Persuasion

Reader succeeds in provoking me with a backhanded compliment

by

Yesterday, a reader succeeded in provoking me with a message that started with a backhanded compliment — how my Most Valuable Email course is ‘good’ but not ‘WOOOW.’

The hackles stood up on the back of my neck as I read this.

If you’d like to be provoked also, read through my reader’s message below, and then I’ll tell you something simple but powerful about influence:

===

I’m stopping by with a purpose: to finally give you my impression of MVE.

Look… The first time I read all the content, I found it “good”.

I’m not going to deny that, although I found the idea original, I hadn’t found the hook that made me say “WOOOW”.

Two weeks went by, and I found myself going around in circles to write some emails and improve my list engagement, and I decided to re-read all the MVE content.

…

I admit I have no idea what was going on in my head the first time I saw the course.

This is one of the best courses I have EVER bought.

I probably read it without much thought – the way one reads newspapers in the morning – and didn’t see how much value it had.

And I am writing this email to you after:

1. having carefully studied MVE, and
2. Having put it into practice and seen the results.

I paid $100 for this course. However, if it had cost me $500, I would have paid for it anyway (I really still can’t get over how effective and unique it is).

Even though MVE’s sales page states well everything the training comes with…

I believe the course contains MUCH more at a deeper level, and its results are better than what you state on your sales page.

Thank you for this. I understand that it is something I paid for and that is the “price”, but beyond that, I feel that selling this product is a service you are doing that is worth 10 times what I paid.

I have had good results in my newsletter, and just now it has grown more than expected and I have built an audience that I feel comfortable with – and I owe that in large part to MVE.

===

Maybe you yourself feel provoked or at least disappointed now.

Maybe you feel I’ve bait-and-switched you by promising you some genuine drama, and instead I’ve sneaked in a testimonial for one of my courses.

If so, let me work to make it up to you:

The reader who sent me the above message, Jesús Silva, “got” me with his opening.

I started off reading his email thinking, “What a jackass. Why would anybody take the trouble to write me and say something I’ve worked hard to create is ‘good’ but not WOOOW.”

By the end of Jesús’s message though, I thought this is the nicest testimonial I’ve ever gotten for MVE.

I asked myself why.

After all, I’ve had many people write me with very positive and even grateful reviews of MVE.

Why did this one impact me more?

Perhaps it’s obvious.

It’s that bit of emotional roller coastering… the swing from “‘good’ but not WOOOW”… to “one of the best courses EVER” and to thanking me for selling this course.

In other words, the second half of Jesús’s message is very flattering. But on its own, it wouldn’t have the impact that it had on me when prefaced by the hackle-raising opening.

So the point I have for you today:

There’s great power in emotional contrast.

From negative to positive… from humiliated to triumphant… from arrogant to nice… from alarmist to optimistic.

Emotional contrast is simple. But it can move people who cannot be moved otherwise… and it can can create a much stronger reaction than a one-sided appeal ever could.

But back to that “good but not WOOOW” MVE course:

I’ve raised the price of MVE dramatically since Jesús bought. Rather than the $100 I charged Jesús, I now sell MVE for $297. That’s three times as expensive. It’s a shameless price hike on the level of Martin Shkreli.

But if what Jesús says is true, MVE is still a good deal and is still underpriced, even at this new higher price.

And I can tell you I wouldn’t sell MVE at this new price if I didn’t think the education inside is worth much more, if only you only read the content thoroughly and then put it to use, growing your influence, list, and even marketing skills, faster and further than you might ever think possible.

The MVE trick takes all of one hour to learn, though you might want to go through the content twice to get it on a deeper level.

If you’d like to get started with that now, so you can start profiting today rather than weeks or months later, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

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

by

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:

===

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.

===

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/

My alternative to shameless teasing

by

A couple days ago, I gave a copy critique to a successful course creator. Let’s call him Liam.

Liam is writing a welcome sequence for his newsletter. He has decided to not promote anything in his first seven emails, but rather just to offer solid advice and inspiration — the dreaded “value” autoresponder.

While I certainly don’t condone the nasty practice of not selling anything across seven welcome emails, I figured Liam’s mind was made up on this point, so I didn’t argue it. But I told him that, even if he is not selling his main course in these emails, he can certainly seed it.

Liam already does this already to an extent, by teasing his course in a PS and saying something like, “… if you liked this, you’ll find more good stuff like it in my course XYZ, which I’ll tell you more about soon.”

