Persuasion

My credentials are very near zero, except for one thing

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A few hours ago, I was standing at the back of Ballroom A in the Palm Beach Convention Center.

Seated in the ballroom were a few hundred people, watching the breakout session of a larger conference that’s been going on since yesterday.

Up on stage, two doctors were talking about continuous glucose monitors.

Suddenly, a girl working for the conference picked me out of the crowd at the back. She walked up to me, leaned into me, and whispered, “Are you John?”

“Why yes,” I said. “Yes, I am in fact John.”

“Great,” she said. “I’ve been trying to call you. We’re gonna need you near the stage so we can just transition smoothly. As they finish up, they’ll walk off the stage, and you can go up.”

I was set to host the next breakout session. At a health conference. Talking about health.

I and another cohost got up on stage, talked for 15 minutes, then fielded questions, then called it a day.

People applauded.

The other guy and I walked off stage. As I tried to snake my way to the door, a few people from the audience called over to me. “Thanks so much for that.” “Great info.”

That’s quite odd when you think about it.

My credentials for speaking at a health conference are very near zero.

I didn’t study anything related to health. The closest I ever came to working in a health field was writing sales copy for supplement companies.

And yet, there I was on stage, at a health conference, mixing and mingling with medical doctors and CEOs of health startups.

The only thing that set me above total zero for credentials to speak at this conference, the only thing that separated me from the thousand or so people in the audience and gave me a place on the stage, is that I write.

For the past year, along with this daily newsletter about marketing, I’ve been writing a weekly newsletter about health.

In the process, I have learned a ton, and I have discovered lots of worthwhile things to share.

Writing a newsletter is how I could get on stage today and pretty much riff for 30 minutes while sounding authoritative and even reasonably smart.

Writing is also how I got invited in the first place to appear on stage at this conference.

All that’s to say, if you have zero expertise in a field, but you would like to develop expertise, then start writing.

And if you already have expertise but not enough people know it, then start writing.

A weekly email newsletter is good.

A daily email newsletter is better.

And if your objection is, “Sure, easy for you, but I don’t know exactly what to write or how to write it,” then I have you covered.

I’ve created a quick and easy course all about writing, specifically writing daily emails, in a way that entertains and informs your audience, while secretly building up your perceived and actual expertise. For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Exciting update about my No B.S scarcity emails

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Three weeks ago, I wrote three emails making fun of Dan Kennedy’s ongoing, scarcity-mongering “Shutdown livestream” campaign.

At the end of those emails, I included an affiliate link for you to sign up to that campaign.

In part, I did this because the campaign had been effective on me (I signed up both to the livestream and to Dan’s newsletter).

In part, I also did it because I’ve learned a ton from Dan Kennedy, and I would promote his stuff for free, and I have in the past.

But let’s get back to the present.

I sent out those three emails three weeks ago. I had a good chuckle with readers who wrote me back about Dan’s scarcity tactics. And then, I forgot all about it.

Until last night.

Because last night, I got an email with the subject line, “Exciting Update: NO BS Shutdown Campaign Leaderboard Revealed!”

The inside of that exciting email said:

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Now let’s dive into the current top 5 on our Leaderboard:

1. Tim Hewitt
2. Travis Lee
3. John Bejavoic
4. Frank Buddenbrock
5. Frank Andrews

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I don’t know if there’s a French-Canadian marketer out there named John Bejavoic. I’m guessing not. Instead, I reckon this is only time #64,171 in my life that somebody’s mangled my last name.

No matter. Because it means that, for the first time in my life, and in spite of my absolute lack of effort and my three tongue-in-cheek emails, I am now in the running of an affiliate competition.

The email described the prizes for the top 3 affiliates:

* Third place is a 6 months free of Dan Kennedy’s newsletter
* Second prize is a box of Dan Kennedy faxes
* First is a ticket to the No B.S. Superconference in May

The first two prizes I don’t need. The third prize I don’t want (who wants to travel around the world from Barcelona to Dallas TX).

And yet…

As I read through this “Exciting update” email last night, I found myself paranoid, spinning around, and looking over my shoulder.

Would somebody swoop in and take my 3rd place position?

I was like a dragon, guarding my wealth, suspicious somebody will take it away from me, and slyly thinking how I could increase my gold stash — even though I don’t really want the gold.

