Persuasion

Fantastic copywriting skills considered harmful

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Point 1:

A couple days ago, I asked people in my Skool group what offer they want to make to their list in the next week.

Many of the folks in my group are copywriters, and many of those who aren’t copywriters by trade still know a lot about copywriting because they do marketing for their own businesses.

When I asked about offers, there was talk of things like:

* 1-1 coaching

* Courses, full or condensed

* A research system

* Longform sales pages

* 5-minute trainings and hour-long workshops

* Order bumps

Point 2:

Today, I went into Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin community.

I am a paying, card-carrying member of Ronin. I’ve been making a habit of promoting it, and and easy way to promote it is simply to go in there every week and see what’s up.

Today, I saw a post by Travis about auctions, specifically about a recent auction that made $50k in 24 hours. Here’s the relevant bit, relevant to that offers discussion above, and relevant if you sell online:

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Because the Fun Auction…

Does NOT require fantastic copywriting skills.

The CORE is…

Get ______________! Bids start at $1.

The BLANK is something they REALLY, REALLY WANT, which is worth far more than $1.

It’s funny to me…

That TRAINED copywriters fuck this up more than newbies.

NOBODY WANTS a proven system, coaching, 1:1, orthodontist services, drills or an AUCTION BTW!

If what’s in the blank…for $1…doesn’t make their HEART do a flip…find something that will squirt dopamine into the lizard brain.

===

Travis is saying you don’t need fantastic copywriting skills to sell VIA AUCTION, and that copywriting skills might even be harmful.

I’d add that this goes way beyond auctions.

I’ve seen people with a lot of copywriting skill, whether professional copywriters or business owners, who have spent tens of thousands of dollars to learn copywriting, do a terrible job of selling online.

Most often, the reason why they are so terrible at selling is what Travis says above. They focus on couldn’t-care-less deliverables rather than outcomes that make people’s heart do a flip. (I’ve made this mistake myself, btw, plenty of times.)

Point 3:

Last December, I ran an auction in my Skool group that pulled in $31k in 24 hours, and that could have legit pulled $70k+ had I just taken the money that was offered me.

The reason that auction popped was, like Travis says above, the BLANK that people REALLY, REALLY WANTED.

When I polled for interest in my blank, I got about 50 people saying they would bid to get it, with 6-7 people saying they would bid whatever it takes to win. A couple of people even said they might take out a zero-interest credit card to be able to bid enough to win (I discouraged this, even if it was said in jest).

Lemme wrap this up.

If you have an audience and a working offer, my ongoing offer is to help you run an auction, and do everything:

* Craft a HEART-FLIPPING auction offer

* Come up with post-auction offers that move those deliverables you got and focus on, the 1-1 coaching, the courses, the 5-minute trainings and hour-long workshops

* Write all copy (I’ll keep my fantastic copywriting skills in check)

* Run and manage the auction itself

* Sell, sell, sell after, to the people have raised their hands by bidding

IMPORTANT: I charge nothing up front. For every $10,000 I send you in sales, shoot over $2500 to me AFTER the money is in your bank account.

If you’re interested, hit reply and we can talk more.

And if you don’t have an audience or a working offer, specifically if you’re a working copywriter…

… you would be served well by seeing how Travis creates and presents his own offers.

It will make you into a more valuable copywriter, and clients will be willing to pay you much more, and will fight to keep you working with them… instead of you having to chase them for a little gig here or maybe there, today and maybe again in five months’ time.

But more important, if you get good at creating offers, then when you try to sell your own stuff, you will have a real shot of getting 50 people to reply YES and even a few people who say they will pay whatever it takes… rather than hearing crickets, seeing tumbleweeds, and feeling the chill of a desolate wind.

I’ve learned more about offers from Travis than anybody else.

If you wanna learn something also, Travis offers a 7-day free trial to Royalty Ronin. 7 days is not long, but it’s enough to pick up one or two good ideas that you can implement for your client (or yourself) today, and it can give you a sense if Ronin is for you. If you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

Why all copywriters are secretly pervy

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Spoiler: It’s not just copywriters.

Yesterday, I wrote an email with the word “bondage” in the subject line.

What did that word make you think of?

I happen to know what a couple of my readers thought — what Jordan Parker and his wife Diana thought.

Jordan and Diana have a one-stop agency to help creators grow, helping out with everything from tech to sales to delivery. (From what I know, Kieran Drew is one of their clients, but there are other big-name creators too.)