Teasing like this is fine. It works, and it can work great, the more shameless you’re willing to get with it.

But there’s an alternative to shameless teasing.

​​It makes for more natural content. It’s more sly. And yet it can be even more effective than teasing itself.

Would you like to know what I have in mind? ​​What I told this successful course creator? What I practice myself to good effect from time to time?

I’ll tell ya:

It’s simply to use yourself and your products as your case studies when illustrating a point that the reader should take away.

How exactly do you do that?

Well, look at what I’ve done in this email. I could have made the same point — use yourself as a case study — by talking about some legendary and dead marketer like Gary Halbert… or by referring to a scene from a movie like Brokeback Mountain Part 2.

Instead, I did it by about talking about ME ME ME, or more specifically, the way ME interacted with a client and the advice me gave him.

Which brings me to my offer today:

I do not offer one-off coaching critiques. Well, I did with Liam, but that was a special case, and not something I offer otherwise. Forget about that.

What I do offer is medium- to long-term, one-on-one coaching. It involves both email copywriting — you got a free tip on that today — and more broadly, easy marketing and money-making levers that I spot in your business, the pulling of which is often more lucrative and long-lasting than making any copy tweaks.

My coaching is expensive, and I only take on people rarely, when I feel they have a good chance of profiting and quickly.

If you are interested in getting my critical eye, help, and guidance applied to your business, then hit reply. Tell me who you are and what you do, and we can start a conversation to see if it might be a fit.

The psychology of misdirection

by

Today I meant to write an elaborate email about the sales page for my Simple Money Emails course.

But against my better judgment, I got roped into chauffeuring a friend of my father through stop-and-go traffic in the middle of the city.

While my blood pressure has largely returned to normal, the 45 minutes that that unnecessary drive ate up cannot be replaced. So the SME email will have to wait until tomorrow.

As for today, let me tell you something acute that one of my readers wrote in with a few days ago, after I wrote about my 10 jaw-dropping email deliverability tips. My reader wrote:

===

#5 – Links at the end of almost every email
I noticed that most of the time it is either an offer or an affiliate offer. Very rarely do you link elsewhere, unless you invite engagement like right now.

===

That’s very true. I almost always link to something I am selling at the end of my email. I never link to, say, the Red Cross website or to a cute ferret video.

On the one hand you might say that’s only natural — it’s what most daily sales emails look like, because their goal is to make sales.

But at the same time, I don’t have a huge list, and I don’t have surprising new offers every day. In other words, I am not necessarily sacrificing sales by not plugging the same well-trodden offer in each of my emails, day after day after day.

Plus, I remember a time when I first got onto Ben Settle’s list, circa 2012.

After a few weeks, I dismissed Ben because each of his emails at the time followed the same format: promise + tease + CTA to sign up to his print newsletter. I gradually got bored and I unsubscribed.

It took a conscious effort a few years later to get back on Ben’s list and start listening to him again, and I only did that because there still wasn’t anybody else talking about email regularly.

So when you put those two things together, you get the following heretical conclusion, heretical at least in the direct marketing world:

I can see good business sense in occasionally linking to stuff that won’t make you any money, but that can benefit, surprise, or delight your audience.

As Rich Schefren said once about the length of his own emails, you want to keep people guessing. You don’t ever want to give them a reason to dismiss you out of hand, before they’ve even had a chance to see your message.

I figure there must be some optimal rate of “public service emails” that keeps the interest of a large number of readers, while still allowing sales emails to predominate, and while maintaining or even increasing total sales. I don’t know what that rate might be, but I’m guessing somewhere around 10%-15%.

All that is really a long open to the following close:

When I decided to write this email today, I asked myself what was the most valuable resource that I don’t sell, but that I could share with readers on my list.

One thing popped up in my mind immediately.

It’s a book. I discovered it a few weeks ago. It talks about the psychology and neurology of misdirection.

Misdirection isn’t a great term, by the way — because what it really is is the control and focus of attention, along channels that serve the purpose of, say, a magician… or, say, a marketer or copywriter.

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been devouring this book and taking pages of notes on it.

I was planning on hoarding all this knowledge for myself, and profiting from it all by myself.

But you gotta keep people guessing.

