Persuasion

The most famous copywriter, real or fictional

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On Dan Heath’s new podcast, “What It’s Like To Be,” I heard Dan asking a TV meteorologist, a criminal defense lawyer, a forensic accountant, all the same question:

“Who’s the most famous meteorologist/criminal defense lawyer/forensic accountant, real or fictional?”

This got me wondering who the most famous copywriter might be, real or fictional.

I had a gut feeling. I double-checked via simple Google search, by looking at the total number of results.

As far as real copywriters go, there’s really only one possible option for a copywriter that a rando off the street might know.

​​That’s David Ogilvy.

There’s something about the pipe, the smart suits, the English disdain, the French castle.

Sure enough, Ogilvy was the only real copywriter who has more than 1M indexed Google results about him.

As for fictional copywriters, it depends on who you consider a copywriter.

Don Draper, the creative art director from the TV show Mad Men, clocks in at over 2M Google results.

But was he really a copywriter or more of an idea man? I’ll let you decide.

Meanwhile, the most famous, fictional, 100% copywriter that I’ve been able to find is Peggy Olson, also a character on Mad Men, who only gets around 220k Google results.

Should we stop there? Oh no.

It turns out several celebs out there have a copywriting background… but are not today known as copywriters.

One of these is novelist James Patterson. Before Patterson set out to write 200 books (and counting), he was a copywriter and later the CEO of J. Walter Thompson, one of the biggest and oldest ad agencies in the world.

Patterson has 6M+ Google results to attest to his fame.

And if we’re already going with celebrities who have copywriting in their history, and maybe their blood, then we get to the most famous copywriter of all time, real or fictional, live or dead, even though nobody nowhere would identify him as a copywriter.

I’m talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald worked for a time as a copywriter before becoming the author of the quintessential great American novel, The Great Gatsby, and later a topic of almost 13M Google results.

So there. Now you know. And now you might ask yourself, “What did I just read? Did I really need this in my life? How did I wind up at the bottom of this email?”

If any of those questions is flitting through your head, let me point out that interest in famous people seems to be hardwired into our brains.

Tabloid writers and sales copywriters know this fact well, and they use it over and over and over. Because it works to draw attention and get people reading, day after day.

That’s a free lesson in copywriting.

For more such lessons, including ones that you might not be able to shrug off by saying, “I guess I knew that,” you will have to buy my Copy Riddles course.

The whole big idea behind Copy Riddles is the appeal of famous people — at least famous in the small niche of direct response copywriting.

I mean, on the sales page, in place of a subheadline, what I have is a picture featuring Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, Stefan Georgi, and Ben Settle, all of them celebrities in the micro world of direct response, all of them paid off on that page as being integral to the course.

If you’d like to buy Copy Riddles, or if you simply want to read some gossip about famous copywriters, then head here and get ready to be amazed and shocked:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Flip the script or your life

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Time for flip-the-script Friday:

Today I have an ancient story for you. I know, you’re thrilled.

In an attempt to bring your eyes back from their trip to the back of your skull just now, let me preframe this ancient story by saying it could 1) save your life and 2) make you lots of money.

More modestly, maybe this story can simply teach you an important thing about influence.

The hero of our ancient story is a man named Eumenes, a Greek, who started out as a secretary in Alexander’s army.

Eumenes had secretarial ability but he also had strategic ability. He became a successful general in his own right, and invented lots of clever strategems to win battles against much bigger and more experienced armies.

Following Alexander’s death, Eumenes was brought in to keep order in a region of Alexander’s vast empire. The satraps of that region — the Macedonian and Persian governors — all hated each other, constantly bickered, and fought regularly.

The only thing they could agree on was that they hated their new Greek chaperone even more, and wanted him dead.

Now perk up your ears, because here’s an example of Eumenes’s strategic brilliance:

Eumenes knew that he would soon be dead by poison or dagger, unless he somehow dealt with the hatred of the satraps he was brought in to control. So he did the opposite to protect his life from what most people might do.

Instead of trying to win the favor of the satraps who hated him, he pretended to be in need of money. And he borrowed large sums of money from the satraps whom he suspected of being most ready to have him assassinated.

In this way, says the Greek historian Plutarch, Eumenes “secured the safety of his person by taking other men’s money, an object which most people are glad to attain by giving their own.”

Result:

Some time later, an assassination plot indeed formed against Eumenes’s person. But the plot was independently betrayed to Eumenes by two satraps, both of whom were afraid of losing the large sums of money they had lent to him.

So the next time your life is in danger or you are about to be brought down by political intrigue, think of Eumenes. Flip the script, and you might not only survive but thrive.