Jordan and Diana both read my emails. And in response to the bondage one yesterday, here’s what Jordan wrote me:

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Me: “Bondageeeeee 🥳“

Also Diana: “Bondage? Why are you copywriters all secretly pervy??”

===

Why indeed? Here’s why:

In the words of the greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, “As a marketer you only have one power, and that’s to anticipate what people are going to think.”

If the word “bondage” in my subject line made you think of bondage in the leathery, chainy, pervy sense, rather than in the biblical sense of slavery and subjugation (Exodus 20:2, King James Version), then I did my job as an influence professional.

Like I said, it’s not just copywriters who are “secretly pervy,” or rather, who tease and insinuate in a way that suits them, when it suits them.

Other influence professionals do the same. Salespeople obviously use word choice and structure to influence, as do hypnotists, pick up artists, comedians, …

Maybe you see where this is going.

I have a book all about bondage influence techniques common to 10 overlapping disciplines.

All 10 of these disciplines have in common that they move people from A to B, without force or lying, by power of anticipation and occasional clever word choice alone. This knowledge can help you make money — or even get into some pervy situations. If you wanna find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

People will pay to watch you shut somebody’s mouth

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I spent last night at a World Cup watch party, watching the final between Spain and Argentina, at the apartment of some screaming Uruguayans.

Turns out, there’s no love lost between Uruguay and Argentina.

“In this apartment,” the host said as the match started, “you can hate Argentina as much as you like.”

Whenever Spain threatened to score, there was loud cheering from my hosts.

Whenever Argentina got the ball, the most common thing I heard from the people around me was “sucio” (dirty), as they shook their heads in disgust.

Spain won the match and the World Cup.

I guess it’s not sporting to kick Argentina now that they’ve lost, but statistically, they did play dirty. 5 yellow cards, 1 red card, and an Argentinian player who started a brawl after the match.

Today, the number one comment I’ve been seeing over and over about this match has been, “Before watching I didn’t even care about who won, but after watching it thank God it was Spain.”

In related news, yesterday I sent an email about a reader I kicked off my list because of a stupid message she wrote me about fellow email marketer Nick Bandy. Like I said yesterday, I don’t want people like her hanging around, and so she’s gone.

Here are some of the replies I got to that email. First, from a proud American:

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Dude. I am so proud of you for this email.

It was surgical.

– Another proud American.

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From an unimpressed Englishman:

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After your auction I briefly joined Nick’s Skool group.

I found him patronising and annoying, and left soon after (unsubbing from his list at the same time).

Would I buy anything of his or get involved in anything he was running? No

TBH I didn’t even know he was American, but I guess that makes sense now.

If the above comments mean I should be removed from your list I will leave it for you to decide.

===

And from intrigued people from all around the world:

“What may be funniest of all (to me, at least) was that my immediate response to that person’s raving against Nick was, ‘I should go check out this Nick guy. He might know what he’s doing!’ 😂“

“Thank you. Subscribed to Nick.”

“Thank you, John! I signed up and joined his Skool group.”

A couple facts:

Yesterday’s email got way more spontaneous response than other emails I’ve sent… probably since the last time I kicked somebody off my list. It also got ZERO unsubscribes, which is uncommon for me.

I wasn’t selling anything in yesterday’s email other than Nick’s optin page. I imagine yesterday’s email was still good for business, long-term because — and here’s the point of today’s email:

People will pay to watch you shut somebody’s mouth.

That’s the inverse of the famous statement by professional wrestling “heel” Gorgeous George, who said, “People will pay to watch somebody shut your mouth.”

Both Gorgeous George’s version and mine are true.

Do with that knowledge what you will.

You can build an entire business out of it, and constantly seek out people you can be in conflict with and prove wrong.

Or, if you find that approach tiring or “sucio,” you can simply use the same underlying fact to justify making a public show when you enforce boundaries, as I did with my email yesterday.

All right, on to business.

Nick Bandy, the email marketer I endorsed and hyped up in yesterday’s email, signed up for my Daily Email Habit service when he launched his own email list last year. After Nick had been emailing for a year, he wrote me to say:

“DEH is the biggest ROI I’ve ever gotten on any course or product I’ve ever purchased. It’s incalculable.”

