Means Of Control

The sneaky Christmas legend of THE ONE

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Today being December 25, let me tell you a story that happened on today’s date, supposedly.

The year was some time long ago, or thereabouts.

The place was London, though whether at St. Paul’s or not the French book doesn’t say.

Merlin had told the Archbishop of Canterbury to summon all the barons to London, for a sign would appear, showing who should become king and bring the realm out of lawless jeopardy.

And sure enow, during morning mass, right around the time that I’m writing this, specifically 11:02am, a great stone appeared in the churchyard, and an anvil atop that stone, with a sword, naked to the point, stuck inside the anvil. On the sword was an inscription in gold letters, which read:

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.”

Maybe you know this story.

Lots of great knights tried to pull out the stone. They all failed.

Then on New Year’s day, a young boy named Arthur pulled out the sword, kind of by accident, and the sign was shown and the prophecy was fulfilled:

HERE WAS KING ARTHUR, NEW RULER OF THE REALM, KING OF ALL ENGLAND.

Good story, right? Right???

I don’t know whether this legend taps into something fundamental in the human psyche, or if it’s just that we’ve all been told it a million times over, in various forms.

One way or another, it’s snuck into our subconscious, where it does its damage. Because it’s not how reality works.

A few weeks ago, a member of my Daily Email House community, DTC copywriter and brand strategist Chavy Helfgott, posted a question in the group:

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I recently put a new page on my website called “Client Love”, which features screenshots of feedback I’ve gotten from clients.

And I noticed that there was a lot of really, really enthusiastic feedback there. Like multiple “wows”, “I’m amazed,” and “blown away.”

Here’s my problem: despite this great feedback, there’s this niggling little worm in my brain constantly whispering, “You’re not really good enough.”

This is problematic because it’s difficult to sell myself as THE answer to my ideal client’s problem… if I myself doubt that it is true.

I guess my question is – anyone have any ideas how to get past this hump? Why is feedback from my own clients not convincing me? How do I convince myself that my work is valuable, so I can more successfully convince others of this, so that they hire me?

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Lotsa House members chimed in with great suggestions and ideas.

The one I want to highlight today came from speechwriter and trainer Alexander Westenberg. Alexander wrote:

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I agree with pretty much everything already said, but here’s an additional two cents: You say it’s difficult to sell yourself as THE answer, but to me I don’t see why you have to?

The way I like to look at it for myself (and pretty much everything else in life) is that you don’t have to be THE answer, just AN answer.

So for me, I’m a speechwriter and trainer. I have my way of doing things, and I honestly believe in it and in the value I bring. But a) there are other speechwriters out there, and b) some people prefer AI.

I provide AN answer to the problem of how to be a powerful and persuasive speaker. I’m even happy saying I’m one of the better answers — but I’m also happy saying that people can answer that problem in other ways.

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Arthur legend notwithstanding, you don’t need to be THE ONE.

You can be ONE OF and still live a heroic life — a life where you take on great challenges that excite you, and get rewarded handsomely for your effort.

There are lots of ways you can be announce to the world you are ONE OF the better answers to whatever problem you are solving.

I think that having an online personal brand is one of the better ways to do that, though there certainly are other options.

I also think that, for having an online personal brand, an email newsletter is particularly attractive, and much easier to succeed with, though other platforms and formats can certainly work.

And if you do write an email newsletter, then I think a daily, personal-sounding email like what you are reading right now is a great way to go about it, though dailyish or weekly or occasional emails can work, and are certainly better than nothing.

And if you do choose to write daily emails, then one of the better ways to stick with it and be effective is to use daily prompts or topic categories for yourself, which keep your emails fresh and your mind focused, though of course using no structure and relying on inspiration each day is also an option.

You see where I’m going with this?

It’s an old story, one that I’ve told hundreds of times in these emails. But maybe you still don’t know how it ends? For that, take a look here, and see if you are willing to start on the journey that you are being invited upon:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Direct marketing explained in two simple steps

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Yesterday, I was on a call with a smart and very successful direct marketer. He explained his entire philosophy of direct marketing in two steps:

1. Get people to say YES, and then

2. Upsell them

(Of course, people are free to say no to the upsell. No hard feelings.)

This is a fractal that repeats over and over, throughout the direct marketing world. For example, it’s how I have run ads in other newsletters that paid for themselves on day 0:

1. Get people to say YES to a cool free offer in the ad and on the landing page, and then

2. Upsell them to a paid offer on the thank-you page

Of course, people are free to say no to the thank-you page offer. (Once again, no hard feelings, just a bit of me sticking voodoo pins into a little doll I use to represent my ideal customer avatar.)

