Personal Change

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/]

Mercilessly teasing my own mother

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A few weeks ago, I was back home visiting family. Before we started lunch one day, my mother sat me down at the kitchen table. She crossed her arms, and she said:

“Well? Are you going to tell me? I hope you don’t expect me to read that book to find out. So? What is the highest paid quality on earth?”

The story is that my mother has recently taken to reading this newsletter. And the day before the lunch, I had sent out an email about “the highest paid quality on earth.”

I teased that highest paid quality mercilessly in my email. At the end of the email, I still didn’t reveal it. I simply linked to a book where I promised you could find out what the quality is.

(By the way, why tease like this, including your own mother? Good question. I’ll talk about that another time.)

Meanwhile, I got a message from a reader, Howard Shaw. Howard’s a Partner at Chester Toys, a UK toy wholesaler that’s been in business for 60 years.

Howard actually did order and did read the book I linked to at the end of that email.

As a result, he did find out what that most highly paid quality is. But there were consequences.

To tell me about those consequences, Howard sent me a photo of the book lying on his couch. And he wrote under the picture:

===

A book I was introduced to recently and that I enthusiastically recommend.

The point of this email? I am not sure.

Although I am currently looking to embrace some situations with enthusiasm, and searching out business options that I may have previously dismissed.

One of these came my way Thursday, and by Friday afternoon had meant a new client and a deposit already in the bank.

So I thank you for taking the time to re-introduce me to my enthusiasm.

===

If you’re a particularly perceptive reader, you may have picked up from Howard’s message what the highest paid quality on earth is.

But does it really matter?

Did you have your mind blown as a result?

Or more likely, are kind of… disappointed?

And yet:

There’s Howard’s story. There’s new client where there was no client before. There’s the new money in the bank where there was less money before.

All of which brings me to the most life-changing idea I’ve been exposed to since I started learning about marketing. It’s this:

“There is an inverse relationship between the value of knowledge and what people are willing to pay for it. The most important things in life you’ve probably heard a hundred times before, but you’re not paying attention. When you’re in the right place and you hear it, you have that ‘aha’ moment and everything changes.”

I write more about that idea, and the A-list copywriter who said it, in my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Is this the first time you’re hearing about that book? It might be worth a look then.

Have you heard me talk about this book before? It might be worth a look then.

Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Why I sent you an empty email yesterday

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This morning, I woke up to an inbox full of messages that read:

“Hmm??”

“Huh??”

“Wha—??”

“I’m sure others are writing to tell you the same, but hngh??”

“Why?? Why?? WHY?? I need do know”

The story is that I sent out an email last night with the subject line, “Why is Alec Baldwin telling me to Always Be Closing?”

That email went out with no body copy, but only with the placeholder text that reads “Text goes here.”

Two things about this strange event:

#1. It was unintentional, and I blame ActiveCampaign for it, as I do for many other things.

I wrote my email, put it into ActiveCampaign, and scheduled it. For some reason, ActiveCampaign didn’t save the body copy.

This has happened a few times already. Each time before, I caught it at the last minute by noticing something’s off in the tiny preview window at the end. Last night I didn’t.

#2. I am amazed by how little I am bothered by this event. Maybe it’s because it’s genuinely a tech muckup out of my control, and not something that I feel responsible for. Or maybe I have just been sending emails long enough that I have built up a pachydermous outer layer that protects me from the slings and arrows and “huh??”s of the world.

So my brief inspirational message to you:

If you are afraid of writing something and publishing it because you think you might muck it up, and everyone will know, then do it anyhow, because 1) you will muck it up, 2) everyone will know, and 3) eventually you won’t be bothered by it.

Also, if you’d like to know why Alec Baldwin is telling me to Always Be Closing, here’s that message, with the body copy included this time:

https://bejakovic.com/why-is-alec-baldwin-telling-me-to-always-be-closing/

Forget about AI, it’s the Swiss we should be worried about

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I just read a writing-on-the-wall article on Bloomberg:

Earlier this year, a small town in Switzerland banned billboards. ​​And earlier this month, after pro-billboard opponents challenged the ban, the Swiss Supreme Court upheld the right of citizens to “limit visual pollution” and “opt out of unwanted advertising.”

“We didn’t recognize any public interest in having billboards,” said one local politician.

“We want to battle unnecessary consumption with this measure,” said another.

Other towns in Switzerland, including Zurich and the capital Bern, are also in the process of debillboardizing.

I know what you’ll say. Switzerland is just a quirky, small, isolated country, high up in the mountains, where cows rule and the rivers run with chocolate.

But Switzerland is not the first instance of anti-ad terror.

Back in the 2020/1/15 issue of this newsletter, I wrote about French anti-ad groups that were vandalizing billboards, protesting against advertising, and looking to pass new anti-advertising laws. A nurse involved in the protests said:

“When you walk down the street, how can you feel happy if you’re constantly being reminded of what you don’t have? Advertising breaks your spirit, confuses you about what you really need and distracts you from real problems.”

Maybe you think this is just a few crazy and fringe bolsheviks on the march, and that they should really get a job.

And maybe so. But other things that looked crazy and fringe a few decades ago are a reality now.

Today, smoking is controlled, heavily-taxed, and socially shunned. But was a time when smoking was glamorous and could be done anywhere, even in schools and hospitals.

Today, spanking your kid can lead to criminal charges or social services getting called in. But spanking used to be a prerogative of parents and even, as per the Bible, the right thing to do.

Today drunk driving one of the most irresponsible acts a human being can commit, and heavily criminalized. But it used to be a normal part of a good night of fun.

Those are all kind of “done deals.” But think about some deals that are not yet done, but that are in the process of being negotiated right now:

* Eating animals, particularly the cute ones, particularly when you have other non-cute options for good nutrition

* Flying to Thailand and back for a two-week vacation, and producing the monthly carbon emissions of a small 18th-century town, all by yourself, in the span of a few hours

* Drinking any alcohol ever, when Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, and all your friends who listen to them, say that even a sip is bad for you

As the world changes, as science develops, as propaganda spreads, so do our attitudes to things that seem like an eternal fabric of our lives.

And maybe advertising, though it’s been with us for centuries, will become socially unacceptable, and sooner than you might think.

Oh boy. How do I dig myself out of this hole now?

​​After all, this is a newsletter about copywriting and marketing, and I can’t just leave you like this, despairing how it might all come to an end soon.

Easy. Because I think this hole I’ve dug for myself is not much of a hole at all.

Sure, artificial intelligence might eat copywriting soon.

Sure, social crusaders might eventually limit or ban advertising in some form.

And if you think of what you do as writing copy or creating advertising… well, if those futures come to pass, then you will be screwed.

On the other hand, if you think of what you do as simply effective communication… well, then you will be busy and successful, as long as humans are around, and as long as we continue to communicate and influence each other.

The specific applications might change. But the underlying principles will remain. ​​

As I’m sure you know, there are lots of places where you can learn about effective communication.

But there are certain truths about effective communication that you can only learn when you’re communicating with people one-on-one, in the privacy of their home or office, when they have their credit card in hand.

If you’d like to learn more about effective communication, and especially those “credit card in hand” truths you won’t find anywhere else:

https://bejakovic.com/cr