For more info on this “biggest ROI” investment:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/

Toxic, prejudiced, and “socially and democratic-ly regressive”

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I’ll pay off that subject line in a second. But first, let me tell you about the great Nick Bandy, who I mentioned in my email yesterday.

Last December, Nick won my “I endorse YOU” auction by bidding $31k, and boy was I lucky Nick was the one who won.

Because Nick Bandy is GREAT.

Nick works as a fractional CMO for a massive reverse mortgage company. He collects a lot of money for a little bit of work each week ($12k/month for 15 hours/week). That gives him expertise, credibility, and a unique perspective in the direct marketing industry.

Last year, Nick decided to start a personal email list about marketing and online businesses. Using his fractional CMO skills, Nick built out a great cold traffic funnel that pays HIM to add new buyers to his list every day.

On top of that, Nick has since created great courses he’s been selling to his list, like Ghostbuster Sequence, which I’ve promoted repeatedly and which I myself have used to shockingly good result.

And finally, Nick writes great daily emails. I read them pretty much every day, and I think they are funny, clever, and interesting.

Not everybody agrees with me though.

Yesterday, like I said, I sent out my daily email, not about Nick, but mentioning Nick. I got a reply to that from a long-time reader and customer, who wrote me the following block of text:

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So given Nick Bandy has recently come out in all his socially and democratic-ly regressive Trump (and MAGA aligned) ‘glory’, and given that he is platforming his prejudices and his views in his newsletter now in full stereotype, you might want to mention that in future eulogies. I understand he paid you a lot of money and you’re kind of stuck with him (and who knows you may genuinely like him), but I certainly won’t buy anything more off him. I did buy one product before he out-ed himself but the internet and marketing is toxic enough without financially enabling that. I am still on his list as I like to ‘know thy enemy’ although most emails now go into a file rather than read (said enemy is a tad predictable after a while). I do realise you’re not selling him in this email but the lucrativeness of your skool group, but the epithet was still promoting him. Maybe that cesspit-corner of the world is lucrative enough, I don’t know, but no promise nor amount of money is worth that.

===

Ok. so let me address this reader’s comment step-by-step.

First, Nick is American, and from what I can tell, he is happy and even proud to be American.

He recently hammed up his patriotism around the Fourth of July, including putting a “Proudly made in America 🇺🇸” line into his email signature and calling his promo the “Freelance Freedom Jubilee.”

I personally found it funny and even wrote Nick to say so, but again, I like Nick and his emails.

Second, as for Nick being a Trump and MAGA supporter, that was news to me.

Not that Nick is or is not pro-Trump — I have no idea either way. It’s just not something I’ve ever seen in his emails or heard him talk about anywhere else.

In fact, I just searched for both “MAGA” and “Trump” in Nick’s emails and Skool group. I found four mentions in total. Here’s the most recent and relevant one, and the only one that was anything more than a passing comment or third-party rant:

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I woke up at 4 am for this appointment SOLELY to get the “Trump” passport.

It’s only available in DC, and only available for in-person appointments.

But I put “Trump” in quotation marks because to me, it’s a semiquincentennial passport. It’s not a “Trump” passport unless you think one picture of Donald Trump among dozens of pages makes it a “Trump” passport. By that logic, it’s also a “Mount Rushmore” passport because there’s one page with Mount Rushmore.

It’s also a “Nick Bandy” passport, since there’s a big picture of ME inside it, too.

People see what they want to see.

===

Nick’s final line leads into my final point about my reader’s comment above.

People see what they want to see, and most often, that’s a reflection of their own mental state.

Like I said, that reader who wrote me yesterday has been on my list for years, and has replied to dozens of my emails in the past.

One time, after I wrote an email casually mentioning Ben Settle, she replied with a 562-word response, calling Ben a “toxic, insulting, method-acting control jerk.”

Now the same reader is calling Nick toxic, prejudiced, and “socially and democratic-ly regressive.”

You can draw your own conclusions.

My conclusion is that this reader is the toxic, prejudiced, and socially and democratically regressive one.

I mean, if you go around saying nasty stuff about people based only on your own whims, what is that but toxic?

If you assume that anybody who is patriotic must also be pro-Trump, what is that but prejudiced?

And if you think that everybody who doesn’t agree with you is your enemy, what is that but “socially and democratically regressive”?

Anyways, that long-time reader is not a long-time reader any more. I’ve unsubscribed her from my list and banned her from my Skool group. I don’t want people like her hanging around.