The end. Except…

As you might know, flipping the script is one of the chapters I am planning in my new 10 Commandments book, tentatively titled, “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Con Men, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Spirit Mediums, and Stage Magicians.”

But since I’m currently doubling down on my health newsletter, that book is on hold.

The only thing I can therefore offer you today is my first 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters.

Here’s one Amazon review to get you curious:

“A quick, easy read with great quotes, a bunch of other books it guides you to read, and evergreen information based on psychology and proven results. It’s got a soft but classy pitch for the author’s newsletter leveraging a bunch of the commandments right there in your face. He practices what he preaches.”

If you’d like to get this quick and rather affordable book now:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

About the only times I’ve ever felt okay

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Last night, I was reading a book about money and I came upon a quirky passage about John D. Rockefeller.

At one point, Rockefeller’s unimaginable wealth was worth 1.5% of the entire U.S. GDP, equivalent to about $349 billion today.

From the book I was reading:

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John D. Rockefeller was one of the most successful businessmen of all time. He was also a recluse, spending most of his time by himself. He rarely spoke, deliberately making himself inaccessible and staying quiet when you caught his attention.

A refinery worker who occasionally had Rockefeller’s ear once remarked: “He lets everybody else talk, while he sits back and says nothing.”

When asked about his silence during meetings, Rockefeller often recited a poem:

A wise old owl lived in an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke,
The less he spoke, the more he heard,
Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?

===

Speaking of wise old birds:

Legendary copywriter Robert Collier wrote that the most powerful appeal in copy is vanity, “that unconscious vanity which makes a man want to feel important in his own eyes and makes him strut mentally.”

Legendary negotiation coach Jim Camp said that from the moment we are all born, we struggle to feel comfortable and safe, or as Camp put it, “okay.” Not behind others in the race of life. Not inferior.

I don’t know about you. I know it’s true in my case. I like to feel smart. Or at least not inferior. I’ll struggle and strive to prove it. Except it never really works.

The point of today’s email is to be like that wise old owl.

Like Jim Camp and Robert Collier and John D. say, there’s real power in shutting up and letting your adversary feel okay, smart, in letting him mentally strut.

It’s the kind of thing you want to do if you’re selling or negotiating.

I’ll only add a little bit, which has nothing to do with selling or negotiation.

​​And that’s that the only times I’ve really felt okay is when I stopped trying to do anything to feel okay.

Something for you to consider, or to entirely ignore.

As for the business end of this email:

You won’t hear vanity discussed often in copywriting courses. But you will find it analyzed in several different ways in Round 19 of my Copy Riddles program, which deals with a sexy technique for writing bullets that leave other copywriters green with envy.

If you’d like to find out more about Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Take a look at this

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Maybe you’ve heard that last month, marketer Todd Brown assembled a gathering called Copy Legends:

A bunch of top copywriters, in a mansion in Palm Beach. Sitting around a big table. Talking openly for a day, while cameras and microphones record it all.

What did these legendary copywriters have to say?
​​
Well, for example, during a discussion of headlines, Copy Legend Kyle Milligan, who used to be a copy chief at financial publisher Agora and who made a name for himself by analyzing sales letters on YouTube, said the following:

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I believe everyone way overcomplicates what needs to be done at the start of a promotion. They’re looking for this whiz-bang tactic to grab attention.

Yet, there are these tried-and-true openers which continue to work like crazy. Like, a visual pattern interrupt that just says ‘look at this’ and gets the prospect to sort of adjust and focus for a second is like one of the most timeless, time-tested methods there is.

If you don’t know what else to do for an opener, go with ‘Take a look at this.’ It’s like old faithful.

===

Kyle’s comment got a lot of people nodding their legendary heads around the Copy Legends table.

I found this amusing.

Because it’s a kind of anti-proof element for the whole concept of Copy Legends. As Todd says himself in the headline for the Copy Legends sales page, that concept is:

​“NEW Copy Techniques Working Like Crazy Today”

As in, they didn’t exist yesterday, and they will probably change by tomorrow.

It makes good sense to position an offer like this.

Like Kyle said around the Copy Legends table, people want that promise. They want whiz-bang tactics. And they will pay good money for such whiz-bangery, even though the really effective methods, as Kyle said at the actual Copy Legends event, are things that keep working year after year, decade after decade.

Todd Brown will soon release upon the world his Copy Legends recordings.

I won’t be buying it. But I certainly won’t tell you not to buy if you are after “new copy techniques.”

On the other hand, perhaps you are looking for timeless, time-tested copywriting techniques.

​​Technique that worked 50 years ago, 5 years ago, 5 months ago… and that will continue to work into the future, because they are based on fundamental human psychology and the competitive research of history’s greatest copywriters.