The above is basically the model I’m gonna help you implement if you manage to win the bidding in the upcoming “I endorse YOU to my list” auction, which I will be running soon in my Daily Email House community.

The community is free to join… though if you do join, I’ll try to upsell you on participating in the auction.

Of course, no hard feelings if you say no to that.

(Starts muttering, and gets pins ready.)

Just kidding. Here’s where to join my FREE community, where the shared mission is, “Use your email list to pay for a house”:

https://bejakovic.com/house

“You’re pretty funny”

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A few days, I ago got an email from copywriter and business strategist Nadia Dalbani, who wrote:

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John.

I’ve read 3 of your emails in a row. I haven’t had time to read them the past few days, so I had to have a read-a-thon (a John-a-thon!).

Anyway, I’m so close to buying Daily Email Habit even though I totally read the sales page and you DID say don’t buy this if you don’t plan to *actually* have a Daily Email Habit – I only email my list once a week, so I initially left like yup, NOT for me.

But I can confirm, even reading your emails in reverse order, I am definitely more convinced to start an every single day email habit due to your pitches.

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I remember hearing a story once about how Bill Murray and Chevy Chase got into an actual fist fight on the set of Saturday Night Live.

The two apparently hated each other. It all came to a boil one day when Murray said to Chase, “You’re pretty funny.”

Chevy Chase then started swinging.

I’ve always wondered why “pretty funny” is such an insult, at least if you think of yourself as funny. It’s much more insulting than, say, “not funny.”

(If you have any insight on this for me, write in and let me know.)

In any case, that’s a little how I felt after reading Nadia’s email.

“Pretty good email. Pretty, pretty good. Almost got me. But not quite.”

Nadia lives in London. After I read her message, I started getting ready to buy a ticket so I could fly there, confront her in person, and maybe start a fight.

Fortunately, yesterday I got a new message from Nadia, just in time:

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Alright, alright, it took, like, 3 more emails, but you got me. I’m mega excited to start Daily Email Habit 😄

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Like I say, this is particularly fortunate, not only because it will prevent an ugly confrontation on the streets of London, but because it also backs up the very premise of Daily Email Habit.

For one thing, the emails Nadia responded to were based on prompts I sent out as part of Daily Email Habit. (I eat my own dog food most days.)

For another thing, this little case study backs up the general principle of putting out a daily email… gradually building up desire… gradually chipping away at objections… all while keeping readers interested enough that they keep opening and reading your emails.

This is really what Daily Email Habit is there to help you do.

And if you are thinking of getting started, I can only recommend you act now.

My Prospective Profit Price event is coming to a close tonight at 12pm midnight PST.

After that, the price for Daily Email Habit goes up from a modest $20/month to a wallet-busting $30/month.

Also, Daily Email House, the lively community that I’ve created for those who write more or less daily emails, will stop being a free bonus tonight at midnight.

If you have any questions, or to join now, take a look at this pretty good sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Wickedful

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I like to go see movies without knowing anything about them other than they’re playing at my local movie theater. I don’t want to know the genre, the actors in it, the plot summary, the reviews.

“Let them surprise me,” I say with a magnanimate sweep of my hand, as I hand over my 7 euro at the box office.

And so this Wednesday, I went to see Wicked. I only knew it had something to do with the Wizard of Oz. But I was surprised to find it’s three hours long, and a musical of the kind I don’t like, and a heavy-handed morality play to boot.

I emerged from the theater several years older, no wiser, and looking desesperately for something, anything, a little shred from this ordeal that I could reclaim for my daily email.

And there was something.

In between all the unendful singing, Wicked also has bits of dialogue. And the dialogue regularly makes use of a little word-trick. Each time it happened, it put a smile on my face and lightened the heavy burden of watching this movie.

I won’t spell out exactly what this word-trick is. But perhaps you can guess? I’ve tried to use it myself numerious times in this email.

My point for today is that it makes sense to make up and use your own words, terms, slang, even if it’s nonsense, or silly. It lightens the burden of reading (or watching) otherwise valuable but dry material.

You might shrug at that. Perhaps it’s because you’ve heard this advice before. Perhaps it’s because you think it doesn’t apply to you, and the serious business you are engagified in.

So there’s a bigger and to me much more interesting point I want to share with you. But I will save it for my email tomorrow. It’s not that humor is important, though it is. It’s not that it can be done in every field, even if your field is accounting for mortuary offices.