As for Nick, like I said, the guy is great. GREAT. I endorse Nick Bandy, wholeheartedly.

Yes, that’s because Nick won my auction. It’s also because I genuinely believe everything I’ve written in this email about Nick’s emails, courses, and marketing expertise. Plus I like the guy personally.

If you want to get on Nick’s list so you can be shocked by his funny, relevant, and patriotic emails — “Proudly made in America 🇺🇸” — then here’s where to go:

https://nickbandy.com/

Influence 2027: Plan A

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I’ve been traveling the past week, first to Belgrade to visit my ex flatmate Sasha, and now to my hometown of Zagreb to visit family. I know, riveting stuff.

I’m telling you this for context. My mind’s not really on work, and it hasn’t been for days now. Nonetheless, I make a daily commitment to write this daily email. But since my mind hasn’t been on work, I find myself depleted of ideas.

What to write about… today?

When I find myself in situations like this, one of my go-to’s is to check Hacker News, an online newsboard curated by nerds. There’s often something there to jog my vacation-y brain into action.

And so it was today.

I found a trending story called “AI 2040: Plan A.”

In a nutshell, a bunch of nerds (again) got together and wrote up a bunch of scenarios of how, by 2040, AI will either destroy us or it will destroy the things we love, like freedom.

Yawn, I said.

(Bear with me, because this finally gets relevant to you, at least if you have a personal brand or if you write online.)

I asked myself why I was yawning at this trending story about a catastrophic prediction of the highest relevance to the human race.

The answer that came was that people have been dooming about AI for a while now. In other words, the prediction itself is nothing new. Plus, the timeline for the prediction is 2040, which in AI years might as well be 3040.

Now here’s the interesting bit:

This same bunch of nerds who wrote the “AI 2040” report wrote another report back in 2025.

That report was called “AI 2027.” It predicted that by 2027, AI would have superhuman intelligence, at least in the AI-programming realm, with all sorts of technological, political, and economic circumstances that we could see, all within 24 months.

I remember reading that report when it came out and being really captivated by it. Maybe I even wrote an email about it then.

So what’s the difference? Why did the 2025 report captivate me and this new report did not?

Again, the prediction in 2025 was something I had heard a million times before — that AI would eventually become better than humans, and it would lead to this “much better than humans” loop, with crazy consequences.

But the unique thing with the earlier report was the very tight deadline — within just 2 years of the writing of the report.

So let’s pull it all together in a way that pays finally this off for you:

1. I recently wrote an email in which I shared consulting guru Alan Weiss’s advice to people who want to be seen as experts:

“Experts make predictions. They don’t fret about whether they’ll be right, they don’t keep score, and then have no regrets. If you’re afraid to make a prediction because you may be wrong, then you’re no expert.”

2. In order for a prediction to have value, you need one of two things to be true, or preferably both. You either have to make a prediction others haven’t heard before, or you have to make a prediction with a much sooner and more definite timeline than others have made before.

Standup comedian Andrew Schulz once said:

“Comedy is a bullfight, and the premise is the bull. You want a big dangerous bull. The crowd boos if you’re fighting a baby bull.”

And so it is with making predictions.

Speaking of:

Let me tell you about Influence 2027.

A couple weeks ago, The Economist reported that in 2026 the hottest new hires at Open AI and Anthropic are not programmers or data scientists. Rather, they are philosophy majors, who are helping shape the AI models in all sorts of Socratic and Platonic ways.

But that’s so 2026. Here’s my prediction for 2027:

In 2027, the hottest hires at OpenAI and Anthropic will not be programmers, data, scientists, OR philosophers.

Rather, they will be direct response copywriters, standup comedians, stage magicians, and other influence professionals, who understand the triggers and tradeoffs of human psychological drives.

In 2027, knowledge of human psychology, and specifically, of human motivations and inhibitions, will become the deciding factor whether the AI-generated stuff you produce gets people to move, or gets them to yawn, just like that “AI 2040” report made me yawn earlier today.

If you wanna be ready for this heady future, which is coming up imminently, my recommendation is to learn from the best of the best of influence professionals, across many disciplines, and to focus on what they all do in common.

Fortunately, I’ve prepared a by-the-numbers field guide for you about exactly that topic. It’s waiting for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

All experience hath shewn

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For the past year, I’ve been memorizing, one line a day, various famous poems and speeches and passages.