If that’s what you’re looking for, then… take a look at this:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

It’s not funny if they’re laughing

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I got a testimonial. I’m very excited. I want to share it with you.

I know, I know. You can’t wait.

But there’s a point to the testimonial, beyond just the self-promotion. Trust me.

New reader Kameron Bryant, who just got my Simple Money Emails course yesterday, asked me for the link to Monday’s storytelling presentation, which is a disappearing bonus if you get Simple Money Emails right now.

After I sent the link over, Kameron wrote:

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Thanks for sending over and I’m loving the course.

In my eyes it’s more than a course. I see it as a money making email road map.

I’ll be re-reading for the foreseeable future.

Thanks

P.S

I’m a newbie in the email copy space and the testimonial from the guy who said he finally felt comfortable getting client work is what pushed me over… and he was right.

===

Now, there is no doubt I am telling you this in a kind of blindingly obvious way to promote Simple Money Emails. But if you want or need a marketing lesson as well, consider the following bit of science:

There was a study in Australia once upon a time. They made university students listen to a recording of a comedian, along with the laugh track provided by an audience.

In one scenario, the students believed the audience on the recording is students from the same university.

In another scenario, the students believed the audience are members of the far-right One Nation party.

In a third scenario, the students just got the recording of the comedian, without the audience laughter.

Result?

The laugh track made the comedian 400% funnier in the “just like us” case… 0% funnier in the “despicable them” case.

As the authors of the study put it, “It’s not funny if they’re laughing.”

Same goes with sales:

People who are just like your prospect is the strongest form of social proof, stronger even than getting a thumbs-up from a Tony Robbins or a Bill Clinton or whoever is the star in your industry.

That’s the lesson you can draw from the last line of Kameron’s testimonial above, beyond the fact that you should buy Simple Money Emails.

But back to self-promotion:

Tomorrow at 4pm CET/10am EST/7am PST, Kieran Drew and I will host a free presentation on storytelling.

The presentation is free as in, you gotta have Simple Money Emails to get in for free. If you have SME before the presentation starts, you get the presentation link and the subsequent recording. Otherwise no.

This is the last email I will send before tomorrow’s presentation. So if you’d like to get in, the time to move is now.

The sales page is at the link below, where you can find testimonials from a book editor… a career coach… a freelance copywriter… an in-house copywriter.

I haven’t yet added the testimonial by an online entrepreneur, Kieran Drew himself, who wrote recently that Simple Money Emails is the the best email writing course he’s ever taken.

If you’d like to join us tomorrow:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

The ONE thing to know about storytelling

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The ONE thing to know about storytelling is that, like cooking, plumbing, and robbing a bank, storytelling is really a collection of skills and strategies rather than a single unifying rule to follow.

I know you probably don’t want to hear that. But look at this:

– How do I know when I’m using too much detail?

– ​How do you know where to stop?

– ​How to add twists to a story?

– ​Making up stories… When might you want to do this?

A few days ago, I asked readers what questions they have about storytelling. Above are a few of the replies I got.

All fair questions. All require separate answers. Any answer that could possibly answer all of them, such as tension! or surprise! or delight!, is so vague as to be useless.

But wait, there’s more.

The real thing I want to share with you in this email is not the discouraging message above.

Rather, I wanna tell you something interesting I read yesterday in a book about magic and showmanship. The author of that book says the best performers, magicians, and showmen practice something he calls conservation.

Conservation: the ability to do more and the will to refrain.

From the book: “If we try to give any routine more importance than it will bear, we destroy the illusion and may reveal the secret.” Hence, conservation. The willingness to hold back the full might of your armory of magic tricks.

Same goes for storytelling.

There are lots of tricks if you really break down what the best storytellers do.

But in order to tell an interesting and effective story, you definitely do not need all of these tricks. In fact, one or two tweaks to what you might normally do are all it takes to turn a bland story into something memorable and exciting.

And on the other hand, making use of more than just one or two tricks per story is likely to destroy the illusion and may reveal the secret.

What secret?

Well, for that (drumroll) I invite you to join me for the free presentation on storytelling that Kieran Drew and I will host on Monday, specifically at 4pm CET/10am EST/7am PST (yes, I know).

This presentation is a bonus for those who get Simple Money Emails before the presentation goes live. After that, no free bonus.

If you already have Simple Money Emails, you should have gotten an email from either Kieran or me with the Zoom link to join Monday’s presentation.

And if you don’t yet have Simple Money Emails, you can get it at the link below. ​​I could try for some callback humor right now to wrap up this email, but instead I will conserve and refrain. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

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.

===

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

Reader succeeds in provoking me with a backhanded compliment

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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:

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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

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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.

===

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

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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.