Personal Change

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:

===

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:

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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.

Future Pacing Club

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In 2019, FEMA concluded that there were only two kinds of natural disaster that could bring down the entire system everywhere all at once.

The first is a pandemic.

I’m reading an article about the second one right now.

I’m not sure if there has already been a financial promo around this topic, but it seems custom-made for it:

A small, remote laboratory, filled with elite scientists who all have ties to the U.S. military…

… mysterious, almost supernatural events — “electric fluid” seeping out from appliances, spontaneous fires bursting out, telegraph messages being sent via unplugged equipment…

… and of course, really big consequences. Like REALLY big. This isn’t “End of America” we’re talking about. This is “End of World.”

Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before.

I’m talking about coronal mass ejections and solar flares, or in one term, solar storms.

If you do write financial, and if this isn’t an idea that’s already been exploited, then maybe you can use it as a hook for a promo.

I don’t write financial copy, never have, and imagine never will.

But the article I’m reading did spark excitement and interest in me. Solar storms happen in 11-year cycles, from low to high. We are currently at the high, so you can expect major solar-related snafus between now and 2025.

And if a catastrophic solar storm doesn’t happen now, it might happen in 2035, or really any time between — because just like storms on Earth, solar storms don’t confine themselves just to storm seasons.

All this gave me an idea. I called this idea Future Pacing Club.

I personally enjoy finding out, researching, and thinking about current trends and what the future might bring.

It’s not just idle chin-stroking, either. This kind of info can be valuable – as marketing fodder, in spotting new business opportunities, or simply in knowing to stockpile cans of beans and tuna in anticipation for the hell that’s coming. (Actually, never mind about that last one.)

Of course, there’s only so many trends I will spot, and most of my interpretations of where the future will go will be limited or most likely wrong.

That’s why I had the idea for an exclusive club, to make this an activity shared among a few interested, smart, invested people.

So if 1) you work in marketing, if have your own business, or if you invest, and 2) if you’re interested in a place to get exposed to current trends and what the future might bring, then maybe such a club could be interesting to you too?

I don’t know. But if does sound interesting, reply to this email and let me know.

I definitely won’t create and run something like this just for myself. I would also want it to feel exclusive, intimate, and valuable.

I’m not sure yet how that might work. ​​

But if there’s interest, and the right kind of interest, then maybe something can come of this idea, and maybe it could be valuable and interesting for you too. The only way to know is to reply to this email.

In the words of Robert Collier:

“But remember, in the great book of Time there is but one word — ‘NOW'” — so drop your reply in an email now.

How to write a better cold outreach message

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Today, I got an email from somebody I don’t know with the subject line, “Need an intern?” I opened it. It read:

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Hi John,

I think I originally came across you via a Google search after reading Peter Tzemis’s blog. I like your writing style, and I was curious if you need anyone to help you with anything? I want to get hands on experience with direct response.

I currently write on [link to guy’s personal musings Substack]. Let me know if this is of any interest to you.

===

I heard marketer Sean D’Souza say a smart thing once.

If you have a problem in your business, says Sean, don’t work on fixing it. Instead, work on fixing somebody else’s business.

Somehow, we’re all blinded by our own unique circumstances. It makes it hard to see the right thing to do.

It’s much easier when looking at other people’s circumstances. Figure out how to help others, and you figure out how to help yourself.

I’m telling you this because maybe you would like to connect with people you don’t know.

Maybe you’re looking for clients, or for an opportunity to get your message out, or you’re just trying to build your network.

Cold email can open lots of doors. But maybe it’s not opening doors for you right now.

So here’s your chance.

Figure out how you might fix the approach of the guy who wrote me above.

I can tell you I didn’t take him up on him on his intern offer.

​​In fact, I didn’t even respond to his email, and I make a habit of responding to almost everyone who writes me.

What could he have done differently?

Think about it, and maybe you can help yourself. And if you like, write in with your best idea, and I can tell you my opinion on whether it would have made a difference or no.

You are most probably a cat person

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Yesterday at 3:55pm, I stacked two books under my laptop for a more flattering camera angle, did one final check of my hair, and fired up Zoom.

I was doing a call with Kieran Drew for people who bought his High Impact Writing course.