At some point, I memorized the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

You probably know the “all men are created equal” and the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of hamburgers” bits.

But have you ever noticed the following piece of psychological insight in the nation’s founding document?

“All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

In short, that passage says that people prefer the status quo to just about anything else, regardless of how bad the status quo is.

That might seem like a trivial observation.

It is not. It reminded me of an issue of the Gary Halbert Letter (another founding document of the great American experiment), in which Gary asks what the three following situations, all very different from each other, all have in common:

1. “A guy buys a beer joint that’s doing a good business in a blue collar neighborhood. His first move is to decorate the joint and give it a little class and to lower his prices.” Result: He loses most of his customers.

2. “A guy who has never broken 100 is shooting a round of golf. After the first 9 holes, he notices he’s doing exceptionally well and has only used up 36 strokes. And, if he keeps this up for the next 9 holes, he’ll shoot par for the first time in his life.” He finishes the course with 103 strokes.

3. A wealthy Cuban businessman has all his wealth confiscated by the Castro regime. He moves to Miami with nothing. Within a short time, he’s rich again.

Says Gary, what these situations all have in common is a primary human driver, even more powerful than sex, greed, and curiosity. That primary human driver is the need to stick with the status quo.

I don’t know about you, but I personally cling to the status quo while also fighting against it daily. It’s hard work, but what else is there?

Anyways, my point today was just to share that line from the Declaration of Independence of you, because it is great, and because it’s been playing in my head for the past year.

It speaks to a fundamental human truth, as relevant today as it was then, as prevalent in politics as it is in business.

Speaking of business… business needs to be done now.

I am currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend, a giant swipe file of massively successful lead gen copy, with examples from right now all the way back to revolutionary times (ok, maybe not, but pretty close).

If you need a way to tie Lead Gen Legend into the topic of today’s email, go back to the status quo thing.

We all have our own routine and limited ideas for writing copy and making sales appeals. But status quo inputs beget status quo results.

It takes an outside impetus to push us out of that status quo, and to open up new vistas of conversion and profit. A curated swipe file of winning ads can be just the thing. Gary Halbert would agree.

If you are mildly convinced by that argument, I will warm you up a bit more by including several bonuses with Lead Gen Legend, if you get it before tomorrow, Sunday, July 5 at 12 midnight PST.

The ones I’ve announced so far:

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as former Agora Financial copy chief Joe Schriefer has said, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

Again, my bonuses are good only until tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

Lawrence has also generously agreed to lower the price of Lead Gen Legend during this promo by $300 from its usual $379 price, so it is now a very attractive $79.

If you’d like to get it before it becomes necessary for me to dissolve this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

May I send you the payment link?

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Today is last day to get in on Hogwarts of Influence, one of three tiers I’m offering to make you a wizard of persuasion at greater at greater levels.

Yesterday, I got an email about that offer from Alex Popov. Alex is both an NLP coach and a freelance copywriter with a string of controls for an Agora health brand. He wrote:

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This past month, I had a chance to grab a $997 [one well-known email marketer] offer with a BIG bonus that included a choice book from any of his great books.

I also had a chance to grab a $997 [another email marketer] offer with roughly $4,500 in bonuses, including a selection of his trainings and back issues of [the dude’s newsletter].

But I’d like to grab your Dumbledore-level offer instead.

That is to say, I quite like and am quite impressed with the way you write your copy, structure your offers and teach this magical stuff.

===

I asked Alex if I could answer any more questions for him or if I can send him the link to the order page.

If you need a marketing lesson today, let it be that.

It’s an application of the “mini-agenda” idea from Jim Camp’s book Start With No.

Rather than plowing on with any negotiation or sale like a horny teenager, take your time, ask for permission to proceed, and let people know what’s coming up before you drop it on them.

It never hinders the people who are ready to proceed, and it can surface surprising stuff from people who say they are, but are not.

Anyways, to my mini-agenda, Alex replied:

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Thank you for asking, John!

Nope, no questions.

I was at the webinar.

I’ve been analyzing your emails.

I went through the bonus trainings you gave for joining your list. I did it now, after several years. My loss in time & money that I didn’t use your thinking, writing and persuasion tips earlier.

But I guess my brain needed the time to get it.

Anyway, just some feedback for you.

So, please send me the link. Thanks!