At the same time, to make myself feel better, I tell myself not one person in a hundred on my list will actually get this book, and even fewer will actually read it and apply it. But in case you’re curious, here’s the naked, non-affiliate link of a valuable resources that I do not sell:

https://bejakovic.com/misdirection

Shady and petty, or smart personal positioning?

by

In 1906, magician Harry Houdini started to research an ambitious book he planned to call The Encyclopedia of Magic.

But the more Houdini worked, the more maniacal and single-minded his focus became — to discredit Robert-Houdin, the great 19th-century magician that Houdini had originally modeled himself after, down to the name.

Even the title of Houdini’s book changed. ​​First it became Robert-Houdin’s Proper Place in the History of Magic… and then, The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin.

Robert-Houdin was a hack, Houdini was effectively saying. Robert-Houdin had managed to fool magicians into thinking he was something great and original, when he was not.

Yesterday, I wrote an email about how negotiation coach Jim Camp snubbed his mentor Dave Sandler.

Sandler was a sales trainer who had influenced much of Camp’s thinking — take a look at their published works — but Camp never seems to have given due credit to Sandler for his influence or ideas.

You might call that — along with Houdini’s attack on Robert-Houdin — petty, shady, or simply inevitable human ego that crops up even among great men.

You might call it that.

But I might call it smart personal positioning.

Hear me out:

It’s undeniable that being unique, new, distinct, never-before-seen is a tremendous advantage to your personal positioning.

The trouble of course is that you’re probably not unique, distinct, or never-before-seen, just like the other 117 billion humans estimated to have ever lived.

​​We’re all quite similar to each other, and we’re all really the outgrowth of our families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, teachers, mentors, living and dead.

That might be true. But like I said yesterday, it’s not really what the human brain responds to.

The human brain responds to contrast. That’s the basis of cognition.

And what bigger contrast is there than saying about yourself, “There was darkness upon the face of the deep… and then there was light.”

So there you go. If you’re looking to improve your personal positioning, work on being more distinct, unique, new.

That’s given.

What you might not have thought about is to make yourself distinct and unique at the expense of the people who helped you get there.

It might seem like one of those unsavory and pointless things done by people who have made it to the top… but I disagree. At least about the pointless part.

People who get to the top often do things that seem unnecessary or even self-defeating — if you’re not in their place.

Anyways, that’s just an idea for you to consider.

I realize today’s message might seem a little dark, but that’s what happens if you want to reach into all corners of human nature. Some are nice and cheery… others are dark and disturbing.

If you are willing to face the dark and disturbing corners of human nature, and maybe even figure out how to work with them to your advantage, then I have an entire sub-training all about that.

That sub-training is Round 19 of my Copy Riddles program. It deals with the dark psychological things that are present in the best sale copy, which go deeper than mere self-interest.

For more info on Copy Riddles, from Round 1 to Round 20:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

I flipped the script and had it flipped on me

by

Yesterday, I reached out to a biotech company that’s doing some exciting work, which I’d written up in my health newsletter.

I wrote them an email to say I want to help them publicize their work. I said I have a newsletter in the space, and I’d like to be put on the list to get their press releases in the future.

All of which is 100% true and was said entirely in earnest.

I sent this email to the communications officer at the biotech company.

I didn’t hear back from the communications officer. But a couple hours later, I did hear back from the CEO.

He thanked me for covering their research in my newsletter… said my newsletter is great… and that he would keep me up to date with the newest results of his company’s research.

That reply came from his official company email address. A bit later, I saw that he also signed up to my newsletter with his private Gmail address.

I’m not telling you this as an effective but entirely unscalable newsletter growth strategy, though it certainly is that.

Instead, I’m sharing it as an example of “flipping the script.”

I in fact did reach out to this biotech company with the thought of getting my newsletter better known, and even with the idea of growing my list.

I wasn’t sure my email would get the CEO to sign up for my newsletter, but I had certainly hoped for something similar.

The thing is, I went about it entirely indirectly. There was no ask in my email except to be notified of the company’s future work.

In my email, I did mention the lead researcher’s name… I mentioned my own newsletter… I included a link to it.

​​It so happened that if anybody from the company clicked that link, they would see my post about the company’s latest research front and center at the top of my newsletter archive.

Maybe you think that by telling you this, I’m trying to make myself out into some kind of would-be Professor Moriarty, a scheming keyboard puppetmaster, always two steps ahead.

​​That’s hardly it. And to prove it, let me admit that I myself am susceptible to the same form of influence.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote an email about 7 Twitter content strategies, which I was sharing even though I had never successfully grown a Twitter following.