It brought to mind the following passage by another master of direct response marketing, Claude Hopkins. Hopkins wrote a hundred years ago:

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Many send out small gifts, like memorandum books, to customers and prospects. They get very small results. One man sent out a letter to the effect that he had a leather-covered book with a man’s name on it. It was waiting for him and would be sent on request. The form of request was enclosed, and it also asked for certain information. That information indicated lines on which a man might be sold.

Nearly all men, it was found, filled out that request and supplied the information. When a man knows that something belongs to him – something with his name on it – he will make the effort to get it, even though the thing is a trifle.

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So now I’d like to invite you once again to sign up to Dan Kennedy’s free livestream campaign.

The livestream will happen March 1st, two days from now. It will feature Dan Kennedy, being interviewed in his basement, where he works, by Russell Brunson of ClickFunnnels. The topic will be why Dan has decided to cut off new signups to his No B.S. Letter “for the foreseeable future.”

I’d like to invite you to sign up for this livestream for three reasons:

First, because like I said already, I have learned a ton from Dan Kennedy. Odds are good that you too will learn something valuable, if only you sign up, and even more so if you actually watch the free livestream.

Second reason is that you would help me do better in this stupid affiliate contest, which I am participating in against my better judgment, simply out of loss aversion and blind greed.

Third, because I have a trifle with your name on it.

It really is a trifle. But it’s yours.

​​It has your name on it.

And you can claim it, if only you sign up to the Dan Kennedy free livestream campaign, forward me your confirmation email, and tell me a physical address where I can mail your trifle.

And in the spirit of this entire No B.S. scarcity campaign, I have to mention this named trifle is only for the first 15 people who take me up on this offer.

To get started, here’s the first step, where you can sign up for Dan’s free livestream:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

How to create value from a broke, flaky, uncommitted audience

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This week, I’m promoting Newsletter XP, a course on how to build, grow, and monetize a successful newsletter.

The undeniable star of the Newsletter XP show is co-host Alex Lieberman.

​​In 2015, Lieberman started Morning Brew, an email newsletter covering the day’s business news. Within five years, he built up Morning Brew into a 9-figure company. In 2020, he sold a controlling stake in Morning Brew for $75 million.

There’s a bit in the monetization section of Newsletter XP where Alex is asked to give an example of how he pitched big brands like IKEA on buying six-figure ad packages in Morning Brew.

​​Alex obliges.

He delivers a 1 min 24 second masterclass — the pitch he performed 10 times a day, every day, for three years.

​​His pitch is truly impressive because what he is really selling is an audience of 18-30 year olds, largely broke, uncommitted, and flaky — not an audience any serious business would be excited to advertise to.

And yet, Alex does it with such enthusiasm, cleverness, and conviction, that by the end of his pitch, I bet the IKEA marketing execs were begging him to run their ad, versus the other way around.

Once again, this pitch was how Morning Brew got to tens of millions of dollars a year in ad revenue, before Alex cashed out for $75 million.

You can use Alex’s IKEA pitch to inform your own sales strategy if you want to start a newsletter and you’re bent on selling ads to big brands for a lot of money.

Or, you can use Alex’s pitch to guide where you take your newsletter.

Because you might not be getting into the newsletter business to hang out on LinkedIn and pitch marketing managers 10 times a day.

​​The good news is, Newsletter XP gives you real options for both the ad-supported path to monetizing your newsletter, as well as the no-ad path, where you simply create content you love and get paid well to do it.

It’s all there inside the course.

​​I’m promoting Newsletter XP until Monday, Feb 25, at 12 midnight PST. During this promotion, you can get $200 off the usual price of Newsletter XP. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Newsletter XP sales page at https://bejakovic.com/nxp

2. If you decide you want to get Newsltter XP, then use coupon code JB20 at checkout.

3. Make sure the coupon code works — that you see the price drop by $200. This is not my funnel, and if you end up buying at full price, there’s nothing I can do about it.

How to go from not funny to funny

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Yesterday, I read about championship golfer Lee Trevino, who went from being not funny to being funny. Here’s how he did it, in his own words:

“When I was a rookie, I told jokes, and no one laughed. After I began winning tournaments, I told the same jokes, and all of a sudden, people thought they were funny.”

This might sound like a joke itself. It’s not. It’s a fact of life. Status, success, and authority are more important than what say.