===

Alex has since jumped in on Hogwarts of Influence at the Dumbledore level. Will you? It’s your choice. If you want the full details of what’s inside the most generous offer stack I will make this year, before it vanishes later tonight:

https://bejakovic.com/core-promise-pwyw

How to pitch clients who don’t have the problem you solve

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Yesterday, I wrote about a cold email I got with the sneaky subject line, “Intro – John / Matt.”

But what about the body of that email? What was the guy pitching?

The email ran as following:

1. He was writing to me specifically because I have a Skool group

2. Skool owners who sell memberships to their Skool groups via webinars get low conversions

3. The way to solve this problem is by making an AI clone of myself that I can bundle into my webinar offer

If you just shook your head in confusion, let me highlight the good and the bad of this pitch, which might be useful to you in your own client- and customer-getting efforts:

The GOOD:

1. The dude didn’t try to pitch me his AI clone directly, based on its own merits, social proof, technology etc. Frankly, I wouldn’t have cared one bit about any of that.

2. Instead, he picked a problem that people with paid Skool communities might have (it’s hard to get people to sign up), and he tied in his solution to that.

The BAD:

1. I don’t have a paid Skool community (both my groups are free), I don’t have conversion problems, and I don’t run a webinar.

2. If I did have a paid community and did have problems getting people into it, an AI clone of me would sounds as good of a solution as shipping new members a free life-sized cardboard cutout with my smiling mug on it

All that’s to say, if you’re trying to get new clients or customers, if you’re trying to sell your existing products or services, do the stuff in the “GOOD” above.

Don’t do the stuff in the “BAD.”

What to do instead?

Well, honest research. Detailed research. Research into what actual people in your market actually do, instead of what they say they do, or what you think they do.

This is something I’ve covered in detail inside a training I’ve called Heart of Hearts.

It’s about doing research on your market — ideally, your own audience — to find out 1) what actual problems they have and 2) what solution of yours they would pay for to solve that problem.

And no, it’s not something you can automate to Claude or ChatGPT, because it doesn’t involve silently scouring forums.

I sold Heart of Hearts for $297 when I first released it, back in 2024. I haven’t made it available since. I am making it available now, as part of my “Hogwarts of Influence” event, specifically in the “Snape” and Dumbledore” tiers. For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/core-promise-pwyw/

Clever lead gen spotted in teddy bear email

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These days, one of the only people whose emails I read regularly is marketing legend Dean Jackson.

Dean has this folksy, cheerful, teddy bear public persona.

He talks slowly and patiently, like he’s your friend, with his arm around your shoulder.

He makes everything into an accessible analogy — “would you like a cookie,” “vending machine vs. slot machine,” “more cheese, less whiskers.”

Dean’s public persona masks the fact that the man is really the fountain of dozens of innovative marketing ideas that have become so widespread online that we don’t even think somebody had to invent them. But somebody did, and that person was Dean.

Anyways, I noticed something in a recent Dean email. Says Dean:

“On Wednesday, at Noon ET, I’m doing a live Book Titles Workshop & Q&A call.”

That might not seem remarkable unless you know one of Dean’s businesses is 90 Minute Books, where they interview you over 90 minutes and then turn that into a book you can use for lead gen.

So how does Dean’s Book Titles Workshop fit in?

Simple.

First, it gets the right people to raise their hands, so they can be identified, tagged, and followed up with. (Dean’s audience is small, brick-and-mortar biz owners, and the workshop is for the few among them who are thinking about having a book.)

Second, to those who actually show up, the workshop gives a small but meaningful win.

With Dean’s help, those people will walk away with a book title, something they can see, feel, hold, treasure, cherish, and talk to others about.

Of course, they still don’t have the book. After they have the book title, Dean’s service is the natural next step.

This is worth doing yourself.

You might have a big service or an expensive offer.

A proven strategy to sell that is to do what Dean is doing.

Help people take the very first step, however tiny, towards the big outcome you ultimately provide.

For one thing, it will help you identify leads. For another, it will give the people who take the first step a quick win, a feeling of inspiration, and momentum they will want to keep.

Let me apply this lesson myself.

The most important part of your marketing message is the promise you make. That’s equally true whether you’re selling a service, coaching, a course, or yourself as a person of trust and influence.

Based on my 1-1 work with dozens of online business owners, I can tell you that most business owners DO NOT DO A GOOD JOB with the core promise they are making in their marketing.