Rather, the point I want to share with you is a surprising idea I heard recently in the crypto space, which applies much more broadly, to business and perhaps to life.

Maybe you think that’s a grand claim. I can only promise to pay it off tomorrow.

Meanwhile, if you would like to learn a different trick, one that can lighten the burden of reading AND writing daily emails, you might like the enfollowing:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Revealed: MVE contest winners

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Yesterday, I concluded my first-ever prize-giveaway contest. The prizes totaled $1,088. The condition to enter was to submit 50-150 words about any email I’ve written using my Most Valuable Email trick.

My goal for this contest was to find out whether the MVE trick makes my emails more sticky and effective, and also how my readers are using the MVE trick for their own benefit.

Only one problem:

Now that the contest’s over, I don’t really want to reveal which Most Valuable Emails the winners picked.

There’s value in keeping the mystery around what the MVE trick is. And if I gave five distinct examples of Most Valuable Emails, odds are good that the trick would be easy to spot.

But a deal’s a deal. So I’m announcing the contest winners, the prizes they got, and my reasoning for why they won:

#1 Gold medal

The first prize of $250 goes to Shakoor Chowdhury, a marketer and copywriter from Mississauga, Ontario.

Shakoor picked a Most Valuable Email I wrote over the past week, the same email I referenced yesterday, which drew lots of positive responses from other readers also.

But the real reason Shakoor gets first prize is because he also wrote me to say:

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John, this is by far my favorite of your programs and really kickstarted my email marketing.

When I bought this course I was very inconsistent, but you gave me direction and I started writing daily and grew a list of 470 subscribers in less than a month of implementing.

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This is the #1 winning entry, because it matches the #1 reason I find Most Valuable Emails so valuable. And that’s that that Most Valuable Emails make it interesting for me personally to stick with daily emailing day after day. And it seems for Shakoor also.

#2 Silver medal

The second prize of $200 goes to Tom Grundy, a high-powered London banker who also happens to write excellent emails about self development.

Tom picked three of my old Most Valuable Emails as his favorites, going back to 2021. But the real reason Tom won a prize is that he also applied the MVE trick in one of his LinkedIn posts. And the result, in Tom’s words:

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I thought I’d share the attached LinkedIn post I made a while ago. Great thing about this post was that people replied with their own “MVE style” replies and it turned into a fun thread.

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Like I keep saying, the MVE trick makes your emails engaging and fun for your audience. Same goes for your LinkedIn posts, if that’s your bag.

#3 Bronze medal

Finally, three third prizes — three $197 tickets to my upcoming Water Into Wine workshop — go to:

1. Carlo Gargiulo, an Italian copywriter working in-house at Metodo Merenda.

Besides working in-house, Carlo also writes his own email newsletter. He’s been selling his own services and coaching for years to his list. But recently, Carlo made his first-ever affiliate sales to his list, via an idea I shared in the MVE swipe file.

Point being, the MVE training has value beyond simply teaching you the MVE trick.

2. Alex Ko, senior copywriter at KooBits in Singapore.

Alex won because he picked a Most Valuable Email I wrote more than a year ago, and he pointed out how this email still has an impact on my business every day.

In other words, Alex rightly highlighted that writing Most Valuable Emails is not just about sales or engagement. Instead, it can actually transform you and your business in time.

3. Jeffrey Thomas, a DR copywriter from St. Paul, Minnesota, who works in-house at Marketing Profs.

Jeffrey has previously written me to say nice things about Most Valuable Emails I’ve written. But he won this time because he applied the MVE trick himself — to the description of a live presentation he’ll be giving at a major conference this November.

So there you go. The MVE contest winners, and the reasons why they won.

If you’re one of the winners above, I’ll be in touch about how to get you your prize.

And if you’re not one of the winners above, you now have 5 good dimensionalizations of what the MVE program can do. Not just for me, but for other marketers, copywriters, and even one business owner, in a range of situations, applications, and formats.

If you already have my Most Valuable Email program, this might encourage you to revisit it, apply the trick yourself, and benefit.

And if you don’t have my MVE program, I can only assume it’s because you found the prize contest cheesy and crass. Because you’re above such flat-out manipulation. Because you don’t want your name to be used to sell stuff online.

I can completely understand. I feel the same way about many marketing stunts.

