

The Golden Triangle of Success

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In software development, a field in which I spent the salad days of my life, there’s a meme known as the Iron Triangle. It’s about how software is developed, and it says:

“Fast, cheap, good — pick two”​​

Yesterday, I fielded interest in a new offer, “Work alongside me to launch or build up your list via paid traffic.”

In a nutshell, I’m about to start building up a new list via paid traffic. And if you like, you can work alongside me to launch or build up your own list… follow the same process I’m following… plus get my feedback and input on your ad copy and lead magnets etc.

I got a good number of people expressing interest in that.

But inevitably, I also had a few people write in, saying they are not sure if they have the money.

To which I thought up a kind of Golden Triangle of Success, similar but different to the Iron Triangle above. The Golden Triangle says:

“Time, effort, money — pick two”

This is similar to the Iron Triangle — because you pick any two for guaranteed success. One will not do.

But it’s also different to the Iron Triangle because this is about requirements on inputs, rather than constraints on outputs.

​​In other words, pick two — or three. You can have all three corners of the Golden Triangle.

But what if you don’t?

What if you don’t have the money corner, specifically?

No shame in that. Was a time when I was in the same situation. You can get up and out of it with enough effort and time.

On the other hand, if you’re simply not sure whether you have the money to invest in an asset like an email list, then the Golden Triangle of Success might give you a different way to look at your situation.

In any case, if you’re interested in the offer I made yesterday, to work alongside me to build up your list, write in and let me know. I want to hear your situation and get your feedback as I decide on the final form of how this will work.

The most likely solution to all your problems

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At the risk of sounding like an idiot, let me pay off today’s subject line by telling you about my olive tree:

I have a small olive tree on my balcony. It arrived as a present for my birthday two years ago.

(Btw, if you ever want to get me a present I’ll love, a plant is a good bet.)

Right now, my olive tree is thriving. It’s got lots of healthy leaves. Small shoots are popping out everywhere. There’s even one green olive that’s maturing, which I’m planning to cure when it’s fully ripe.

But earlier this year, my olive tree was only causing me worry.

Each day, I went out onto the balcony to inspect it. Leaf after leaf was turning yellow and falling off. No new shoots were visible anywhere. At this pace, my olive would soon become barren and die.

I stood there each day, inspecting my olive tree and worrying.

Was it some kind of fungal infection? Had the soil become depleted? Was it bad feng shui?

It was only after weeks or maybe months of this that it occurred to me that the olive tree might be parched for water.

I mean, it’s sitting on my balcony, exposed to the blasting Barcelona sun, for many hours a day, day after day. Maybe a cup or two of water, twice a week, just wasn’t enough for all the heat?

That’s why I said I risked sounding like an idiot.

I told you how healthy and thriving my olive tree is today. Watering it every day is the only change I made from then to now.

Watering a plant is the most obvious thing to do to keep it alive and healthy. And yet, I thought of every other rare and novel explanation first, while my olive tree turned yellow and withered.

Now that I’ve risked sounding like an idiot, let me risk sounding like your mother:

Maybe don’t have an olive tree. But maybe there’s another area of life that’s struggling, withering, or causing you worry. Maybe it’s family, or your health, or your business.

A rare and novel explanation might really lie behind your problems.

But more likely, there’s a common, obvious explanation to it all.

You can’t keep going the way you’ve been going, inspecting and worrying. Most likely, you just gotta water more regularly – or do whatever the equivalent is for the problem you’re seeing.

But enough gardening wisdom. On to sales:

Maybe you have a business. Maybe you’re working too hard, or you’re not making consistent sales, not as many as you’d like.

What’s the real reason?

Maybe you need to optimize your ads… or increase the conversion rate on your landing pages… or innovate and come up with totally new products, new funnels, new sources of traffic.

Maybe.

Or maybe just gotta get your existing customers to pay you more frequently. Maybe you just gotta email them more, instead of allowing them to wither away. And if you want something to make your emailing easier and faster:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

You, me, Affiliate World?

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Are you going to Affiliate World? If you are, let me know. I need the encouragement.

I’ve been reading about sales trainer David Sandler’s “traps for success.”

For example, when Sandler used to cold call on prospects at their offices, he would park his car in a downtown garage, knowing he only had enough money on him to pay for either lunch or parking.