Next Tuesday, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, I will hold a Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call.

It’s free & you can Register Here.

I’ll share the most important parts of:

* What makes a good promise

* The importance of being clear over clever

* Choosing a promise that sounds credible

And we’ll end with a Q&A session to answer your Core Promise questions.

Don’t forget to register so I can send you the details.

See you there.

Last call for Tour de Commandments bonuses

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The past week, I have been running the Tour de Commandments event to mark the 1-year anniversary of the publication of my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc book.

As a result of this event, I have sold more than 100 paperback copies of my book, and have rocketed up the book rankings, at least for a few days, above the paperback of Robert Cialdini’s Influence. That’s really all a daily email writer could ever want for.

Today is the last day of this promotional spectacle. With one final, desperate push towards the finish line, the Tour de Commandments event ends tonight, Sunday the 17th, at 12 midnight PST.

If you take me up on this offer before the deadline (instructions below), you get the following bonuses:

#1. “Manna for Marketers” live workshop and implementation call

Happening next Wednesday at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I will cover how I’ve consciously applied these 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. in my biz. I’ll also offer you my help and input if you want to raise your hand live on the call, and ask me how to apply any of these commandments to your biz (or life).

#2. “3 lessons after $18,487 spent on running Amazon book ads”

Over the past 7 years, I’ve spent $18,487 on Amazon book ads. The majority of those ads have been for my two “10 Commandments of SOMETHING” books. I’ve put together a report on the 3 main lessons learned after 7 years, thousands of copies sold, and $18k+ in ad spend.

#3. “40 Pages to Authority: A $1k article series”

Back in 2023, the the Professional Writers Alliance paid me $1,000 to write a 4-part article series about my experiences writing, promoting, and profiting from a 40-page book (my first 10 Commandments book).

PWA made these articles available to their paying members only. But you can get them as a free bonus for taking me up on my Tour De Commandments offer.

#4. “How I made an extra $1404.53/month in Amazon royalties at the push of a button”

This report outlines a hack, which involves the push of a button — literally, that’s all there is to it — and which made me an extra ~$1.5k per month in Amazon royalties. I used this hack once, over the span of a few months, or rather a few weeks. I made money with it. And I never used it again.

I’m not saying anybody else should use this hack. I’m not saying anybody else should NOT use it either.

All I’m willing to do is to tell you what this hack is, why I’m no longer using it myself, and how you can try it out yourself, if you so choose, to make easy money off Amazon.

#5. “The best direct marketing book of the past 15 years”

That’s according to me, somebody who has read and reread all the great direct marketing books, and some of the not-so-great, and who has made millions in sales via the ideas I’ve learned in those books.

Odds are excellent you have not read this book or even heard of it. But I will tell you what it is so you can grab it on Amazon, and I’ll even give you $15 in Bejako Bux so you can get it effectively FREE.

#6. “The best course on selling via email I have personally found”

The information in this course has influenced a ton of people online, indirectly. Yet I never hear anybody talking about this course directly, or implementing the complete system inside, rather than just one fraction.

(I have been going through this course and implementing it myself and helping my coaching students implement it.)

If you like, you can be among a select elite of people who both know about this course and who profit from it. Because, if you take me up on my Tour de Commandments offer, I will tell you where to find this best course on selling via email, for FREE, and completely legally.

#7. Influence Riddles Vol. 1

7 real-life case studies of successful episodes of influence, turned into riddles for you to ponder and profit from, including:

* How one clever offer owner got me to promote his offer as an affiliate even though I knew it wouldn’t sell to my list

* A lead magnet I’ve seen two very successful marketers using, which gets better conversions and higher-intent leads than the usual free report/course/template etc.

* A new upsell strategy that “exploded average order value overnight” (taken from the best direct marketing book of the past 15 years, which is #5 inside this bonus bundle)

If you want to take me up on this Tour de Commandments offer, here’s what to do:

1. Grab five paperback copies of the 10 Commandments book (or four, if you’ve already got a paperback and can dig up that receipt as proof)

2. Forward me your receipt (or receipts, if you already got one) from Amazon

3. I’ll get you in for the Manna for Marketers workshop, and get you access to the above bonuses, as well as others I release in the coming days.

Again, the deadline for this event is tonight, May 17, at 12 midnight PST.

If you’re in, here’s where to take me up on this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments