Persuasion

General strike

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Today being November 11, 2026, there is a massive general strike on throughout Barcelona, which has been in preparation for months.

I went out an hour ago to see first-hand what it’s like.

As I came downstairs to the lobby of my building, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the useless and surly concierge of my building is not in his place.

I then stepped outside and was less pleasantly surprised to see piles of trash on the sidewalk, which hadn’t been collected overnight. (I live in Barcelona’s Gothic district, where trash is just left on the street in the evening, and regularly picked up by city workers driving around in little electric trash vans.)

It’s a beautiful November morning here — sunny and around 20 degrees (70 if yer American) — and because of the strike, there’s a holiday feel in the air.

Most shops, including coffee shops, are closed. There’s no noise and little traffic. There are few people out on the streets compared to normal, because the strike involves closing down the metro and the rest of public transport as well.

I walked to the edge of my neighborhood and to the big local artery, Via Laietana. Traffic is completely closed on the street, because demonstrators will walk there later in the day.

I made my way to a coworking space I wanted to check out — also closed, although I had booked a tour for today and they cheerfully wrote that they are waiting for me.

On the way there, I passed a large crowd of striking workers, walking in a group, carrying flags of their union organization, whistling with whistles, chanting slogans, and occasionally throwing firecrackers that sounded more like grenades going off.

People just love to make noise. They just seemed to be enjoying the walk in the beautiful weather, hanging out with their friends, and chatting and laughing.

And now let me tell you about Daily Email Habit.

Daily Email Habit has nothing to do with the general strike in Barcelona, but you might still find it valuable.

In short, if you want to monetize your list better, however big or small it may be, then my first recommendation is to start sending daily emails, today, and stick with it for at least 90 days.

That’s what Daily Email Habit helps you do.

I can describe how Daily Email Habit works, and why subscribers find it valuable. But really, the best way is simply to try it yourself.

Daily Email Habit normally costs $50/month. You can try it now for a week for just $1.

If you decide Daily Email Habit not for you — if it doesn’t save you time in writing, if it doesn’t help you produce more effective emails than you might on your own, if it doesn’t motivate you to start and stick with writing — then simply cancel it and you won’t get charged again.

If you’d like to give it a try for a few days and see how it goes:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

On influence kings

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I’m reading a book called On Kings. It is a book on… kings, specifically, why so many societies in so many periods in human history in so many places around the world have repeatedly and independently invented the institution of kingship.

Pretty soon into the book, there is the following passage about how new kings get established:

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On his way to the kingdom, the dynastic founder is notorious for exploits of incest, fratricide, patricide, or other crimes against kinship and common morality. He may also be famous for defeating natural or human foes. The hero manifests a nature above, beyond, and greater than the people he is destined to rule — hence the power to do so. However inhibited or sublimated in the established kingdom, the monstrous and violent nature of the king remains an essential condition of his sovereignty.

===

Recently inside my Daily Email House group, a conversation started up about how to have charisma, how to have influence over an audience.

I claim that the highest level of influence over an audience is to be like a king — particularly, the kind of king described above, a king who wins his kingdom and doesn’t simply inherit it.

The same psychology applies to influence kings as it does to the traditional kings. Maybe you can think of people you yourself follow online who, instinctively or consciously, adapt some of the behaviors or real kings, as hinted at above:

* Breaking common rules or norms

* An eagerness for conflict

* Egomaniacal tendencies

* Cruelty

It’s undeniably effective stuff, but it’s also ugly. If this is not a path you want to go down, then I want to offer you another option.

This Tuesday, November 3, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, I am putting on a presentation about email list monetization.

The presentation is built around the case study of a list owner I’ve recently helped to roughly 3x his average monthly earnings from his list.

One thing we repeatedly worked on was building up his status. There’s resistance to that in a lot of people, and there was in this dude as well.

And yet the status-building we did worked, made sales easier, helped him make more money, without making him into something monstrous and violent.

If you wanna know the steps we took, and how to have more influence over an audience, regardless of what you say or sell, then sign up for Tuesday’s training here:

https://bejakovic.com/monetization-case-study

Terminal Lucidity: Last call for Secret List-Building Technique

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I read an article recently that said, 60 to 70 per cent of dementia caregivers say they’ve witnessed at least one patient return to lucidity in the days before death.

The term for that strange phenomenon is “terminal lucidity.”

Nobody knows how to explain this phenomenon… but one thing is clear, a deadline clears the mind.

And now, with that somber bit of infotainment out of the way, let me remind you of Maliha Mannan’s Secret List-Building Workshop. The deadline to sign up for that workshop is tonight at midnight EST. And this is the last email I will send before the deadline.

Somber, I know.

But there’s still time to act. Hopefully, your mind is clear. To sign up now, or to read the full details and sign up after you’ve read them:

https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/secret-list-building-technique-live-workshop

3 good reasons to insult your readers

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Last night I organized a direct response dinner in a restaurant in Barcelona’s Eixample neighborhood. I invited 7 people, all of whom either own direct response businesses or work in direct marketing. The agenda was communicating with like-minded primates, and food.

One of the people who joined was a Canadian girl who works in ecom and is also starting a Substack.

She was sharing her plans for the Substack. Eventually she said something like, “I gotta figure out how to engage readers.”

I’d had a couple of glasses of wine by this point.

They say that in wine there is truth.

So I blurted out, “You gotta insult people.”

The girl and the guy next to her, an executive coach who refused to eat anything because he is on the Gundry anti-lectin diet, both stopped and stared at me.

“Insult them? No, come on…”

“Yep, insult them.”

And then, using my best debating skills, I laid out my case.

First, insulting people can demonstrate higher status — not always, but when done in the right way. And there are no influence tricks that can match the persuasive power of having higher status.

Second, insulting people can be a game that you play with people, with them being in on it.

I once heard Nick Krauser, the world’s best pickup artist, say, “attraction is bullshit.” That’s what this kind of insulting is — bullshit, banter, fooling around.

Note that this is exactly the opposite situation of the previous, “higher status” kind of insult, though some people will try to sneak in a “higher status” insult as banter. (“It was all in good fun!” they’ll say, to try to cover up for themselves. Weak, if you ask me. If you’re going to insult people because you’re after higher status, then own the insult.)

The third reason to insult your readers is that nice is boring. And in the words of A-list copywriter Jim Rutz:

“The #1 sin in ad mail is being boring, and over half of it richly deserves its quick death by wastebasket.”

This applies not just to ad mail, but to daily emails… to ads, advertorials, sales letters… to Substack newsletters, books, movie scripts, political pamphlets, and cereal box copy.

Maybe you don’t agree with me about insulting people.

You donkey.

One day, I’ll write a book about this topic, which I call “natural authority.”

Meanwhile, I’ll just point you to my most recent book, “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters.”

You still haven’t read that book? What are you waiting for? Here’s the link, you muppet:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

You gotta buy this

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You gotta buy this new thing I’m selling.

Why? Because other people are buying.

The fact is, making up your mind about a purchase is hard stuff. It takes time and attention and a lot of information, much of which we are not privy to.

So when you see other people buying something — like a long queue outside of an ice cream shop — it makes sense to pause and ask yourself, what’s so special about this ice cream, and should I get a scoop?

Yesterday, I started promoting my new Cold Outreach Fastlane offer. The condition to get that exciting offer for free is to invest in a ticket for Parker Worth’s Cold Gold live training, which happens next week, and to write me with your proof of purchase before tonight, Thursday, at 11:59pm PST.

I woke up this morning and saw a buncha submitted proofs of purchase:

“Forwarding my confirmation/receipt for the ColdGold webinar that I purchased through your link to receive your Cold Outreach Fastlane…looking forward to it!”

“Hi John, Please see below for the: Cold Outreach Fastlane Any questions or if I am missing something please let me know”

“purchased parker’s product through your link”

“I’m not gonna lie, I bought Parker’s course solely to get your bonus… See my receipt below!”

“Hey John, purchased using your link. Let me know if anything else is needed!”

“Bought Parker’s webinar through your link. Here is the receipt below”

“Here you go, my good sir”

“Hi John, here is my receipt.”

When I said up top you gotta buy this, the truth is, that was a bit of subject-line hyperbole.

You don’t gotta buy this. You don’t gotta do anything. You can make up your own mind.

I’m telling you that other people are buying just to make you pause and ask yourself, what’s so special about this Cold Outreach Fastlane ice cream, and should I get a scoop?

I don’t want you making this buying decision simply based on what other people are doing. But if you want more info on my new ice cream flavor, which is available only until end of day today:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-cold-outreach-fastlane/

Get expert training in Scheming, raise your income

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I once read a book called The Man Who Sold America and in it I came across the term “scheme man.”

Once upon a time, a scheme man was a legitimate and even highly coveted and paid profession.

Scheme men were basically marketing consultants who could devise new selling “schemes” — ideas, concepts, breakthroughs. As master direct marketer Robert Collier put it, “It’s not the copy so much as the scheme back of it.”

Claude Hopkins, often thought to be the first A-list copywriter, was the premier scheme man (he was the one discussed in that book I read).

Hopkins didn’t really use clever copywriting to turn his clients and himself into billionaires (in today’s money).

Instead, he did it by devising new selling schemes.

As an example, Hopkins’s first big marketing job was to sell “carpet sweepers.” His innovative scheme was to start offering these carpet sweepers in a dozen different fancy wood casings, rather than the single drab choice available previously.

Stupid, right? Who cares about the casing?

This was a completely impractical and unnecessary new development. And yet, it resulted in 250,000 carpet sweepers being sold in 3 weeks.

After that, some of Hopkins’s schemes involved the “world’s biggest cake” (100,000 people came to see it)… the “paid free sample” scheme for Liquozone (which took the company from bankruptcy to making $60 million in profit the next year)… and the “engraved with your name” pen that doubled response when added as a bonus to an ordinary offer.

Point being:

Become a skilled Scheme Man, then or now, and your future is settled.

If you can devise new ways for a company to sell what they’ve already got, your services will ALWAYS be in demand, and you will get paid BIG MONEY IN BIG CHUNKS. Plus, the work can be exciting and challenging and even fun.

Except how? How do you become a skilled Scheme Man, today, in 2026?

For that I’d like to point you to Mike Samuels, and his 6-week ABP cohort.

Mike’s cohort is currently open for signups. The signup window closes tomorrow. After that, you won’t be able to get in, and also the bonuses disappear, and if this program is ever opened again, the price will go up.

Like I said, Mike’s cohort program is called ABP, which stands for Action Based Psychology. I don’t think that name does justice to what Mike is offering here.

What Mike is offering is a full-on certification program for Scheme Men, though he calls them “ABP Consultants.”

Mike’s program first gets you trained on the relevant underlying psychology and translates that into specific marketing techniques, so you can own these ideas yourself and turn them into new selling schemes for specific businesses.

Mike then gives you “audits” so you don’t have to count on remembering all these ideas and schemes, but can simply refer to the audits when the time comes.

And then finally, there’s a client-getting section so you can actually turn your new Scheming skills into profits for clients and income for yourself.

Like I said, the signup for this cohort closes tomorrow. If you’re interested in the full details before this opportunity goes away:

https://bejakovic.com/scheme

I am abolishing my $5 typo bounty

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Back in February, I set up typo bounty for my 10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians etc. book. That was in response to a 3-star review I got back then, which said the book is full of typos.

I found that hard to believe, since I had more than a dozen people proofread the book before I published it.

But money can fix many things, and maybe it could find and fix typos my proofreaders had missed?

So I set up the bounty, and announced it to my list.

Since then, thanks to the Herculean efforts of nitpicking readers around the world, I have been clued into 3 legitimate typos in the book. Actually, make that 4, because just this morning I got an email notifying me of one more.

I’ve honored all typo bounty hunters so far, and paid out $5 via PayPal, as promised.

But from this moment on, I am abolishing this typo bounty, for two reasons.

The first is that I have no interest in actually updating the book to fix a few spread-out typos. Amazon makes it a pain to update the manuscript, and I don’t want to mess with it for the sake of changing “Cialidini” to “Cialdini” in one place on page 7 (that’s the typo I was notified of today).

The second reason is that this entire bounty process makes me actively dislike the people who write in to tell me about the typos.

Which, appropriately enough, goes back to most important Commandment of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians etc., a commandment so important, so prime, that I put it at number one, in the first chapter of the book.

If you disobey this prime commandment, it becomes absolutely impossible to influence people to do what you want.

If you obey this commandment, you can perform almost magical feats of persuasion.

You can find Commandment I, and 9 more surprising and valuable commandments, in my book. Beware though, because there are 4 typos there as well, on pages 7, 48, 80, and 136. If that doesn’t scare you off:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Magic positioning through maddening repetition

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I’m sitting in the Croatian coast town of Cavtat as I write this, under some pine trees with crickets chirping around me, an occasional plane landing overhead, and incredible humidity rolling off my body drop by drop.

I don’t know anything about this town — I ended up here last night due to my usual missed connecting flight — expect one curious thing.

A long time ago, I read a Bloomberg article about a gang of casino sharks who kept winning at roulette in casinos around the world, to the tune of millions of dollars per year.

The entire article was set up in the classic “Cialdini mystery structure,” teasing out the answer to the question of how the gang kept winning.

Was it computers up their sleeves?

Was it glasses that recorded and transmitted to some processing center?

Did they tamper with the roulette table in some way?

After all these avenues were explored and found to be dead ends, the author of the article tracked down the ringleader of the casino shark gang.

The ringleader was a Croatian guy who lives somewhere around… Cavtat.

He said the secret was simply that he bought a specific roulette table for his house and watched it spin millions of times, until his brain caught on to tiny regularities that he could exploit on other similar roulette tables in real casinos.

Point being:

What looks like magic can sometimes simply be maddening repetition and preparation, the kind of work that nobody would believe a sane person would ever do.

Yesterday, I had a call with a coaching client, a bona fide expert in his field, with years of experience and a sizable audience.

He said that while he is having success selling info products and even some 1-1 engagements, he still hasn’t hit upon the exact right positioning that would make it seamlessly easy.

I unfortunately don’t know any magic, rabbit-out-of-a-hat way to create the exact right positioning for established experts.

My best advice for figuring out winning positioning is simply to keep writing daily emails, keep making offers, keep seeing what works, and then doubling down on that.

Yes, it can take hundreds or maybe thousands of tries (millions?).

But it also means you can see the kind of ultimate success others only dream about and wonder at when they see it in you.

And even along the way, life can be pretty good… money can flow… and it can even be kind of fun.

Which brings me to my Most Valuable Offer training, which is happening tomorrow, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.

This training will show you my process for coming up, selling, and delivering paid live training, which I call Most Valuable Offers.

Most Valuable Offers are easy, fast, cheap. Inevitably, a few might flop. Some will be a modest success. And some will be a big success.

Along the way, you can be making money… building a relationship with your audience that translates into future sales… and zeroing in on the perfect positioning that both keeps you happy and lights up your prospects’ eyes.

All that, and more, tomorrow. If you’d like to sign up for Most Valuable Offer before the casino doors close:

https://checkout.bejakovic.com/most-valuable-offer

My “chicken sexer” argument for why you should pay me

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If you teach anything worthwhile, here’s my 4-part “chicken sexer” argument to persuade people to pay you for what you teach:

#1. In the poultry industry, there is a profession known as a “chicken sexer.”

A chicken sexer’s job it is to classify newly hatched chicks as either male or female. A chicken sexer will typically classify 1,000 chicks per hour, in only half a second per chick.

#2. An expert chicken sexer is accurate 98% of the time.

#3. A naive chicken sexer is no better than random.

4. There is a “critical cloacal structure” on a newly hatched chick that is slightly different in males and female (“convex vs. concave or flat”).

This structure is tiny (the whole chick is tiny), and odds are that most people would never notice the difference even after repeat viewings of male and female chicks.

But after having just this one distinction pointed out, a novice chicken sexer’s accuracy will rise from “no better than random” to a level comparable to that of experts.

I’ve been reading William James’s Principles of Psychology. Says James:

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Men have no eyes but for those aspects of things which they have already been taught to discern. Any one of us can notice a phenomenon after it has once been pointed out, which not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered for himself. The only things we commonly see are those which we expect to see and the only things which we expect to see are those which have been labelled for us, and the labels stamped into our mind.

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So if you teach people anything worthwhile, that is your argument to get people to pay you for what you teach.

The fact is, people might go out and try to do what you teach on their own.

The fact is, they will most probably fail to see the “convex or concave critical cloacal structure” that spells the difference between success and failure.

They might spot it with repeated tries, or they might not. Because like James says, “not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered it for himself.” But you have discovered it — however that happened — and you’re willing to share it, for a modest investment, of say, $97.

Which brings me to my Most Valuable Offer training, happening live this Wednesday, just two days from now.

The basic idea of a Most Valuable Offer is:

1. Pick a topic for a live paid training, and announce a date to your list when you will hold the training

2. Promote this offer to your list over the course of a few days and a few emails

3. Hold the live training when the date comes

Simple enough. But several “critical cloacal structures” about which topic to choose, about how to sell, about what to deliver and what not to deliver, can make the difference between a successful Most Valuable Offer and a Most Valuable Offer that lays an egg.

I’ve discovered these “critical cloacal structures” because of an enormous amount of Most Valuable sexing education and experience. I’ve paid for and attended live trainings by other course sellers… I’ve bought and studies courses on teaching and info product design… I’ve studied influence, copywriting, and email marketing… I’ve run a dozen or more Most Valuable Offers myself… plus I’ve coached a bunch of coaching clients to run their own successful Most Valuable Offers.

If you want to learn the most important distinctions when it comes to running a successful Most Valuable Offer, I will cover those on Wednesday’s training.

The Most Valuable training happens at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, this Wednesday, September 2.

Yes, there will be a recording if you cannot make it live. But you’re sure to get more out of it if you can join me on the actual call.

Your investment, should you choose to join me, is $97 today and $2/month ongoing, because, as moons pass, I will be continuously updating the Most Valuable Offer SOP and sharing my Most Valuable Offer results and the results of clients I am helping on this.

If you’d like to sign up and learn how I run Most Valuable Offers that won’t lay an egg, and how you can too:

https://checkout.bejakovic.com/most-valuable-offer

The ultimate high-ticket lead magnet

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“He’s doing very well. He’s doing VERY well. You know what he’s clearing himself? 14, 15 grand a week! Why? He’s got the leads. He’s got the good leads!”
— Glengarry Glen Ross

A couple days ago, I ran a poll in my Daily Email House community, with surprising results. The poll question asked:

“What’s the highest-ticket offer you have sold successfully to your email list?”

I think there was a bit of selection bias among those who responded, because the majority said they have successfully sold offers of $1k+ to their lists. 20% even said they have successfully sold offers of $5k or more via email alone.

In any case, the next day, I ran another poll. I asked House members why they aren’t selling more of their highest-ticket offer?

This time, the answer came back almost unanimous and much less surprising:

86% responded that they don’t have enough LEADS.

Like David Mamet says in Glengarry Glen Ross, it’s always about the leads, the good leads.

So you want leads? The good leads? The Glengarry leads?

Here’s a bit of advice on that from Dan Kennedy, the marketing guru I have quoted most in my newsletter because I have learned so much from the man, and because he is so quotable.

In Dan’s words, here is how you get leads, the good leads:

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My business comes to me because money follows and flows to authority.

For me, the journey toward this authority status began when I first published The Ultimate Sales Letter in 1981 — a book that has been on bookstore shelves without interruption ever since. It established me as an expert in the craftsmanship of letters that sell. It directly brought me clients, but much more importantly, it elevated my status above other copywriters. People wanted to hear from and get assistance from “the guy who wrote the book” about sales letters, and it is not accidental that the preemptive word “the” is in that title.

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Important point that Dan makes:

Yes, a book can get you clients directly. But it also leads others to you, even if they never buy or read your book. The book acts as a mental shortcut, and puts you in a position of “preeminent expert I want to work with.”

So go and write a book.

Or if you know yourself well enough to know that will never happen, or if you simply don’t want to wait as long as it might take…

… then you might like to know there are other, less painful and less time-consuming ways to build the kind of authority Dan Kennedy is talking about.

For example, my preferred method is to announce a live training, charge for it, and sell it. Then I either keep selling and promoting the recording, or I get it transcribed and turn it into a course or a even a book.

Yes, a live paid training that you sell on your site won’t appear on bookshelves at Barnes & Noble, and doesn’t have the same prestige as a book.

On the flip side, a live paid training is much easier and faster to put together than a book.

The deadline forces you to put out something, and in my experience, the result has always been 90% as good as I could have ever made it. The live, personal factor also makes live training attendees more forgiving than book readers would ever be.

Plus, the fact that you can sell a live paid training for $97 or $197 contributes to your authority as well, in a way that a $9.97 book cannot.

For all these reasons and more, I call live paid trainings Most Valuable Offers, more so than books or courses.

Next Wednesday, September 2, I will be running a Most Valuable Offer of my own, showing you how to sell and run Most Valuable Offers.

At the end of Wednesday’s training, I will give you an opportunity to get my direct support and help running your own Most Valuable Offer, if you want it.

Whether or not you take me up on that, I will give you the essence of what I have learned so far about running successful and client-pleasing Most Valuable Offers, based on my own experiences and my work with coaching clients.

Wednesday’s training happens at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, and again, the date is September 2.

Yes, there will be a recording if you cannot make it live. But you’re sure to get more out of it if you can join me on the actual call.

Your investment, should you choose to join me, is $97 today and $2/month ongoing, because, as moons pass, I will be continuously updating the Most Valuable Offer SOP and sharing my Most Valuable Offer results and the results of clients I am helping on this.

If you’d like to sign up and learn how I run happy Most Valuable Offers to build my authority and attract the good leads, and how you can too:

https://checkout.bejakovic.com/most-valuable-offer/