A corollary is that what you say should be as much about hinting at your status, success, and authority, as it is about your “actual” message.

Think Tai Lopez, talking about the importance of reading books, while standing in his garage, and casually mentioning how it’s fun to drive his new black Lamborghini “here in the Hollywood hills.”

Of course, you can be more subtle than Tai if you want.

If you want to learn some subtle ways that I build up my status, success, and authority in my emails, you can find those described in my Simple Money Emails training.

This training shows you my simple, “hypnotic,” 1-2 process to make sales today and to keep your readers’ interest tomorrow.

I distilled down this process after close to 2,000 sales emails, written both for myself and for 7- and 8-figure clients I used to work with.

So if your jokes aren’t getting any laughs right now, and if your emails aren’t making any sales right now, this training could be the fix.

For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

What’s coming up in the next few weeks

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Over the next few weeks, I will be promoting 3 affiliate offers. I’ve never promoted any of them before. But I have personally bought, consumed, or participated in each one. They are:

#1. An actual, legit business opportunity for copywriters. This is for you if you want to get new copywriting clients who pay you a lot of money, a lot more than you are used to getting for the same work.

#2. The best source of info if you are looking to start your own Morning Brew-like newsletter. I’ve endorsed this offer multiple times already. And now, I’ve reached out and gotten the good people behind this offer. I got them to provide a special and sizeable discount while I’m promoting it.

#3. A writing course for entrepreneurs who want to build an audience on social media. I’m going through this course myself right now. And when I promote it, I will aim to make it free for you.

I’m telling you what’s coming up because if one of the above offers can benefit you, I want you know. And if you have an education or business-development budget for yourself, so that you save up. Don’t fritter away your money on other offers, just because.

I’ll promote the three offers above in the next 2-3 weeks, though the exact dates are still not fixed.

Meanwhile, if none of these three offers speaks to you, you might like my Simple Money Emails training. It shows you how to make more money from your list today and keep your readers coming back tomorrow. For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

An incredibly powerful email hook

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Oh boy.

Yesterday’s email, about scarcity as a performance art, brought the replies pouring in.

I feel like I’m in the courtroom scene in Miracle on 34th Street, with postal workers bringing in satchels of mail for proof of how strongly people feel on this issue.

The issue, in case you missed my emails over the past couple days, is an upcoming livestream by marketers Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson.

During the livestream, which is set to happen in a couple weeks’ time, Russell will interview Dan, from Dan’s sacrosanct basement workspace. The topic will be Dan’s mind-boggling decision to shut down new subscriptions to his No B.S. print newsletter, starting March 3 of this year.

Real? Fake?

Some of my readers turned detective and wrote in with their findings.

They spotted a detail on the optin page for this upcoming livestream. An image shows Russell, with a mild look of panic on his face, holding a fax from Dan to demonstrate how real this decision is.

The fax has a headline in huge font that reads “SHUT ‘ER DOWN!!!”

Only problem is, the fax also has a small date in the upper right corner, and that date reads 10/24/2022.

Other readers acknowledged that Russell does go for fake scarcity, but defended the man. Some called him a marketing genius. Others just said he does a great job distilling marketing concepts and makes them usable quickly — and it’s up to you to decide what to do with them.

My main takeaway after this whole experience is that industry gossip is an incredible powerful email hook. If, like me, you needed any reminding of that, then let me remind you:

Industry gossip is an incredible powerful email hook.

The only problem I have with anything that’s incredibly powerful is that I bore quickly.

As I said recently on my “How I do it” presentation, I look at this newsletter first and foremost as a sandbox, a playground.

It’s kind of a miracle that it’s turned into a nice source of income and a fountain of good opportunities.

But once something stops being interesting for me, it stops being a topic for this newsletter. So I won’t be writing about this bit of industry gossip, as Dan himself might say, for the foreseeable future.

That said, my playground attitude is not an attitude I encourage anyone else to take.

So if you want to see how two professionals who take their jobs very seriously do it, then check out Dan and Russell’s current “SHUT ‘ER DOWN!!!” campaign.

I continue to promote it with an affiliate link, even though I don’t know if I’ve made any sales, and even though, given that it’s Dan Kennedy, I would promote it without getting paid, simply because I’ve learned so much from the man, and I think you can too.