That said, maybe this email has given you some new arguments for why you can benefit from discovering the Most Valuable Email trick and inserting it into your marketing. If you’d like to get started now:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

MVE contestants hit me with the stupid Swedish Chef routine

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My Most Valuable Email, $1088-prize contest continues. ​More on that below. ​​But first, a true personal story:

I hated high school. More than anything, I hated English class.

I hated it so much that I refused to read the books we were to read or write the papers we were to write.

I remember Mr. Sherman, my 11th-grade art teacher, calling my mom late one evening.

He told her I wouldn’t be able to go on tomorrow’s field trip to Washington DC. The fact was, I was currently failing English class, and there was a law about taking badly behaving inmates out of prison.

The reason I managed to not fail English completely was that I went to a pretty progressive school. English class wasn’t just about taking tests and writing papers. It would sometimes involve creative assignments — you know, to make school fun.

For example, in 12th grade, we had to read Beowful. Of course I didn’t.

Fortunately, to prove we had read Beowful and thought about it deeply, we had to do one of those creative assignments. In other words, we were free to do anything and present it to the class, as long as it had to do with Beowulf.

My turn came. I walked up to the front of the class and popped in a tape to a little portable stereo. (Yes, this was a long time ago.) I pressed play.

First, a bit of music came on. As that faded out, my voice came on, trying to sound as smooth and hip as a radio DJ:

“Good evening and thanks for tuning in to another episode of late-night early-English classics. Tonight, we have sections seven through nineteen of the greatest epic poem ever written in the English language. You know it and I know it — of course, I’m talking about Beowful. And as always, we have our local old-English expert, professor Bjorn Bejakoffson of St. James University, to read this masterpiece for us in the original. Take it away professor Bejakoffson…

… and at this point, I transitioned into my best impression of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.

I used to be good at mimicking the accents of other languages. But here, I was really just making up gibberish and making it sound like what I imagined old English sounded like.

In that 12th-grade English class, in part because I was always so unprepared, I had developed a reputation as the class clown.

My classmates were all eager to see what I had done for this creative assignment. As soon as the stupid Swedish Chef routine came on, everybody started laughing.

I stood there at the front of the class, beaming with cleverness as the tape played.

But then I spotted the English teacher. He was standing in the back, shaking his head, and scribbling down something in his notes. As I found out later, it was a C- for me.

I dredged up this story from my failing memory because of the Most Valuable Email contest I launched yesterday. There was just one condition to enter this contest:

“Write me an email and tell me which of my Most Valuable Emails has been most useful or interesting to you, and why.”

I’ve gotten a bunch of entries so far.

Many of them warmed my cold heart.

But I also got a few entries from people who clearly do not know what my Most Valuable Email trick is. Instead, they were just picking emails at random, including ones that don’t use the Most Valuable Email trick, and flattering me in hopes that they will guess right and have a shot at a prize.

I’m telling you this for two reasons:

1. Because, while I keep using the Most Valuable Email trick over and over, it remains subtle and surprising to people. Even people who regularly read my emails often can’t guess what it is.

2. Because I have somehow grown up and become like those dreaded teachers I hated so much in high school. And when I see someone trying to fake or buffoon their way through this contest, I just shake my head and scribble down in my notes: C-.

If you’d like to participate in this contest, you can find the prizes, rules, and deadline below.

And if you want to have a decent shot of winning any of the prizes, it will help to know what the Most Valuable Email trick is, and to make reference to it when you submit your entry. To help you do that, here’s where you can find the actual Most Valuable Email training:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

And here’s more details about the contest, from yesterday’s email:

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First prize — $297.

Second prize — $200.

And three third prizes — a $197 ticket to my upcoming Water Into Wine workshop, on repackaging your offers for more sales.

If you’re interested, here are the rules for this competition:

1. Entries must be submitted in the form of an email from 50 to 150 words. Simply tell me which of my Most Valuable Emails has been the most useful or insightful or entertaining for you, and why. You don’t have to be clever, fancy, or unique in what you say — simply tell me what comes to mind.

2. The deadline for this competition is this Wednesday, June 19th, at 8:31pm CET. I’ll announce the prizes the day after, on Thursday, June 20th. The competition is open to anyone on my list, whether or not you have bought my Most Valuable Email training.

3. You can submit as many entries as you like, and I will consider all of them. But you can only win one prize.

4. What I want primarily is to find out how my readers have been using my Most Valuable Email trick to benefit themselves, as well as how this trick has made certain of my emails more sticky and available in their minds.

Like I say on the sales page for Most Valuable Email, if I had to choose just one type of email to write each day, I’d choose Most Valuable Emails. That’s why I want to hear about the real-world effects these emails have had on my readers.