He liked lunch, and so he spent his money during the day.

That would mean he’d have to make some sales calls, and close at least one, and get at least a few dollars of deposit, if he wanted to get his car out of the garage and drive home at the end of the day.

That’s why I’m asking if you’re going to Affiliate World.

I already know some people who are going. I’ve thought about it myself.

Last year, I went to two live marketing-related events. After each was done, I was juiced and I told myself I should do this more often. Plus this year Affiliate World’s happening in Budapest. I love Budapest — I lived there for 11 years.

At the same time, thinking about being herded onto a plane… and staying in some dungeon-like Airbnb… and paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege of feeling guilty if I don’t talk to a bunch of strangers… all that’s making me hesitate.

So I’ve set a trap for myself. I’ve told myself I will go to Affiliate World if at least five people I know will also be there.

That’s why I’m writing you. Will you be there?

Let me know. We can meet, talk marketing, or not talk marketing — after all, there are many other interesting things to talk about.

And maybe I can even show you around. Or not show you around — after all, maybe you truly enjoy talking to a bunch of strangers, and it sounds like Affiliate World will be a very stimulating place.

When ROUS were real

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If you’re a fan of The Princess Bride the way that I am, then you’ll know the fire swamp.

The fire swamp is a place in the kingdom of Florin, where The Princess Bride is set. Nobody has entered the place and lived to tell the tale.

That’s because the fire swamp holds three perils.

The first is sudden bursts of flame from the ground. Those aren’t so bad, because they make a deep popping sound right before they explode.

The second is Lightning Sand. It swallows you up and sucks you in, like you’re falling through a cloud. Lightning Sand is very dangerous but rare.

The third is ROUS. In the words of Westley, the protagonist of The Princess Bride:

“Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.”

… but of course they do. Right as Westley says that ROUS are just a matter of legend, a giant, pig-sized rodent launches itself at him and a deadly struggle ensues.

I thought this was all just a wonderful bit of fantasy. But like Westley, I thought that ROUS don’t exist, not really.

It turns out they do. For real. William Goldman, who wrote The Princess Bride, was a compulsive researcher. He probably found out decades ago what I found out just a few days ago.

There’s a place in the Amazon where ROUS live, right now.

The locals call these beasts ariranha, and Spanish-speakers call them lobos del río. They grow up to 1.5 meters in length, with an additional 70cm for the long and thin tail. While they aren’t technically “rodents,” they are carnivorous, they look very much like the ROUS in The Princess Bride, and for all I know, they love the taste of human flesh.

At this point, it would be wise to tie this into some lesson about copywriting and marketing.

The fact is, I really just wanted to share this fact, that ROUS really exist. I think it’s wonderful that there are large mammals I have never heard of, and that fantasy and wonder still exist in the world.

But let me work a little, and try to make this relevant to you too.

Yesterday, I wrote an email in which I tied in a snippet I had heard from marketer Ryan Lee into my own offer, which was looking for a partner for my longevity newsletter.

A bunch of people wrote me about the partner offer.

But a couple people also wrote me about the email itself. They liked how I had managed to connect the Ryan Lee quote with my own offer. How to do that? And do I have a system for it?

I actually do have a system. I even created a training out of it, called Insight Exposed. But I only rarely sell that training because I suspect that, while this Insight Exposed system has been tremendously useful and valuable to me, it’s not something that I can actually transfer to other people. At least that’s the my sense, based on the feedback (or lack of it) I’ve gotten for Insight Exposed, compared to my other trainings like Copy Riddles and Most Valuable Email.

So I decided to do something different.

Next Tuesday, August 20 at 8pm CET/2pm EST/9am PST, I will hold an AMA — Ask Me Anything — about the topic of research, notetaking, and “creativity.”

The AMA will be live on Zoom. You can register for it simply by clicking the link below.

There won’t be a free replay. If you cannot make it live, I can give you the first step of my system, which is simply to keep an eye out on your own reactions. “ROUS? Are real? That’s wonderful!” Write that down, and you never know when you might be able to use it.

Maybe that’s enough to get you going. But maybe you sitll have questions. If you, you can get me to answer them on the AMA. Here’s the link. Click it, and I’ll let you into the Zoomery when the time comes:

[Get real, you gotta be on my list for this. If you wanna sign up: https://bejakovic.com/]