If you’d like to sign up for that free upcoming livestream, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

The seedy underbelly of every industry ever

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This past Wednesday, the BBC ran an article with the headline:

“The seedy underbelly of the life coaching industry”

The article features the story of a woman named Angela Lauria, age 50. Lauria went in search of weight loss and she wound up with a life coach who charged her $100k and got her to spend thousands more on trainings by other life coaches.

We don’t actually find out what happened to Angela in the end, but presumably she did not make her $100k back via new and bigger successes in her life.

I guess the BBC published this article because life coaching is a booming industry and because it’s still relatively new.

The point, the article says, is not to discourage people from seeking a life coach’s services — because there are good life coaches. But it’s the Wild West out there.

I personally think it’s the Wild West everywhere, and always has been.

My estimate — based on having seen behind the curtain at hundreds of businesses while I was a for-hire copywriter — is that 80% of people doing any job are at best mediocre, and more likely, they are actively bad.

Only 20% of people in any industry are genuinely dedicated, skilled, and get good results on any kind of consistent basis.

So what to do? Well, if you’re looking for a life coach, the BBC article has the following good advice:

“Ask the coach how much of their business is referral, call at least three former clients and don’t buy from anyone who won’t do a call with you directly beforehand. And don’t buy from anyone who needs an answer now – scarcity and urgency is made up.”

Meanwhile, if you want to write a personal email newsletter — to distinguish yourself, to prove your credibility, to promote your products and services — then look at my Simple Money Emails program.

​​Most of the sales for that program came via referrals. And if you’d like to see what a few previous customers had to say, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

No B.S. scarcity

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Yesterday, I got hypnotized.

I knew what was happening.

I didn’t stop.

I didn’t particularly want to stop.

Instead, I pulled out my credit card and signed up for a $137/month international subscription to a print monthly newsletter.

I had considered signing up before — it’s Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Letter.

“But do I really need this?” I asked myself each time before. The answer is no.

Besides, I know what personality-based marketing newsletters are really about — and that’s selling you a personality.

And yet, last night I happily bought. Even though I knew what was happening, I justified it to myself as something I simply wanted to do.

What changed?

Very simple.

​​Dan (or somebody on his behalf, since the man doesn’t use the Internet) sent out an email with the subject line, “You’re Invited Into My Basement.”

The offer was a free, live, upcoming event broadcast from Dan’s basement, where he works. Dan would be interviewed by Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels. The reason was the following:

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Russell is flying out to grill me on my recent decision to shut down new sign-ups to The No B.S. Letter after 30 years. And it’s sure to be quite the masterclass in and of itself—no scripts, no pre-recorded sessions, and absolutely No B.S.

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“Huh,” I said. “No doubt this is some marketing stunt. No way is Dan actually closing signups to his newsletter.”

But I clicked through to register for the event.

And the same message popped up. “The Last Day To Join Dan Kennedy’s NO B.S. Letter Is March 3rd.”

I still don’t really know what this last-day stuff is about. I didn’t listen to Russell Brunson’s VSL or read the copy that popped up after I signed up for the free upcoming event.

Instead, I just had Dan’s voice talking to me, because I have been listening to a course of his lately…

I had his ideas floating behind my eyes, because I recently finished a book of his…

And I felt like we were just in touch today, and yesterday, and the day before, because each day he sent me an email — which I read as I nodded my head and took notes.

All that stuff was true every day before yesterday. But thanks to this “doors closing” stuff — whatever that’s about — yesterday I got entranced, pulled out my credit card, and signed up to the No B.S. Letter. Even though, in spite of Dan’s No B.S. brand, I’m pretty sure this scarcity play is almost surely B.S.

So my point for you is the hypnotic power of scarcity, once you’ve built up sufficient trust and authority.

As for me, I will probably be doing some sort of promotion soon to relieve myself of this new monthly expense.

That’s one thing I’ve learned from Dan Kennedy — never pay for anything.

Another thing I’ve learned is to have an offer at the end of everything I write.

So today I’ll leave you with the link to the “Has Dan Kennedy Gone Mad?!?” campaign.

Yes, that’s an affiliate link. I signed up ages ago to promote Dan Kennedy’s newsletter, but I could never do it in good conscience because I wasn’t signed up myself.