Then earlier this week, I got a reply to that email from a guy named James Carran. James wrote:

===

From someone who HAS done it, more than once, these are pretty much on the money.

The biggest thing is when you can combine more than one in a personal story. “How I built a million dollar newsletter using these 7 tips” tends to work better just now than “7 tips to build a newsletter” etc.

===

Hmmm… a compliment about my content, plus a meaningful extension, and all from somebody who’s grown multiple Twitter accounts to some number?

I was curious. I asked James what his story is. He replied:

===

I’m @getpaidwrite on Twitter, 105k there.

And at one point I was ghostwriting for 4 others. It’s definitely gotten more difficult to grow though.

===

At this point, I naturally checked on Twitter to see if James’s claims are true.

Sure enough. I saw he has 106.1K followers on Twitter… along with a link to his newsletter.

Still curious, I signed up for his daily emails.

Now, I can’t imagine what kind of direct, head-on appeal, bribe, bonus, begging, or threatening could get me to sign up for daily emails from somebody who had just replied to one of my own emails.

​​​And yet, there I was, signed up, after a total of 80 words of influence from James.

Now, maybe James set me up in this way intentionally. Probably not though. But you can still learn from it.

And you can start to think about how to create the conditions where people themselves hit upon the idea of doing just what you want them to do.

Last point:

I wrote to James to say I had signed up for his newsletter, and to ask if I could include his message in an email. He wrote:

===

Of course, go ahead!

And thank you for joining my list, that’s an honour. I’m trying to get into the swing of daily emails and improving my email marketing game. Reduce my reliance on “X”.

MVE was a huge help, bending my brain to think of how to apply it effectively from a more general writing perspective…

===

You probably know what James is referring to by MVE. But in case you don’t know yet, and you would like to know, then you can find out here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Why I ignored your social proof

by

I remember an email once in which marketer Ben Settle wrote,

“Ignore social proof when buying.”

I reckon that was a sweetly pointless message, since in his very next email, Ben sent a testimonial to convince people to buy his offer.

Yesterday, I sent out an email with a job posting for a content writer. I got lots of responses, and witnessed lots of selling strategies and offers.

As I read through these applications, I floated up and above my own body, and observed my own reactions. Here’s one surprising revelation from that out-of-body experience:

A few people sent me testimonials for themselves or their work, or fancier still, they included a link to testimonials on their site.

I just frowned at this. “What good are testimonials to me?” I said. “I know exactly what I’m looking for, and either I see it here in the application, or I don’t.”

I thought about this afterwards.

It’s a rare situation when we know exactly what we want.

Most of the time, we are vague on what we want, how that should look, and even why we want it. So we ping the environment for clues. That’s why social proof is so good in so many situations.

Yes, like my job listing yesterday shows, there are situations when it makes no sense to provide social proof, and where it might even work against you. But such situations are vanishingly rare.

​​It probably doesn’t make much sense to worry about it, not unless you’re applying for a job where the customer or client hyper-clearly spells out what he is looking for.

So my only advice today is to flip the above story inside out, and to repeat what Ben Settle said:

Ignore social proof when buying.

​​Instead, make up your own mind.

And if you do ever read a testimonial or endorsement, treat it for what it is — somebody leaning over to you at the roulette table and whispering in your ear, “I suggest betting on red. It worked for me last week and I won a bunch o’ boodle.”

​​It might be sound advice… but only if you’re playing with money you can afford to lose.

That’s my public service announcement for today. Tomorrow, like Ben did a while back, I’ll probably send you a testimonial, one to sell my Copy Riddles course.

But that’s tomorrow. Today, I’ll just point out that there are lots of very clear and very good reasons you might want to join Copy Riddles even if this were the first time I were offering this training, even if it had zero social proof, and in fact even if you knew little to nothing about me personally.

All those reasons are spelled out on the first two and a half pages of the Copy Riddles sales letter. If you’d like to read that so you can make up your own mind, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Djokovic propaganda cliches

by

Last night, tennis player Novak Djokovic won the US Open, one of the four major tournaments of the year.

It’s Djokovic’s third win at a major this year and the 24th in his career. This ties him with Margaret Court for most majors won (men or women), and moves him two ahead of his rival Rafael Nadal (22 majors) and four ahead of former rival Roger Federer (20 majors).