​​This part of Kieran’s birthday bash series, where he interviewed five people who make their living by writing, including 8-figure course creator Olly Richards, email marketer Chris Orzechowski, and A-list copywriter David Deutsch. And me. ​​

The conversation with Kieran ran for more than an hour. I really enjoyed it.

I will tell you one bit that came up early, and kept coming up in various guises, because it’s probably relevant to you.

Kieran said how social media, in spite of the success it’s given him, drives him crazy.

​​I said how I, in spite of managing my little email business without the help of social media, get pangs of envy when I see how well Kieran’s doing thanks to Twitter and LinkedIn.

And so it goes.

I know agency owners who want to become high-ticket coaches. High-ticket coaches who want to become course creators. Course creators who want to start up an agency.

Legendary curmudgeon Dan Kennedy once summed it up by saying, “People are like cats. They always want to be in the other room.”

At this point, you might expect me to get all preachy and say, ​​”You gotta be happy with whatchu got… you gotta keep your nose down and persist at what you’re doing… you gotta stop yourself from getting distracted by the greenness of your neighbors lawn…”

But like another famous curmudgeon, William Shakespeare, once said, “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

There’s nothing inherently bad about the fact we’re always looking for new opportunities, improvements, or simply a change from what we already have.

It’s just a part of life.

And rather than saying that’s not how it should be, it makes more sense, to me at least, to accept it adjust to it. To be aware of the drive to go into the other room, to be selective about when you respond to that drive, and to realize that the same drive will most probably crop up even in that other room.

And if you want, you can start practicing that right now.

Because until tomorrow, Saturday, at 12 midnight PST, I have a special, free, other-room bonus if you buy my Simple Money Emails course.

The bonus is the “lite” version of Matt Giaro’s $397 course Subscribers From Scratch. It will show you how Matt grew his email list, with high-quality subscribers who paid for themselves, via little newsletter ads.

I’ve tried this strategy myself in the past, and it worked great for me. I got hundreds of new subscribers, and most often they paid for themselves on day zero.

So if you are sick of social media as a means of growing your list, or if you never wanted to get on social media to start with, then Matt’s course can show you a real alternative.

That said, this newsletter ad approach has its own downsides as well.

Like all other means of growing your list, it will require some work to set up.

Like all other means of growing your list, it will require some work to keep going.

And unlike many other means of growing your list, say Facebook ads or even social media, newsletter ads won’t ever get you tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

But if you want to get a few dozen or a few hundred new subscribers at a time, and you want to get subscribers who actually read your stuff and buy your offers, then newsletter ads can be a good option.

And Matt’s course will show you how to do it.

Again, you get it as a free bonus if you get Simple Money Emails by the deadline, tomorrow, Saturday, at 12 midnight PST. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/​​

P.S. ​​If you bought Simple Money Emails previously, this offer applies to you as well. So does the deadline.

​​You should have gotten an email from me with instructions on how to claim Matt’s Subscribers From Scratch Lite. If you didn’t get the email, then write me and I will sort it out.

Far ahead of the pack

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It’s Sunday today, and since I live in Spain, that means the world wakes up slowwwwly. But not this morning.

This morning, around 9am, I was in my living room when I heard whistling downstairs. Angry, insistent whistling.

This wasn’t some preteen girls — in my experience, the usual whistlers in my neighborhood. It didn’t sound like them, and it was too early. I went out on the balcony to investigate.

It turns out there was a race to be run. I’m guessing a 10K.

My building is right on the corner of Avinguda Diagonal, the main avenue that cuts across Barcelona. The runners were supposed to run down Diagonal.

The whistling appears to have been a police officer who had spotted a parked car trying to sneak onto the avenue and into the race course.

As I stood on the balcony, a pace car passed by. A few moments later, two cops on motorcycles followed, with their sirens flashing. And then came the front runner.

He zoomed by.

​​After him, there was a minute or two of absolutely nobody.

Then, finally, a couple more runners in second and third place. I’m guessing the rest of the field was far behind.

This reminded me of last year’s Barcelona marathon, which I also witnessed from my balcony.

At around 10am, a small group of Kenyans and Ethiopians ran by my building. After them, there was nobody.