​​Well… until today. How things change.
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​So if you want to suss out whether this scarcity is for real or B.S., or sign up to the No B.S. Letter before the doors supposedly close:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

#1 common feedback to my coaching group last night

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Last night I hosted the first Write & Profit coaching call.

I aimed to get 5 qualified people to join this coaching program. And I got five qualified people.

We had the owner of dog-training business in the Midwest who’s had thousands of clients… a harp-playing marketing specialist who helps offline service businesses get online… a copywriter who’s gotten some big wins for coaches… a London banker who went on a hero’s journey to find satisfaction in his well-paid corporate job, and now teaches others to do the same… and a 24-year-old fitness wiz who’s already got a coaching business with hundreds of high-ticket clients.

All five are great at what they do.

All five have success stories to share, either their own or work they’ve done for others.

And yet, there was one piece of common feedback that I had to give all of them.

It probably applies to you too.

It certainly used to apply to me, and still does on some days. It’s this:

None of them was not making adequate use of their status, endorsements, case studies, and success stories.

Maybe you wince when I say that. If so, you should know that doing it adequately doesn’t have to feel tacky, like maple syrup left to dry on the counter.

You can build up your status and share success stories in a natural, even helpful way. For example, consider what I did with this email.

I told you about my coaching program. I told you I filled it how I wanted to fill it. I built up the people inside the program to highlight they are qualified and successful.

And if I could only find some way to also work in the fact that I got these 5 people to each agree to pay me multiple thousands of dollars, using a 3-page Google doc, with no sales calls, no pressure or awkwardness, no haggling over price…

… then you might ask me how? How did I do it? And more importantly, how can you do it?

It certainly isn’t a magical 3-page Google doc that makes sales like that.

Instead, it’s a constant commitment to share your own status items, case studies, success stories… and to stuff those into regular emails, that are written so that people will want to keep reading.

If you have inhibitions about doing the first, then this email you’ve read should help you with that.

As for the second:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

How to fix bad habits

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Yesterday, I was ellipting on the elliptical and to make the process less maddening, I listened to a podcast, which turned out to be surprisingly valuable.

It was a health podcast. The guest was a psychotherapist, a certain Dr. Glenn Livingston, PhD.

That name was familiar to me.

Turns out it was the same Dr. Glenn Livingston, PhD, who was also a successful direct marketer a while back.

​​I checked for his name in my inbox just now. He has at different times partnered with or been named-dropped by direct marketing rhinos and mammoths like Terry Dean, Ryan Levesque, Ken McCarthy, and Perry Marshall.

But back to the podcast. Like I said, it was a health podcast, about how to quit overeating.

Turns out Dr. Glenn is an expert on the matter.

Not only has he battled overeating his whole life, but he has written a bunch of books on the topic. The best selling one, Never Binge Again, has 19,224 reviews on Amazon.

Perhaps you’re wondering whether this email will ever get to a point. The point is this:

For years, Dr. Glenn used his psychotherapeutic training to try to quit overeating.

Never worked.

After years of therapy, introspection, and digging into his family history, Dr. Glenn finally unearthed the surprising root cause of why he was overeating his whole life (mommy issues).

And it still didn’t fix a damn thing. If anything, it made his overeating worse, because he now had a legit excuse, where he didn’t have one before.

And yet, Dr. Glenn did manage to get his eating under control.

​​I’ll tell you how:

He isolated, named, and in fact shamed the part of his mind that was craving and reaching for chocolate, for chocolate was his weakness.

Dr. Glenn told himself, “That is my Inner Pig talking. The Inner Pig wants its slop. But I am not one to be ruled by farm animals.”

The effect wasn’t immediate — few things outside direct marketing promises are. But the effect was there, and after a bit of time, this inner-piggization cured Dr. Glenn Livingston, PhD, of his overeating habit, making him a healthier, happier, better person.

The bigger point, as Dr. Glenn says on the podcast, is that identity is stronger than will power.

You can use this truth if you’re trying to influence and persuade others.

Or you can use it to fix your own bad habits.

I’ve just told you the main highlight of this surprisingly valuable podcast with Dr. Glenn Livingston. But there are more good things inside that podcast. And there’s more development of that core idea, that identity is stronger than will power, in a way that might help it actually sink into your head.

If you want to influence and persuade others better… or if you want to improve your own life and control your mind better, this podcast is worth a listen. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/bad-habits