I didn’t watch Djokovic win last night. But I read a New York Times article about it this morning. The article said this:

“The nearly 24,000 spectators welcomed him with a massive roar, then showered him with the biggest one when Medvedev dumped a shot into the net to give Djokovic the title…”

That’s new. The last time I wrote about Djokovic was January 2022, when he was detained and then deported from Australia, among general controversy and much hate and contempt world-wide.

I had an entire email back then on why Djokovic was hated so much over the years. He was called a malingerer early in his career… a new-age kook in the mid 2010s… and a dangerous anti-vaxxer over the past few years.

And yet, like the New York Times says, now he’s loved. He’s routinely called a “mental giant” and “undisputed GOAT.”

But I come here not to praise Djoko, nor to bury him.

I simply thought the reaction of the US Open crowd was a great illustration of something interesting that I read in a 100-year old book last night, about the psychology of masses, as opposed to the psychology of individuals:

===

The group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits, and emotions. [When the group mind does have to think for itself,] it does so by means of cliches, pat words or images, which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences.

===

That 100-year-old book is Propaganda, by Edward Bernays.

You might have heard of Bernays as the father of public relations.

The entire point of his book, as far as I can see, is that PR is important… that you can’t leave it to chance… and that there are strategies and tactics that allow you to take PR (or propaganda, if you choose) into your own hands.

One such tactic is tacking on a cliche, a simplified and simplistic tag, onto yourself, or even better, onto the alternatives your audience might have to you.

But on to business.

If you haven’t yet checked out my Copy Riddles course, consider doing so.

Copy Riddles is nothing like the many “water off a duck’s back” copywriting courses out there, which tell you stuff that goes in one ear and out the other.

Instead, Copy Riddles gets you writing actual copy, practicing, getting feedback, getting better, day after day, through a gamified process that’s actually fun and enjoyable.

For more info on how this process works:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Can you identify this persuasion strategy?

by

Yesterday afternoon, in a breakdown of all discipline and order, I decided to skip the gym, eat whatever sweets I could find around the house, and instead of working, download a movie to watch.

After all, Daniel Throssell was sending out emails to sell my Copy Riddles course. Money was coming in without me doing anything. So why not take a rare day off to loaf about?

The movie I downloaded was one of my favorites — The Sting.

​​I’d seen it 3-4 times already. But yesterday, I saw something new in it, something I want to share with you because it’s very relevant to persuasion and influence.

What I want to tell you requires a spoiler.

​​So if you’ve never seen The Sting before, it might be worth stopping this email right now, and coming back to it only when you’ve watched the movie yourself.

It’s worth it.

Not only does The Sting have Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the lead roles… not only did it win an Oscar for best film and best director… but it also has a sparkling script (which also won an Oscar) by a guy named David Ward, who was well-read in the techniques of conmen, and who also seems to have had an intuitive understanding of human psychology.

Are you still reading? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here goes:

The relevant scene is when Johnny Hooker, a lonely conman on the run played by Robert Redford, tries to pick up Loretta, a gruff waitress at the local diner.

Hooker has already talked to Loretta before. He knows she is as alone as he is, and that she’s only passing through town, another tramp like him.

He’s tried asking her out before. She shot him down cold. But Hooker gives it one more try.

He knows where Loretta lives. And one night, at 2am, when Loretta finishes her shift at the diner and goes home and turns on the light in her room, Hooker takes a deep breath, walks up to her building, climbs up the stairs to her door, and knocks.

Loretta cracks open the door. The following dialogue follows:

HOOKER: I was wondering if you might wanna come out for a while, have a drink or something.

LORETTA [indignant]: You move right along, don’t you?

HOOKER: Hey I don’t mean nothin’ by it. I just don’t know many regular girls is all.

LORETTA [still angry]: You expect me to come out, just like that…

HOOKER: If I expected something, I wouldn’t still be standing here in the hall.

LORETTA: I don’t even know you!

HOOKER: You know me. I’m just like you. It’s two in the morning and I don’t know nobody.

Loretta pauses at this. She gives Hooker a sad smile. She opens the door a bit wider, and moves aside to let him in.

So that’s the scene. Now here’s the spoiler:

Loretta is not actually a waitress at a diner. She’s actually a top level hitman, or hitwoman, working for a mob boss that Hooker fleeced by accident. She’s been hired to take Hooker out. She’s playacting her indignation, just trying to reel Hooker in so she can kill him.

In many ways, this is the essence of a confidence game. And sure enough, the pattern above repeats in different situations in the movie, with different characters, as they try to influence and con each other.