I lost interest and went back inside. I read for a while. I got dressed. I went for a walk to the beach. I came back. It was around noon by this time.

And as I was coming back to my building, I saw the rest of the field — thousands of people, wearing funny costumes, pushing wheelchairs, getting cheered on — jogging along where the Kenyans and Ethiopians had sprinted by, almost two hours earlier.

All that’s to say, most of us can run. But there’s levels to it.

There’s me, trotting along for about 200 yards before saying, screw this.

There’s recreational joggers.

There’s serious hobbyists who do triathlons.

There’s professional runners.

And then, there’s the small group of Kenyans and Ethiopians, far ahead of the pack, winning the biggest races and setting records.

Mmmm… maybe it’s the same with your chosen profession?

I don’t know what you do. But I can tell you I did direct response copywriting as a profession for a number of years.

I thought I was pretty good at it. In fact, I know I was. Still am. Pretty good. But there’s levels to it.

I’ve never competed at the highest levels, against the best-of-the-best copywriters, for the biggest prizes. And maybe that’s a good thing. Statistically speaking, odds are good I would get my ass handed to me.

Because there’s levels to it.

The good news is, unlike marathon running, writing copy can be a slowwww and deliberate activity.

Yes, there is creativity and talent involved. That’s a part of what sets the A-list copywriters apart from everyone else who might just be pretty good.

But there are also learnable strategies. Tricks. Even hacks, which the A-listers use that you don’t use.

But you could use them. If you only knew them. And you could profit from them.

Because unlike in marathon running, the prizes from sales copy don’t just go to the top three Kenyans or Ethiopians.

If you can take one or two strategies from the very best copywriters, and apply them to what you’re doing, it could be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to you.

That might sound like hype and exaggeration. But it’s just the nature of direct marketing, where a small advantage, multiplied over a large number of prospects, can produce a lot of wealth quickly.

So would you be interested in owning the strategies, tricks, and hacks of the very best A-list copywriters, the ones who are far ahead of the pack?

​​If so, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/academy/cr/

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

$100 for your failing idea

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Yesterday, I wrote about one idea from Jon Spoelstra’s book Ice To The Eskimos.

Well, brace yourself, because today, I got… another. Says Spoelstra:

“Pay bonuses for failure”

Spoelstra believed that the best companies any business could imitate were high-tech companies, because high-tech companies have to constantly innovate.

How do you innovate?

You gotta have ideas.

How do you have ideas?

You gotta get over the notion that’s been beaten into so many of us — via previous jobs, via decades of being at the mercy of professional teachers who accomplished nothing in life except a teaching diploma, and via that smarty-pants girl named Lydia, who always raised her hand in class, and was so smug about it — that there is always a right answer and a wrong answer, and while it’s good to have the right answer, it’s catastrophic to have the wrong answer.

In other words, people are afraid of failure.

​​Of sounding and looking dumb.

Deadly afraid of it.

Not good for coming up with new ideas.

So you gotta coax them out of their hardened protective shell.

Spoelstra’s method was to actually pay people extra for failing ideas. If somebody on his team tossed out an idea that went on to be a proven failure, the tosser-outer would get a monetary prize.

This is how the Nets (the NBA team Spolestra was working with) came up with innovations of all kinds — some small, others worth millions of dollars to the franchise, all of them previously unimaginable to anyone.

I read this. And I told myself, “I should try doing the same.”

Then I told myself, “No, that would be crazy. It would never work.”

Then I told myself, “Perfect. Sounds like a great experiment to try.”

So here’s my offer to you today:

Send me an idea. If it fails, I’ll send you $100.

A few added rules to give some structure to this offer:

1. Let’s limit the scope to ideas about how I could make more money, specifically via this newsletter, or the courses and trainings I’ve created for it, or the coaching I offer on and off.

2. I will pay you $100 if I actually put your idea in practice and find it does NOT work.

​​For that to happen, your idea has to be credible enough and tempting enough that I actually want to give it a try.

​​As a negative example, “Sell meth via email” sounds vaguely criminal, and I would not want to attempt it, even if it’s to prove you wrong.

As a second negative example, ​​”Start a YouTube channel” is so broad, open-ended, and intimidating-sounding that I would not choose to tackle it, even though there might be a perfectly failing idea hiding there.

3. What do you get if I try out your idea and it turns into a smashing success? You get the pleasure of seeing your intelligence manifested in the world. Plus, I will put you on the throne of the kingdom of Bejakovia for a day, and all the happy citizens will know your name, and the great deeds you have accomplished.

So there you go.

$100 for your failing idea.

Take a bit of time. Think about what you know about my newsletter, my assets, my skills. Think about what you know about internet marketing in general.

Come up with an idea how I could do better. Send it to me. And if it fails, it pays.

Back 7 years in time, to my lean and hungry freelancing days

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Day 3 in Lisbon. Yesterday, I ambled to a factory area outside the center, which has been converted into a bunch of restaurants and design shops. As soon as I stepped into this area, a strange feeling swept over me…

I had been here before.

I had been to Lisbon one time before, for two days, seven years ago, back in 2017.

Back then, I still drank alcohol and much of the trip was a blur — either horribly hung over, or drinking more to try to cope with the hangover.

This time, when coming to Lisbon, I tried remembering where I had been and what I had done during those two days back in 2017. I couldn’t remember. But yesterday, I knew at least one thing I had done. I had been to this factory area before.

“And there’s a Mexican restaurant somewhere around here,” I said to myself.

Sure enough, there was a Mexican restaurant right where I suspected it should be. I walked inside. It had a boxing ring right in the middle of it, with a dining table in the middle of the ring, and lucha libre decoration on the walls. I recognized this place. I had eaten here before.

Somehow, out of about 50 million restaurants in Lisbon, I had managed to accidentally stumble into the same restaurant I had been in seven years earlier.

And now for some entirely different news:

Yesterday, I asked my readers what frustration they are currently having.

I got a good number of responses including some unexpected ones:

“… son is now talking about having a PS5 despite only having had a Nintendo Switch for a matter of days.”

“Right now, I’m in Warsaw, and I’m shocked by how nice and kind the girls here are. As a result, I hate the idea of going back to [home town] and trying to date there.”

​​​”My greatest frustration is watching people who have never opened a book in their lives create million-dollar companies.”

On the other hand, many of the reported frustrations were not a surprise. They came from both business owners and copywriters, and were some variant of “I’m looking for more clients or customer or leads.”

Somehow, not very accidentally, by asking this question, I managed to stumble back into the same worry-cloud I had been in seven years earlier, back in 2017, when I was only two years into working as a freelance copywriter.

I managed to make a living from month one of starting to work as a copywriter, back in August 2015.

But it was always a hunt, and there was always a fair chance of going to bed hungry. Not literally — I could always afford food to eat and a place to sleep, and I could even take a trip now and then and waste some money on alcohol.

But I never knew quite how much money I would make by the end of the month. Half the time, it was less than I would have been okay with.

Back then, my interpretation of the problem was the same as the interpretation of a lot of the people who replied to me yesterday.

“I’d like to have more consistent money coming in… so what I need is more good leads… some new source of leads… or maybe an improved way to convert leads I already have.”

Reasonable enough. But wrong, at least in my case.

I realized something only years later, around 2021 or 2022. It’s the only regret I have with regard to my entire copywriting career, and the only thing I would change if i could go back. It’s this:

I spent way too much time looking for new clients and even working with new clients… rather than simply getting more out of the clients I already had.

And that’s my suggestion to you as well.

If you would like to make more consistent money, focus less on looking for more clients or customers. Get more out of the ones you’ve already got.

And if you say there’s nothing more to be had out of them:

You’re creative. That’s why you’re working as an entrepreneur or as a copywriter. So use that creativity.

I guarantee you there are ways, often easy and quick ways, to make new money from old customers or clients. You have everything you need already. It’s just a matter of putting together the pieces.

Of course, if you don’t want to put together the pieces, and if you actually have an email list of previous customers or clients, then write me. Maybe I can put the pieces together for you.

How CopyHour changed my life (no joke)

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This week, until Thursday at 8:31pm CET, I am promoting Derek Johanson’s CopyHour program. I’ve never gone through CopyHour myself. And yet it changed my life.

By the time I found out about CopyHour, around 2017, I had already been handcopying successful ads and sales letters on my own.

That’s what CopyHour is about, and it’s a worthwhile exercise.

Maybe I can say more about hand copying ads in a future email. But not now, because that’s not how CopyHour changed my life.

Back in 2017, there was not the the glut of copywriting courses and education that there is now. So I eagerly joined the CopyHour group Facebook group to see if I could maybe learn something on the sly.

Back then, the Facebook group was where Derek delivered the trainings that go with the handcopying work. I could see Derek was legit, had experience and expertise, and had put in time and effort to make CopyHour a really great program.

For example, this group was where I first got exposed to the book Great Leads. It’s a valuable book. But more importantly, it turned on some light in my dim brain and turned me on to the idea that maybe I should find some classic books about copywriting and read those.

This led me down a deep rabbit hole of reading and research which helped make me a drastically better copywriter in time.

But that still not how CopyHour changed my life.

How CopyHour changed my life is that I got on Derek’s email list.

During the next launch of CopyHour, Derek sent a bunch of emails to promote the program. One of those emails was actually not written by him but by a copywriter named Dan Ferrari.

At the time, Dan was a star copywriter at financial publisher Motley Fool. Dan’s story is classic bizopp rags to riches — from subsisting on four teaspoon of olive oil for breakfast because that’s all he could afford, to writing a control with his second sales letter at Motley Fool and soon pulling in millions of dollars in copywriting royalties.

“Hm,” I said, “maybe I should see if this dude has his own email list.”

I found Dan’s site. I signed up to his list. And what followed was… nothing. No emails. Not for almost two years.

Long story even longer, one day in 2019, Dan finally sent out an email asking his list if anyone was in the Baltimore-Washington area at the moment. As luck would have it, I was there at the time.

That email led to me joining Dan’s small coaching group a few months later… learning directly from Dan… hitching my wagon in part to Dan’s rising star… and making, as a direct consequence of a few words of Dan’s advice inside that coaching program, some hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But let’s wrap this story up:

The program that Dan credits for taking him from the olive oil subsistence breakfast to being a control-beating star copywriter at Motely Fool is — CopyHour.

The reason I found Dan and ended up learning copywriting from him is — CopyHour.

That’s my story.

Yours, I don’t know? Maybe it can start today.

Derek has opened the doors to CopyHour today. He will close them on Sunday because CopyHour is a real-time program.

But while Derek’s doors will stay open until Sunday, I will give you a reason to act now. If you join CopyHour before this Thursday at 8:31pm CET, and you do so using my affiliate link below, I will give you the following five free bonuses:

#1. Copy Zone (price last sold at: $100). My 175-page, A-Z guide on the business side of copywriting, from getting started with no experience or portfolio, all the way to becoming an A-list copywriter. Only ever sold once before, during a flash 24-hour offer in March 2023.

#2. Most Valuable Postcard #2: Ferrari Monster (price last sold at: $100). A deep dive into a single fascinating topic — code named Ferrari Monster — which I claim is the essence of all copywriting and marketing. Get the Ferrari Monster right, and almost everything else falls into place.

#3. Copy Riddles Lite (price last sold at $99). A slice of my Copy Riddles program, proportionately priced. Try yourself against legendary A-list copywriters like Gene Schwartz, David Deutsch, and Clayton Makepeace — and in the process, implant new copywriting skills into your brain.

#4. Horror Advertorial Swipe File (price last sold at: $100). A zip file with 25 PDFs, featuring the original copy for 25 of my horror advertorials. These advertorials pulled in millions of dollars on cold Facebook and YouTube traffic, and sold everything from fake diamonds and dog seat belts, to stick-on bras and kids’ vitamins.

#5. 9 Deadly Email Sins (price last sold at: $100). 9 lessons distilled from my expensive and exclusive one-on-one coaching sessions with successful business owners and marketers.

In the past, I’ve sold each of these trainings at the prices listed. When you add all those prices up, you get a total of $499 in free bonuses. This happens to be more than CopyHour currently sells for.

That said, don’t join CopyHour just to get my free bonuses. Join because you decide that you will do the work involved in CopyHour, and that you will benefit from it.

For more info on that, take a look at Derek’s writeup of how CopyHour works:

https://bejakovic.com/copyhour