5. The decision about which competition entry wins which prize will be made by me, based on my personal reaction and surprise. As one MVE buyer wrote me after going through the course:

“I’m looking back at your old emails with new eyes. You know that moment people get epiphanies and the entire world looks different? I’m feeling that way about your writing now. You’ve helped me unlock something I didn’t know existed. So incredible.”

$1088 in prizes to Bejako readers

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First prize — $297.

Second prize — $200.

And three third prizes — a $197 ticket to my upcoming Water Into Wine workshop, on repackaging your offers for more sales.

I’m 100% serious about this competition.

To enter, simply write me an email and tell me which of my Most Valuable Emails has been most useful or interesting to you, and why.

Most Valuable Emails = any of my emails that use the Most Valuable Email trick.

I write a new Most Valuable Email every few days. In fact, I wrote 3 over the past week alone.

If you’ve been on my list for a while, you probably know what I mean by the Most Valuable Email trick.

And if you don’t know, you can watch me pull back the curtain and reveal the trick inside my Most Valuable Email training.

Plus, inside that training you can find a swipe file of 51 Most Valuable Emails that I selected as being particularly successful, effective, or influential for me personally. Any of those is eligible for this competition as well.

That means that, if you buy Most Valuable Email today, and then enter this competition, you have a fair shot of making your money back within two days, and to get the course to boot. There’s no telling how many people will enter this competition, and you might win first prize simply by virtue of showing up.

Plus, just for entering the competition, I will send you an additional valuable marketing idea, which you can use today to make more sales.

If you’re interested, here are the rules for this competition:

1. Entries must be submitted in the form of an email from 50 to 150 words. Simply tell me which of my Most Valuable Emails has been the most useful or insightful or entertaining for you, and why. You don’t have to be clever, fancy, or unique in what you say — just tell me what comes to mind.

2. The deadline for this competition is this Wednesday, June 19th, at 8:31pm CET. I’ll announce the prizes the day after, on Thursday, June 20th. The competition is open to anyone on my list, whether or not you have bought my Most Valuable Email training.

3. You can submit as many entries as you like, and I will consider all of them. But you can only win one prize.

4. What I want primarily is to find out how my readers have been using my Most Valuable Email trick to benefit themselves, as well as how this trick has made certain of my emails more sticky and available in their minds.

​​Like I say on the sales page for Most Valuable Email, if I had to choose just one type of email to write each day, I’d choose Most Valuable Emails. That’s why I want to hear about the real-world effects these emails have had on my readers.

5. The decision about which competition entry wins which prize will be made by me, based on my personal reaction and surprise. ​​As one MVE buyer wrote me after going through the course:

​​”I’m looking back at your old emails with new eyes. You know that moment people get epiphanies and the entire world looks different? I’m feeling that way about your writing now. You’ve helped me unlock something I didn’t know existed. So incredible.”

Announcing: The winner of the “Send me your feedback on my Simple Money Emails course” contest

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Two weeks back, I announced the winner of the “Influence my Simple Money Emails course” contest, only 3 months behind schedule.

Well, today I have another contest winner to announce, this time for the “Send me your feedback on my Simple Money Emails course” contest.

I told everyone who had gotten Simple Money Emails to send me their feedback, their praise, their blame, their outrage.

The most useful bit of feedback, determined by a select three-part panel composed of myself, plus a Shire hobbit named Bejako Baggins, and top-secret agent Bond Jebakovic, would win a ticket to my upcoming Authority Emails training, valued somewhere north of $500.

I ran that contest a little over a month ago.

Today I would like to announce the winner (fanfares please):

Career coach Tom Grundy. (Tom, if you’re listening, come by the DJ booth to pick up your prize.)

Tom wrote me with the following bit of feedback on Simple Money Emails, specifically about a tiny section at the bottom of page 2:

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I really enjoyed SME. A few parts which were refreshers, a few which were a new take on stuff I’d already come across, and some stuff which was brand new to me.

I actually found the most useful part of the course to be the small section at the bottom of page 2. The eight bullet points to me were gold. I came into copywriting through a Stefan Georgi course, so I learnt his RMBC method and only then came onto daily emails, which I found to be much more my thing. I always struggled to see how daily emails “fit” with other copywriting models (RMBC, PAS, AIDA etc) and this section has made it super clear for me. Now when I sent my daily emails I use this list, and make sure I’m ticking off at least one in each email (and ticking them all off over time).

