Magic

Why the girl-and-python show is a great place to negotiate

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Here’s an intriguing (and for writers, a most instructive) scene from one of the greatest films in Hollywood history:

“Christ what a trip. The whole time I’m thinking, what if somebody knows what I got in here? Can you imagine that? Two million dollars on the seat next to me in that plane? Mikey, what the hell’s going on anyway? I’m totally in the dark.”

Mikey picks up the suitcase and carries it off. “The family’s making an investment in Havana. This is a little gift for the President.”

Maybe you recognize this scene. It’s from The Godfather, part 2. ​​Fredo Corleone, the oldest surviving son of the Godfather, is talking to his younger brother Michael, who now heads the Corleone crime family.

Michael recently survived an assassination attempt. He knows his business partner Heyman Roth and Roth’s henchman Johnny Ola were behind it. What he doesn’t know is who inside his own circle betrayed him and collaborated with Roth.

Fredo puts his hands in his pockets as he watches the suitcase disappear.

“Havana’s great!” he says. “My kind of town. Anybody I know in Havana?”

Michael pours himself a glass of water. “Oh… Heyman Roth? Johnny Ola?”

Fredo stares for a bit, trying to pull out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. Finally he manages to get the cigarettes out. He looks away.

​​”No. Never met them.”

A couple weeks ago, I wrote an email about negotiation coach Jim Camp. Camp helped negotiate many billion-dollar deals, but he became famous thanks to his contrarian, oracle-like sayings.

One thing Camp said is that he likes to negotiate in the bathroom. That might sounds contrarian, but it’s not. It’s very literal, and backed by basic human psychology.

For an example, fast forward a bit, to Havana.

​​Fredo isn’t smart or strong enough to run the Corleone family, but he’s a fun guy. He knows all the cool spots. He takes Michael and a few U.S. Senators and judges to a girl-and-python act.

“Watch,” says Fredo, as he pours out glasses of rum. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

A young woman is brought out on stage. She is tied to a kind of ceremonial pillar. Then a man in a silk robe is brought out. Two assistants pull off his silk robe to leave him standing naked in front of the audience.

The guys with Fredo — except Michael, who’s checking his watch — gasp and then start chuckling.

“That thing’s gotta be a fake. Hey Freddie! Freddie! How’d you even find this place?”

Fredo doesn’t take his eyes off the stage. “Johnny Ola told me about this place. He brought me here. I didn’t believe him, but seeing is believing. Old man Roth would never come here, but old Johnny knows these places like the back of his hand.”

Michael doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. But he looks like somebody just punched him in the gut. And he turns around, and gives a signal to his man who is standing at the door.

So there you go. The reason to negotiate in the bathroom, or during the girl-and-python act. It’s because barriers come down. Jim Camp explains: “As they go to the bathroom, you ask them a question. They’ll answer. They smile, and they answer the question. It’s a great time to do research.”

I wrote about that in my email couple weeks ago. But then I asked myself, what’s really going on? Is this just a negotiation trick?

Eventually, it dawned on me. It’s not a trick. It’s a bit of very basic human psychology.

Our brain likes to think in discrete events, snapshots, scenes, like a movie. This much is obvious. What’s less obvious and more interesting are the consequences. From a New Yorker article on the topic:

“Walking into a room, you might forget why you came in; this happens, researchers say, because passing through the doorway brings one mental scene to a close and opens another.”

Like I said, a bit of fundamental human psychology.

You can now shrug your shoulders and say, “So what?” That would be a Fredo-like thing to do.

Or you can be more like Michael Corleone, and think about how to adapt, how to use this bit of psychology for your own ends.

That’s what Jim Camp did. That’s what successful magicians do. And successful writers, too. In fact, it’s what I’ve tried to do in this very email.

Let me end there, and point you to an offer you can certainly refuse. It’s my Most Valuable Email training, a kind of man-and-keyboard act. In case you’re a person who likes to take advantage of fundamental human psychology:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

A story about true magic

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If you’re interested in my Most Valuable Email program, you can find that here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

And now, here’s a story about true magic:

Magician Max Malini made his reputation thanks to impromptu performances.

One time, Malini sat down at a restaurant for dinner with company. He spent hours there, talking with his friends, drinking, eating. Fish soup. Lamb chops. Then a slice of chocolate cake.

During the entire time, Malini didn’t get up from the table.

Eventually, he turned to a woman at his table and asked to borrow her hat. This was at a time when women still wore hats. The woman took off hers and handed it to Malini.

