Personal Change

I’m not OK — you’re not OK

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Here’s a story I’ve been told but don’t remember:

When I was little, maybe around 2 or 3, I was in the dining room with my grandfather, who I loved better than life itself.

I started dragging a large chair around the dining room.

My grandfather told me to stop, I guess because the dragging was making noise and because the chair could topple and flatten 3-year-old Bejako.

But I didn’t stop. I kept dragging the chair around.

My grandfather again told me to stop.

I still didn’t.

So my grandfather gave me a light swat on the hand, not enough to hurt me, but enough to get my attention.

It worked. I let go of the chair. I started wailing instead. And in my childish fear and confusion, I turned to the only natural place of comfort, and that was back to my grandfather. I ran to him and hugged him and wailed away. My grandfather said later he felt so guilty that he wished for his hand, the one he had swatted me with, to dry up and fall off.

I’m reading a book now called, I’m OK — You’re OK. I’m reading it because:

I’ve learned the most about email marketing and copywriting from Ben Settle…

Ben frequently recommends a book called Start With No, by negotiation coach Jim Camp, which I’ve read a half dozen times…

Start With No is largely a rehash of ideas in a book called You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar, by sales trainer Dave Sandler, which I read for the first time earlier this year…

Sandler’s book and sales system are a mix of classic sales techniques, his own personal experimentation, and ideas coming from transactional analysis, specifically as described in the book I’m OK — You’re OK, by psychiatrist Thomas Harris.

(There’s value in working backwards like that.)

Here’s a passage in I’m OK — You’re OK that stuck out to me:

===

The predominant by-product of the frustrating, civilizing process is negative feelings. On the basis of these feelings the little person early concludes, “I’m not OK.” We call this comprehensive self-estimate the NOT OK, or the NOT OK Child. This permanent recording is the residue of having been a child. Any child. Even the child of kind, loving, well-meaning parents. It is the situation of childhood and not the intention of the parents which produces the problem.

===

Like I said, this stuck out to me. Because some people had happy, stable childhoods. But even those people have a reservoir of childhood memories that make them feel not OK today. And maybe those people wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Says Harris, nothing. That’s life.

On the other hand, other people had genuinely troubled or traumatizing childhoods. They might suspect their childhood left them somehow uniquely warped and deformed, and the fact they feel not OK today proves it. But that logic is wrong, says Harris, because again, we are all not OK.

“I’m not OK — You’re not OK” is not a very inspiring message. Fortunately, the above passage is not how the book ends. In fact it only comes in chapter two. After all, the book is titled I’m OK — You’re OK.

If you’d like to know how to get out of the impulsive, frustrating, and maybe painful web of childhood memories and patterns, at least according to Thomas Harris, you can check out I’m OK — You’re OK below, and maybe learn a thing or two about sales and negotiation and copywriting in the process:

​https://bejakovic.com/ok​

The pros and cons of the “mask of misfortune”

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“Hey what’s your name?”

“Helen.”

“That’s nice. You look like a Helen. Helen, we’re both in sales. Let me tell you why I suck as a salesman.”

Maybe you know this scene. It’s from the movie Tommy Boy.

Chris Farley plays his usual character, “manic fat guy,” trying to make sales to save his family business.

In this scene, Chris is in a diner, trying to order chicken wings. But Helen, the waitress, flatly tells him the kitchen is closed.

Instead of pressing the point, Chris goes on to tell Helen why he sucks as a salesman. He uses a bread roll to illustrate his possible sale:

He loves his possible sale so much, like a pretty new pet, that he ends up ripping it apart — because he’s such a manic fat guy.

It’s a funny scene, worth watching if you haven’t seen it, worth revisiting if you have.

At the end of Chris’s manic fat guy routine, Helen the waitress shakes her head.

“God you’re sick,” she says with a chuckle. “Tell you what. I’ll go turn the fryers back on and throw some wings in for ya.”

The typical conclusion to a story like is — “Share your stories of vulnerability and failure, and magic doors open!”

Maybe. But I’d like to tell you a different conclusion.

Because Chris Farley really was sick. He battled alcoholism and drug use and apparently felt horrible about the weight he always joked about. He ended up dead at age 33, from a combination of cocaine and morphine, though traces of marijuana and antidepressants were also found in his system.

I’m not trying to bring you down. I’m trying to give you some practical advice. Specifically, some practical advice I read in a book called The Narrow Road, by a multimillionaire named Felix Dennis. Says Dennis:

“Donning the mask of misfortune for the amusement of those around you or to elicit sympathy is a perilous activity. You run the risk of the mask fitting a little too well. Or — and I have seen this happen — of becoming the mask.”