Now, since Daniel’s Copy Riddles promo is over, I have to get back to work. And I do have something to sell today. But it’s not something I want to sell to just anyone.

​​F​​or one thing, this thing I have to sell is too valuable to make available to anyone who wants it. For another, it requires more than money to profit from.

This thing I have for sale is probably not for you. But I’ll make you a deal:

Hit reply right now. Tell me the name of the persuasion pattern or strategy that the scene above illustrates. If you don’t know the name for it, then tell me in a sentence what you think is going on, on the level of persuasion.

​​I’ll give you a hint:

This pattern is also used regularly by pick up artists, salesmen, even by legendary copywriters.

So write in and tell me what you think it is.

If you get it right, it will tell me you might have it. In other words, you might actually profit from this thing I have for sale, so I’ll tell you more about that.

And if you don’t get it right, well, at least I’ll tell you what’s really going on throughout The Sting, and how it works in the real, non-con world as well. And maybe you can profit from that in some way.

Secret, occult, or classified — which one wins?

by

Yesterday, after I sent out an email with the subject line “201 good reasons to get on Daniel Throssell’s list today,” I got the following reply from a long-time reader:

===

I know all you top level people charge big bucks for critiques.

I’m not sure why but today I decided to rewrite this email with my take on it.

If it can be useful to you, use it however you wish.

All I want from it is your critique and words of wisdom. Not some long breakdown critique. Just a couple minutes of your time and perhaps a couple lines of advice.

===

What followed was a rewrite of my email from yesterday. It was really a re-write – basically every idea I had in the original email was there, just said using other words. Example:

[my original]
“Daniel’s offers are how he beat out a dozen other top email marketers during the infamous 2021 Black Friday campaign. It’s how he made the classified ads he ran this spring (mine among them) a big success for everyone involved. It’s why I ended up providing a unique and sizeable discount on Copy Riddles only to people on Daniel’s list.”

[my reader’s re-write]
“Daniel’s Offers. This is his Midas touch. It’s how he raced ahead of the pack during the buzzworthy 2021 Black Friday showdown. It’s the force behind his game-changing classified ads earlier this year. And guess what? It’s why there’s a unique, too-good-to-miss discount on Copy Riddles for Daniel’s elite.”

So.

​​​Is this re-write, this new choice of words, better than what I had originally?

Or is it worse?

Think about that for a hot minute. And then I will tell you the correct answer, which is, who cares?

The best and most insightful copywriting book I have ever read is the Robert Collier Letter Book. And as Collier says in that book, “it’s not the copy so much as the scheme back of it.”

Yes, individual words have power. But they don’t have nearly the power of sound psychology.

There are lots of ways to tell people that you have secret knowledge. Whether you use the word secret, select, elite, insider, little-known, occult, forbidden, classified — that doesn’t really matter very much.

It’s the opportunity, the scarcity behind all those words that really gets peoples eyes going wide and their mouths hanging open.

Get the psychology down first. Then fiddle with the words. ​Or don’t, because if you got the psychology behind your words right, you will still make money.

​​That’s how and why the top copywriters make a lot of money.

So how do you get the psychology down?

Back to my email from yesterday. It was about how I’ve brought back my Copy Riddles course, and how I agreed with Daniel Throssell to offer an exclusive $200 discount to buyers who come via Daniel’s list.

In my email yesterday, I was letting my readers know about that, so they sign up to Daniel’s list in case they want that same discount.

The fact is, you have various options if you want to master the psychology behind the words, the scheme back of the copy. A particularly effective option is my Copy Riddles course.

​​As marketing consultant Khaled Maziad, who went through Copy Riddles a while back, wrote me about Copy Riddles:

===

I loved that you didn’t include bullet templates but went deep into the psychology behind each bullet. This course is not just about the “how-to” of writing bullets but understanding the artistry and the deep psychology behind them… Plus, when and where to use them.

===

I’m honestly not sure how long Daniel is planning to promote Copy Riddles — we didn’t agree on it, and maybe he is going to decide in real time based on the sales he sees.

I am sure that the only way to get that $200 discount on Copy Riddles is to be on Daniel’s list when he sends out the discount code.

Maybe it’s too late for that already. Or maybe it’s not.

Maybe, if you get on Daniel’s list right now, you will still have a chance at a $200 savings. If you’d like to at least have that option, which is yours if you want it, then here’s the link:

https://persuasivepage.com/