Malini set a coin spinning on the table, and asked the woman, lady or eagle? The owner of the hat called out, eagle.

Malini used the hat to cover the still-spinning coin. When he lifted the hat, the coin was flat on the table, tails up, showing the eagle.

Mailini set the coin spinning a second time. He asked a man at his table, lady or eagle? The man said, lady.

Malini covered the coin with the hat again. When he lifted the hat, the coin was flat on the table, heads up, showing the lady.

Malini then set the coin spinning a third time, and covered it with the hat.

And when he lifted the hat, there was no coin at at all.

Instead, there was an enormous block of ice on the table, a cube about one foot to a side, perfectly chiseled, without a single drop of melted ice water anywhere.

And the point? In the words of another magician, screenwriter and novelist William Goldman:

“In a sense, a screenplay, whether a romance or a detective story, is a series of surprises. We detonate these as we go along. But for a surprise to be valid, we must first set the ground rules, indicate expectations.”

And now you can go back to the beginning if you like.

Why the bathroom is a great place to negotiate

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I walked to the beach this morning. People were out jogging. Others were going into the sea. Some were playing with their dogs. And there I was, listening to a course by negotiation coach Jim Camp, and taking notes on my phone.

“One of the things I like to do is negotiate in the bathroom,” Camp says. “It’s a great place to negotiate.”

To me that sounded like the usual contrary and shocking Camp material. But this one is surprisingly straightforward.

“When are people most exposed?” Camp asks. “I’m not talking about their physical parts. I’m talking about, when are they most relaxed, in their mind? When do they open their mind? When are they most exposed? ‘Well, the fight’s off. Now I’m free to go to the restroom.’ As they go to the restroom, you ask them a question. They’ll answer. They smile, and they answer the question. It’s a great time to do research.”

That’s a good tip for when you negotiate. Or for when you do magic.

Because this is the same exact idea described in a book I read not long ago, by a guy named Gary Kurtz, about the use of misdirection in stage magic.

Kurtz has a name for this bathroom phenomenon. He calls it the off-beat. The off-beat is the relaxation, the lull in attention that happens when the audience thinks the magic trick is over. That’s when the actual sleight-of-hand is done.

I’m thinking of writing a new book. I don’t have a title yet. Maybe I will call it, “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Cult Leaders, Copywriters, Door-To-Door Salesmen, NLP Trainers, Storytellers, Professional Negotiators, and Stage Magicians.”

The topic would be core ideas I’ve picked up from a bunch of far-flung fields, which are actually all the same field – one that’s all about controlling attention, heightening emotions, guiding people to an outcome.

I’m only thinking about this book right now. But if you have any input you’d like to give me — stories you think I can include, other fields I didn’t think of, specific techniques you have in mind — hit reply and let me know.

​​I don’t have anything to promise you in return, except my gratitude, and an acknowledgement in the book if I ever do put it out. Thanks in advance.

Non-scientific advertising

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The copywriting conference is over.

I’m at the Gdansk airport, wandering around and looking for my gate. Surprise. I come across a glass display case with a taxidermied bear inside.

It’s not an eastern European way of entertaining passengers. Rather, it’s a message from the WWF about trafficking in rare animals and animal products.

Besides the whole taxidermied bear, the glass case contains a bear head, a cheetah pelt, a skinned python, several pairs of snake leather slippers, taxidermied alligators and iguanas, a bunch of coral, and a giant turtle shell.

Those are the souvenirs. Then there’s the charms, potions, and amulets.

Cobratoxan. Seahorse capsules. Little carved ivory Buddhas. Skin caviar, with extract of sturgeon eggs. Bear balsam, with real bear inside.

Was the copywriting conference worth attending?

I’m 100% glad I came. I’ll see how it pays off and when. One thing I do know:

Marketing is like magic. Words and formulas have real power. Money can appear out of nowhere. And none of it happens without belief.

It’s time for me to board my plane and head back home. I’ll be back tomorrow with another email. If you’d like to read that, you can sign up for my email newsletter here.

I stepped inside the unicorn room to bring you this email

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“Did you see the ceiling?” I asked my friend Sam.

Sam shrugged and walked back to the little alcove by which I was standing. He leaned inside the alcove and looked up. His eyes got wide. “Whoa!”

The entire ceiling was plastered with owls. Eyes, beaks and all the body feathers.

Imagine five owls had fallen upside from a great distance onto the ceiling, splatted and become entirely flat. The owls now stick there, waiting day after day for people to look up and notice them.

That’s just one of the curiosities at the Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris.

I’m staying in Paris for a few days.

My three friends, all Americans, all independently heard recommendations for the Museum of Hunting and Nature.

There might be a worthwhile marketing study there — how to stand out in an immensely crowded marketplace, when surrounded with competitors with much more money, authority, experience, market share, and resources than you will ever have.

The Museum of Hunting is a strange mix of art and natural history.

There’s the owl-covered ceiling. There’s the paintings of dogs hunting from the 18th century. There’s the installation of a little wooden shack, filled with books, and covered with black feathers. There’s the taxidermied baby elephant. There’s the instructional video on methods of falconry.

And then, of course, there is the unicorn room.

In the unicorn room are specimens of the magical. A large ostrich egg in a jeweled display case. Two rhinoceros horns encased in gold. And in the dark, by the window, a genuine, 6-foot-long unicorn horn, mounted on a statue of a horse’s head to show how it looked in real life as the unicorn proudly walked through its enchanted forest home.

If you’re feeling a little disoriented right now, and wondering whether I’ve gone off the rails, let me say there is a chance it’s not a real unicorn horn. Rather, there is a chance it’s actually the canine tooth of a narwhal, a medium-sized whale that lives in Arctic waters.

Back in medieval times, and well after also, narwhal teeth were often peddled for many times their weight in gold as genuine unicorn horns. In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth was gifted one worth 10,000 pounds sterling — the going price for a castle at the time.

What can I tell you? People believe in magic.

They believed it in the middle ages, in the 16th century, and even today. Has the unicorn disappeared from our consciousness now that we’ve catalogued the world’s animals and failed to find one? If anything, the unicorn is hotter than ever.

It’s worth ruminating on that. But I won’t spoil the magic here by continuing to yap on into actual marketing advice.

Instead, I will only tell you about a unicorn-like land creature, with magical powers and mystical origins. It’s been known since ancient times but only recently have scientists correctly identified, catalogued, and named it. The scientific name is Nuntium aureum v. electricum, but it’s popularly known as the Most Valuable Email.

If you’d like to get a peek at this strange and wondrous beast, pull back the curtain below and look inside, if you dare:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Trust lessons from a professional fraudster

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Several times in this newsletter, I’ve mentioned a tiny book I’ve been reading, Leading With Your Head, by Gary Kurz. Really, it’s a pamphlet more than book, just 40-odd pages. But I’m still not done with it.

Leading With Your Head talks about the misdirection part of magic, all the other psychological stuff besides the sleight-of-hand. ​​How to focus the attention of your audience. How to direct that attention. How to make people believe and trust you, even though you are known to be a professional fraudster whose job it is to mislead and trick them.

So how do you do it? Lotsa techniques. Here’s one:

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One of John Ramsey’s favorite techniques for creating the moment was to create suspicion and then dispel it. The audience’s surprise that their suspicions were unfounded created the moment he needed to do the move for real.

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I don’t know who John Ramsey is. But I do know something else — and that’s the value of reading widely.

Now at this point, you might expect me to launch into a mentalist-like pitch for my Insights & More Book Club. But no. I would never.

Instead, I just want to give you a real example, right here, for free, of the value of reading widely. Here’s an effective opening and an interesting fact I found by reading a newsletter called Contemplations On The Tree Of Woe:

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The Chinese curse their enemies with the phrase “may you live in interesting times.”

Or, rather, Americans think that Chinese curse their enemies like that; according to Infogalactic, “despite being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no equivalent expression in Chinese.”

Fortunately, there’s an actual Chinese phrase that’s much more interesting. It’s found in a 1627 short story collection…

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And now in this brief moment, let me slide my Insights & More Book Club into view.

This elite club is open to a select, small group of new members right now. But the heavy front doors of the club will be sealed again soon, on Sunday, April 30, at 12 midnight PST.

If you’re curious to find out more about this club, or even to join, then the first step is to get on my email list. That’s the only place I recruit members. To take that first step, click here and fill out the application form that appears.

The case against reading books

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One of the first-ever emails I wrote for this newsletter, back in August 2018, was about magician Ricky Jay. Jay was widely considered one of the best sleight-of-hand artists in the world.

Why write about a magician in a marketing and copywriting newsletter?

My feeling is that magic, as practiced by top performers like Ricky Jay, is about controlling the audience’s attention, about painting mental pictures, about entertaining, about building curiosity, all the while guiding people to a tightly controlled desired outcome — the magician’s desired outcome.

​​With some small tweaks, that also sounds like the job of a copywriter, or more broadly, any persuader.

Back in August 2018, Ricky Jay was still alive. He died a few months later. He left behind an enormous collection of magic artifacts — posters, books, handbills, paintings, personal letters — from some of the most bizarre, mystical, and skilled magicians, jugglers, acrobats, learned animals, con men, and sideshow freaks of all time.

After Ricky Jay died, his collection was broken up into four parts. Just the first part, auctioned off in 2021, brought in $3.8 million.

Today, I came across a little video of Ricky Jay talking about the books in his collection. And he had this to say:

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There are probably more books written about magic than any other art form. Literally thousands and thousands of books. And I’ve collected thousands of books in my life about magic technique.

But I believe that the real key to learning is personally. It’s almost like the sensei master relationship in the martial arts. That the way you want to learn is by someone that you respect showing you something.

There’s a level of transmission and a level of appreciation that’s never completely attainable just through the written word.

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I agree. If you can find somebody you respect, and you can get them to agree to teach you personally, you will learn things, and at a level of depth that you could never learn otherwise.

So go find a  sensei. But—

What if you can’t find one?

Or worse, what if you find a sensei, and, in spite of your best pleading and cajoling and stubbornly hanging around, he just says no? What if he’s too busy, too cranky, too secretive?

In that case I suggest being your own sensei.

Because books are great. I’ve read two or three of them, so I know. But there’s a level of understanding that’s never completely attainable through the written word.

Anyways, that’s my entire message for you for today. Except, if you want some help becoming your own sensei, take a look at my Most Valuable Email course.

​​Yes, Most Valuable Email is a bit of a how-to guide to a specific technique of email copywriting. But more than that, it’s a framework, a magical one in my experience, for becoming your own sensei. More info here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

I’ll start off this email by projecting out some praise and admiration I’ve gotten in the past

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Right about a year ago, I sent out an email with the subject line, “Send me your praise and admiration.” Best thing I ever did.

​​Here are a few of the lavishly praising and admiring responses I got to that email. First, from David Patrick, senior copywriter at Launch Potato:

“If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good. In fact, he may very well be the best thing to happen to America… at least when it comes to persuasion and influence! No, really!”

Second, from “The Eco-Copywriter,” Thomas Crouse, who went absolutely nuts and over the top in his flattery of me and the work I do:

“My inbox is bombarded with emails every day. But when I see one from John, I stop and read it.”

And finally, here’s one from Liza Schermann, the lead copywriter at Scandinavian Biolabs:

“John Bejakovic and persuasion. You can’t beat that. He made me like cats. Even though I used to hate them and they used to hate me. So he’s a great person to find out about a new product that’s about persuading stubborn prospects. Or cats.”

The reason I’m sharing such lavish praise and admiration with you is because I’m still reading a magic book I mentioned two weeks ago.

​​The book is called “Leading With Your Head: Psychological and Directional Keys to the Amplification of the Magic Effect.” It’s basically a guidebook for stage magicians about how to organize their tricks and their shows to maximize the magic, the fun, the show for the audience.

Here’s a relevant bit from Leading With Your Head:

“If we don’t draw attention to the magical occurrences, the effects may be weakened, or lost. The answer lies in analyzing your performance pieces to know when you need to direct attention to the magic. All other times you should be projecting out and relating to your audience, so they remember you.”

I hope that with all the projecting out and relating I’ve done so far, you will remember me tomorrow. Because now the time has come for me to draw your attention, and in fact direct it, to a bit of sales magic. Specifically, to my Most Valuable Postcard #2, which I am offering for the first and only time ever at a 50% launch discount, until 12 midnight PST tonight.

I started this launch two days ago with a message I got from copywriter Kay Hng Quek.

​​Kay went ahead and bought MVP #2 and wrote me about it yesterday. His message is below. Please read it carefully, particularly the parts about how MVP #2 “blew his mind” and how MVP #1 and MVP #2 are “probably the best $100” he has ever spent on marketing training:

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Read it immediately, and how you tied everything together at the end just blew my mind. Obviously this demands a second or third read. Obviously I will learn so much more from that.

Ngl, I would have loved MVP #3, but I’m grateful I got to read at least MVP #1 and #2. Probably the best $100 I’ve ever spent on marketing training…

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Again, the deadline to get Most Valuable Postcard #2 for 50% off the regular price is tonight at 12 midnight PST. But the only way to get this offer is to be on my email list before the deadline strikes. If you’d like to that, click here and fill out the form that appears.

One thing Bencivenga got right

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If you go on YouTube right now, you can see how magic is done at the very highest level — I mean really see it, the trick behind the trick.

Frankly, it will seem preposterous.

A few weeks ago, a friend (hi Marci) clued me into an old but mind-opening video. The video shows one of the greatest magicians of all time, Tony Slydini, performing his “paper balls over head” trick on the Dick Cavett Show.

The unique thing is that this trick is done so it’s completely transparent to the audience. The audience can see all parts of Slydini’s trick in action. And it doesn’t seem like any trick at all.

But there’s a volunteer on stage, who Slydini focuses on.

The volunteer is determined to spot how Slydini makes a bunch of paper balls disappear. And yet, as the crowd laughs louder and louder with each new disappearing paper ball — it’s so obvious to be stupid — the poor guy on stage can’t ever spot the trick.

The volunteer goes from smiling and confident and sure of his own eyes at the start of the trick, to walking off the stage just a few minutes later, staring at the ground and shaking his head a little. “WTF just happened?”

What happened is misdirection.

I’m reading a book about misdirection right now. It’s called Leading With Your Head. The book gives specifics about movement and position and cues for actual stage magicians. But at the heart of it all, the book tells you, misdirection is not distraction. It is focused attention.

Copywriters do misdirection, too. Well, not all copywriters. Copywriters at the very highest level.

For example, I’ve spotted misdirection multiple times in Gary Bencivenga’s “Job Interviews” ad. That ad came pretty late in Gary’s career, after he had been writing sales copy for several decades. I didn’t find any examples of misdirection in Gary’s earlier sales letters, even if they were successful. It seems it took a while for him to get it right.

And in case you’re wondering:

You won’t spot the misdirection by looking at Gary’s ad. That’s like being the guy on stage during the “paper balls over head” trick. The Great Bencivenga will focus your attention where he wants you to look, and you will miss his sleight of hand.

But you can see how Gary’s magic works if you can find the book Gary was selling through that interviews ad. This brings up an important point.

I enjoy watching magic, and I enjoy being fooled by magicians. I enjoy it so much that I don’t want to find out how the trick is done, not really. I won’t ever perform magic, so why ruin the show for myself?

Maybe you feel something similar about sales letters. That might sound preposterous, but it’s very possible.

When you read a sales letter like Gary’s interviews ad — you’re likely to be amazed, astounded, to wonder at the impossible promises he is making you, which somehow still seem credible.

How is he doing it? Could Gary’s promises really be real? It’s possible to enjoy racking your brain over this in a bit of pleasurable uncertainty, as you try to resolve the mysteries Gary is setting out before you.

But once you see the actual “secrets” behind Gary’s copywriting tricks, the illusion vanishes like a cloud of smoke. And gone along with it is that enjoyable sense of wonder, of possible impossibility.

The only reason you might want to ruin the show for yourself is that you yourself want to perform sales magic — writing actual copy, which focuses people’s attention where you want it to go, all the way down to the order form where they put in their credit card information, and the big red button that says, “Buy NOW.”

It’s your decision. Amazed spectator shaking his head in wonder… or sly and knowing performer, controlling attention and doing magic.

If you decide you want the second, you can find Gary’s copy misdirection revealed inside Copy Riddles, specifically rounds 2, 6, and 17. For that show, step right up:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Mysterious showman’s unnatural advice

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For the past four days, I’ve been promoting my new coaching program, but maybe I should stop.

Days one and two produced a lot of response.

Day three produced less response.

Day four has so far produced no response.

It might turn out somebody will still respond to yesterday’s email. After all, I sent it out less than 12 hours ago.

Or it might turn out I’ve genuinely tapped out demand. Especially since I’ve been trying to disqualify people pretty hard in my copy.

Or it might just be that my audience is getting weary of my recent barrage of long, charged, promise-heavy emails.

In connection to that last possibility:

I want to share a tip with you from the mysterious Derren Brown.

Brown is a hypnotist and illusionist and mentalist who has spent a lot of time on stage performing to big crowds, and a lot of time on UK’s Channel 4, making mindbending TV specials for audiences of millions.

Writing once about his experience playing to crowds, Brown gave this advice:

The lesson I quickly learned, which goes against every natural instinct when you are on stage showing off to people, is that if they are losing interest and starting to cough, you must become quieter.

Let me test out Brown’s advice.

So no benefits of my coaching program today. No man-or-mouse copy. Not even any deadline countdown.

I will just quietly remind you that I will be offering a coaching program with a focus on email marketing, starting in January. In case that interests you, the first step is to get on my email list. Click here to do so. After that, we can talk in more detail.