In entirely unrelated news:

The deadline to get The Secret of the Magi before the price doubles is tonight, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

The Secret of the Magi tells you just one thing — the big takeaway I’ve had about opening conversations that can lead to business partnerships. It’s based on my experiences being both on the receiving end of many cold outreach attempts… and spending this past summer cold contacting a bunch of other people.

Your investment to get The Secret of the Magi is a whopping $23.50. Well, assuming you get it before the deadline, which is, again, tonight at 12 midnight PST.

I won’t be writing any more emails before then. So in case you want this guide, maybe get it now?

It’s up to you. Here’s the link if you want to find out the secret:

​https://bejakovic.com/secret-of-the-magi​

The best reason not to buy MyPEEPS

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The deadline to get MyPEEPS is getting uncomfortably near… but not everybody is nervous. For example, one reader wrote me already last week to tell me he won’t be buying — and he had the best reason imaginable:

===

This is a great offer, John. And I would’ve joined immediately if I hadn’t already purchased this course two times 🙂

I bought it when Travis Sago was promoting it.. and found out afterward that I had bought it earlier when Ryan Lee promoted it.

===

What I’m about to say doesn’t actually apply to the reader who wrote me the above.

He happens to be a successful marketer, and he’s already mastered list building. He bought MyPEEPS — once — because he buys courses looking for a slight edge from people who are masters in various aspects of marketing. He bought it the second time because he’s busy implementing what those courses teach, and it probably slipped his mind he already had the thing.

Unfortunately, many people are not like this.

Many people buy a course, and never implement anything from it, or they implement at the speed of continental drift.

That is in part why I decided to offer the Shotgun Messenger bonus I am offering with MyPEEPS, in case you get it by the deadline tonight. It’s to help you implement… to motivate you to implement… to charm you to implement.

Of course, I’m under no illusion that everybody who buys MyPEEPS and gets in on my bonus will end up going through the course, and actually taking the steps needed to get results.

I would like for that to happen. But I’m realistic. I know that even with my offered help, not everybody will follow through.

But maybe you will join. If you do, I’ll do all I can to help you put this course to good use, so you can build yourself an email list full of people who want to read what you write, and buy what you sell.

Tick tock. The deadline to get MyPEEPS is in a few short hours, at 12 midnight PST.

Are you a little nervous? Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe it means you still have some interest in this offer, and the outcome it promises.

If you’d like to look over the details and make your decision before the clock makes the decision for you:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

How to stop being seen as a milquetoast

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Today is the last day to sign up for MyPEEPS and get my free “Shotgun Messenger” bonus. You can expect me to send many more emails about this offer today. And on that note, I wanna tell you a quick story of rejection:

I first discovered marketer Travis Sago thanks to a podcast interview back in 2019. I was super impressed by everything Travis said, and so I got on his email list right away.

Travis had an automated welcome email that ended with, “I’m curious… What business are you in?”

I wrote back. I told Travis that I loved his interview, I gave some specifics of what I loved, and I said my business was copywriting.

And what I got back was… nothing. No smiley face, no “good on ya,” not a single word.

I figured then and in all these intervening years that either Travis didn’t check the reply email regularly, or he simply didn’t think me important enough to reply to.

Then this very morning, Sunday September 15 2024, I was listening to a short recording that Travis did for the people in his community.

Travis was talking about how persistent he is in following up with his prospects, particularly the “movers and shakers.” And he said the following:

“In fact, in my business, if a copywriter reaches out to me, my typical M.O. is not to respond back. I wanna get rid of all the milquetoasts, because I’m looking for people who want to get things done in the face of a challenge.”

Point being:

You might know that followup can get the attention of those who forgot about you or never even noticed you.

You might also know followup can build more desire.

But I imagine you never thought of followup as a kind of proof element.

And yet it is. Because who follows up?

People who believe in what they are doing and selling, including themselves.

The milquetoasts drop away.

So send regular emails, preferably daily… and if you got a deadline coming up, send a bunch.

You’ll catch people’s attention… you’ll remind them of what they want and how you can help… and you will convince them you have something worthwhile, just because you keep following up about it. And now, since you’ve read this email, you are a few minutes closer to the deadline for my MyPEEPS offer. The deadline will come in a flash, tonight at 12 midnight PST.

In a nutshell, MyPEEPS shows you how to build up your email list with paid traffic — putting in $10-$15 and getting out 10-15 new subscribers a day — so you can in time have a proper audience of people who want to read your emails and buy from you.

And the free Shotgun Messenger bonus I’m offering gets you my direct help and input as you actually put the MyPEEPS process into practice.

If you want the full details on that, or to sign up for before the deadline strikes:

​https://bejakovic.com/shotgun​

Is there anything earthbreaking here?

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

===

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.

===

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:

===

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/