So if you had pages which delved into each of these 8 bullets in more detail (just like you have already for the openers and closers) I’d also find this super valuable.

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The reason it’s taken me this long to announce Tom’s the winner was because it’s taken me this long to take his advice and expand this section of the course a bit with some illustrations.

I’ve done that now.

So if you have Simple Money Emails already, you will the find the updates automagically present inside your course area.

And if don’t have Simple Money Emails yet, you can get it at the page below, and start benefiting from it in under an hour from now:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Announcing: The winner of the “Influence my Simple Money Emails course” contest

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It’s 6:45pm as I write this, which means it’s about 8 hours later than I normally write these emails. I’ll tell you in a sec why that’s significant.

But first, let me tell you why I’m writing so late:

I’ve spent much of the day wandering the streets of Budapest, my once-adopted but then renounced home.

​​I lived here for 11 years but then left. This trip is the first time I’ve been back in over 4 years.

The last few days were all about meeting up with old friends.

Today is my last day. I spent it by doing a full tourist circuit, up to the renovated City Park, with its new hot air balloon and its convex garden-covered museum of ethnography… and then, via the oldest metro in continental Europe (1896)… up to the Castle District with its panoramic views of the various bridges over the Danube right below.

Oh, and when I stopped in along the way at different Starbuckses to order my decaf latte, I used my faded but still passable Hungarian and kept introducing myself as János. Nobody realized I’m not a local.

All that’s to say, it’s been a nice and nostalgic day.

But now it’s night. And night is when I find it impossible to write anything sensible or quick.

In fact, I have no idea how I can possibly tie the above Budapest opener with any kind of offer I sell, except to say that I was so strapped for ideas for this email that I started rooting around my journal for this newsletter… and going far, far back.

So far back, that I found that I had still not announced the winner of the “Influence my Simple Money Emails course” contest, which I ran back in July, before I released the course.

For that contest, I asked readers to write in and tell me what has them bothered when writing simple sales emails. What they would like to learn, and why they haven’t been able to learn it yet.

The best such response — as chosen by me — got a free ticket to my 9 Deadly Email Sins training, which cost $100 to attend.

So let me do what I should have done months ago:

The winner — fanfare please — of the “Influence my Simple Money Emails course” contest is Richard Terry, owner of Accolade Kitchen and Bath, a construction and remodeling company in St. Louis, Missouri.

​​Richard won himself the free ticket to the Email Sins training by writing in with the following:

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I’m told that a sales email should be in a story format that tells the story about the client’s fears, concerns, what keeps them up at night etc. Your product or service should solve your prospects problem. My challenge is not being creative enough to produce these emails on a consistent basis with relevant content.

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Even though I didn’t announce Richard as the winner publicly until now, I gave him access to 9 Deadly Email Sins when I put it on.

​​I also used his comment a guiding light when I actually the Simple Money Emails course.

My goal for the course was to demystify email copywriting, and show that writing effective daily sales emails is not a matter of unusual creativity — but a matter of preparation, and a willingness to follow a few simple rules, which I laid out in the course.

In case you’d like to write sales emails on a consistent basis, but you have not been able to, then my Simple Money Emails course can help you get started.

​​I even included the 9 Deadly Email Sins training as a free bonus.

​​If you’d like to get the whole package now, go here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Value is not how-to

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Yesterday’s email, about a strange scientific experiment on kittens, provoked some response.

​​One reader said I should have included a trigger warning. (“Deeply disturbing content. Cruel. CRUEL.”)

Another reader said we “look at Nazi scientists and cringe as we click our tongues” but we allow our own scientists all sorts of license.

A third reader wrote to say he loved the line, “The scientists are wearing white lab coats. The kitten is not.” He thought the line was priceless.

I highlight these responses because they focus on exactly the two things that got me about the strange kitten experiment.

​​The research was bizarre and cruel. At the same time, the image of two laboratory scientists in white lab coats, working hard to startle a kitten into blinking, was ridiculous and made me smile.

There was a point to my email yesterday. If you read the email, do you remember the point?

If you don’t remember, no problem. The point was not the value of the email.

In general, value in an email is not the how-to. Value in an email is the emotional spike it creates.

I could tell you how to create emotional spikes in your emails, but really, what would be the value in that?

Instead, I’ll just tell you that you can create emotional spikes even without talking about cruelty to kittens, without creating outrage, and without trying to be funny. In fact I’ve created a course all about the how-to of “intellectual” emotional spikes. You can find it here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve