Persuasion

The Big Store

by

I’m reading a book about con men. Ben Marks was one of them. His specialty was three-card monte, hustling cattlemen and miners and soldiers in the streets of Cheyenne.

Marks was good. He’d regularly make $5, $10, sometimes $25 by fleecing some greedy passerby on the street.

Marks made a living. But it was hardly a business. The streets of Cheyenne were too busy and too crowded and there was too much competition. Saloons offering booze. Hotels offering gambling. Brothels offering love.

So Marks hit upon a novel idea.

Why not open his own establishment? Get people to come to him? Do away with the competition?

It’s a concept that became known as the Big Store.

The Big Store became a key part of the big con. A fancy gambling club, or a brokerage house, or in Marks’s case, The Dollar Store — everything for a dollar, including some very attractive and expensive goods, displayed colorfully in the store windows.

But when a prospect stepped inside The Dollar Store, he’d see several lively monte games already in play, with Marks’s shills and “sticks” in place of real gamblers.

The new prospect forgot about the attractive merchandise.

He left The Dollar Store some time later, not having bought anything for $1. But he did leave behind a wad of cash nonetheless.

I’m not encouraging you to grift, conning, or crime of any sort. But I do tell you the above because:

1. The basic idea is usable in non-criminal ways also. Think, how can I get them to come to me? How do I do away with the competition and other distractions?

2. “Get them to come to you, instead of going to them” might sound like a simple, familiar, or even trivial idea. But it’s not one you should dismiss. Marks’s Big Store was the innovation that created the big-money confidence games that netted $75,000 or $100,000, instead of $25 hustles in back alleys and on train cars and street corners.

Do you wanna see a Big Store in action? Here’s a clip (no spoilers) from The Sting, one of my favorite films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYjyFQS3DWM

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

by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​​”No. Never met them.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like I said, a bit of fundamental human psychology.

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

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

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

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

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Simple strategy to build your status, turn readers into advocates, and create a content flywheel

by

Yesterday, I wrote an email about true magic, in which I promoted my Most Valuable Email course right at the top. I got a reply to that email from reader Jakub Červenka:

===

John, I hope you are selling tons of mves.

Had I not bought it already, I would now, just as a thank you for many clever ways how you pitch it.

===

Perhaps you skimmed across Jakub’s message just now, without really reading. I hope you didn’t. But even if you did, well…

I always thought that when people write emails featuring a reader comment, it’s all about being 1) pressed for time, because it’s easy to write an email that’s mostly a reader reply, and 2) self-serving, because the reader comment is usually a testimonial or an endorsement of some sort.

And no doubt, both of those are good reasons to regularly feature reader comments in your emails.

But there are other good reasons, too.

For one, it shows off you have readers. Don’t scoff.

Lots of people who write a newsletter don’t have any readers, particularly readers who are engaged enough to reply. So if you do have ’em, and can prove it, it builds your status and authority, independent of the content of the actual reply you got.

For two, it acknowledges and recognizes the reader who wrote in. It’s nice to see your name in print, going out to thousands of people, even if it’s just in an email.

Plus, it can give the reader added benefits. I’ve had Ben Settle featured something I wrote him in one of his emails, and people found me and signed up to my list as a result.

Point being, featuring a reader’s reply can benefit that reader in different ways, making it more likely he sticks around and becomes an advocate, not just a reader or customer.

For three, it encourages more responses in the future. This contributes to all the other benefits I listed above.

I could go on. But if you weren’t convinced by three arguments, what are the odds you will be convinced by a fourth? Slim.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, perhaps you too are in the daily race to find clever ways to pitch your offers. And perhaps you find yourself writing things that are a little too dry and literal. Perhaps you don’t even have any readers replying to your emails yet. If so, here’s a way to fix it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

A story about true magic

by

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

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

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

Magician Max Malini made his reputation thanks to impromptu performances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magical incantations to make people laugh, fail, buy, or unzip their pants

by

Yesterday, I shared two puzzles, two incomplete stories of two hypnotists, Mike Mandel and Derren Brown.

I asked people to choose which puzzle they wanted the answer to. The requests came pouring in, and the results were clear, two to one. People wanted to know the answer to the Derren Brown puzzle twice as much as to the Mike Mandel puzzle.

My “two puzzles” offer is now over. I replied to everyone privately with the answers to the puzzle they chose. I’ll save the Derren Brown puzzle answer for a book I’ve decided to put together. But if you’d like to know the answer to the Mike Mandel puzzle, here it is:

Mike did his induction in his hypnosis subject… then planted his suggestion to remove the phobia. And then, hypnosis over, he asked the person to try to bring back the feelings of fear they had before.

There are two reasons Mike did this. One was straightforward — to test if he had done his job.

“Why don’t people test their work?” Mike asks. “Because they are afraid it hasn’t worked. But if it hasn’t worked, isn’t it better to know when they’re still in your office than when they phone you two weeks later and they’ve had a nervous breakdown?”

The second reason was more subtle. It’s that the word “try” sets people up to fail — or so Mike claims.

I’ve tested it out on myself, and I agree. Whenever I say, “I will try…” I’ve found that what I really mean is, “It won’t happen but let me make a show of it.”

Mike claims you can subtly do this to other people too. Whenever you want to get somebody to fail at something, simply tell them to try to do it. “Try to bring back those feelings of fear.”

Now try to ignore the bigger point, which is that individual words have real power.

This is true in hypnosis (“try”)… in copywriting (“secret”)… in confidence games (“opportunity”)… in comedy (“moose”)… and in pickup. In the words of pick up artist Nick Krauser:

“I tell my students that Game is not a series of magical incantations to get into an unsuspecting woman’s pants, but that’s only half true. It sort of is.”

Now try to tell yourself you didn’t read anything new here. And try not to be interested in what I promise on the following page:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Please pick one and only one of these two puzzles

by

Today I have two little stories, two little puzzles for you. I also have an offer for you based on one of these two puzzles.

First puzzle: Mike Mandel is a hypnotist. Back when Mike used to have a hypnosis therapy practice, he would often take people with very bad phobias — snakes, elevators, chocolate rabbits — and put them in a trance.

Mike then did his “change work” to remove the phobia: “The next time you see a chocolate rabbit, you will bite its head off, and you will love it.” Mike would then bring the patient out of trance.

And then, at the end of the session, Mike would say, “Try to bring those feelings of fear back. When you came in here today, you said your fear of chocolate rabbits was a 9 out of 10. Try to bring that feeling back. How would you rate your fear of chocolate rabbits right now?”

So the puzzle is, why did Mike Mandel do this little exercise at the end, after curing people of their phobias?

Second puzzle: Derren Brown, best known for his Channel 4 show Trick of the Mind, also got started as a hypnotist. He never did therapy work, but he did hypnotize his friends. He got very good at it, and he got very confident.

One time, in college, Derren talked to a friend about hypnosis. Derren snapped his fingers, and told his friend to sleep. His friend dutifully collapsed and fell asleep.

Meanwhile, Derren stood there, scratching his head, wondering what the hell had just happened.

So the puzzle is, why did Derren Brown, who had successfully hypnotized lots of his friends before, wonder at the fact that he had successful hypnotized this particular friend?

Now here’s the deal: Write in and tell me which of these two puzzles, if either, is more intriguing to you. I’ll reply and tell you the answer to the puzzle, and I will also tell you how this translates to fields such as copywriting, pickup, negotiation, and comedy.

Please pick one and only one — the puzzle you would like to know the answer to. And then write in and let me know. Thanks in advance.

Pretentious prick introduces himself

by

Hello. My name is John Bejakovic. I was born in Croatia, but I grew up in the US. Since 2015, I’ve been working as a direct response copywriter for a bunch of clients, including many 7- and 8-figure businesses.

These days I mostly work on growing my own newsletter in the health space. I also write these daily emails about copywriting, marketing, and influence. Sometimes, I consult and coach people on things I know about, such as email marketing and copywriting.

And if you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this…

A few days ago, I signed up to a copywriter’s newsletter. The guy’s name is Louis Grenier. I’m not sure how I found him or how I opted in to his list. He sends daily emails, much like this one you’re reading. Except day after day, this guy starts off his emails with “Bonjour bonjour.”

“What a pretentious prick,” I thought to myself.

Yesterday, Louis sent out an email with the subject line, “A cheatcode for non-native speakers.”

“This oughta be good,” I said to myself, and I opened it.

I skimmed the email. Something about how Louis started a podcast, about how he felt insecure at first because of his American accent when speaking French, but how he realized it was actually a competitive advantage.

Huh? There was a kind of fog in my head. Why is this American guy hosting a podcast in French? And what kind of competitive advantage does an American accent in French possibly give you?

I reread the email from the beginning, a little more carefully now.

It only then started to dawn on me that Louis Grenier, though he writes perfectly in English, and though he has a name that could certainly belong to an American, is actually French. “Bonjour bonjour” isn’t the move of a pretentious prick. Rather, it’s a bit of cute personal positioning.

Point being, you have to constantly repeat yourself.

People aren’t paying 100% attention. You’re not the only one in their inbox. They skim. They forget. Plus new people get on your list, and maybe they missed the fact you’re French or Croatian or Pomeranian or whatever.

So you gotta repeat yourself, the core stuff, simply and clearly, over and over. You need to constantly remind people. And you need to constantly introduce yourself to people who just found you.

And now let me repeat the core message of my emails, at least the tail end:

There is something you can do each day to become better as a marketer or copywriter, which I call the Most Valuable Email trick.

I applied this Most Valuable Email trick once at the end of January, and I got a completely unnecessary and unexpected windfall of about $2,900 in sales, with zero work.

I applied it another time and started a buying frenzy even though I had nothing to sell.

I applied it a third time, and got a nice email in response from Joe Schriefer, the former copy chief at Agora Financial.

But even if none of those external valuable things happen, the Most Valuable Email trick is still most valuable, because it makes me a tiny bit better each time I apply it.

And it can do the same for you. If you’d like to start applying this trick today, here’s where you can discover it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

How to cut your unsubscribes almost in half

by

In this email, I’ll write about an idea you’re probably heard before. It might not be anything new to you. In fact, you might not want to read this email at all.

Yesterday I was talking to a coaching client. He recently took over the management of an email list with 50k subscribers.

That’s my preferred position, by the way — a kind of Harry Hopkins-like figure, a back-end advisor and scheme man rather than a front-facing figurehead.

​​Unfortunately I can’t do that with my own emails. Still, I continue to write this newsletter simply because I find the practice so personally valuable.

But back to the coaching call. My coaching client took over the management of this sizable list, and he started sending more regular emails.

At first, he put a paragraph at the top of these emails, warning his audience they would be getting emails more often, along with a link in case they wanted to unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe link right at the start of the email. Result? 50-60 unsubscribes each time.

He then took that paragraph out. Just the usual unsubscribe link left at the end of the email. Result? The unsubscribes jumped to 100.

That’s the idea I warned you about at the start. You’ve probably heard it before.

Really, it’s a tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme. But these days, it mostly gets attributed to Jim Camp’s book Start With No.

Says Camp, never take away your adversary’s right to say no. In fact, go out of your way, make a show, above and beyond, to assure your adversary you respect his or her right to say no. And mean it.

Camp was a negotiator in billion-dollar deals.

In other words, this isn’t just about cutting your unsubscribes. It’s also about making more sales and making more deals. And most importantly, it’s about continuing a valuable relationship into the future.

I’ve repeatedly promoted my Most Valuable Email course in these emails.

Perhaps you’ve decided this course is not for you. Perhaps you’re just not interested in it. That’s fine.

Otherwise, if you’d like more information about Most Valuable Email, you can find it here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Value is not how-to

by

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/

Why the bathroom is a great place to negotiate

by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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