Persuasion

Djokovic propaganda cliches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But on to business.

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

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

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

For more info on how this process works:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Can you identify this persuasion strategy?

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

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

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

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

What I want to tell you requires a spoiler.

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

It’s worth it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loretta cracks open the door. The following dialogue follows:

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

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

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

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

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

LORETTA: I don’t even know you!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​​I’ll give you a hint:

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

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

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

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

Secret, occult, or classified — which one wins?

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

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

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

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

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

===

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

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

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

So.

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

Or is it worse?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how do you get the psychology down?

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

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

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

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

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

===

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

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

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

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

https://persuasivepage.com/

A VERY busy man writes me a note

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Last week, I got an email with the subject line, “A note from a VERY busy man.”

“Oh God,” I thought.

Before I clicked to open the email, I saw that the very busy man’s name is Tom O’Donnell. I looked Tom up.

​​It turns out he is a business consultant, a specialist in negotiation, a polyglot (Serbo-Croatian, Vietnamese, Turkish), and a former event manager involved in “producing events for people such as the Queen of Norway, the Princess of Sweden, Arthur Miller, the Dalai Lama, three Presidents of the United States, four Vice Presidents and others.”

“All right,” I said. “So maybe Tom really is VERY busy. Then why is he writing to me?”

Here’s Tom’s note:

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It is possible that you do not actually know me although I am a subscriber to your newsletter. I am a VERY busy man who is frequently too busy to slow WAY down and listen to outside ideas and take counsel from others (to my regret) but one exception I have made is to purchase every thing you offer and I have sat here today and realized how valuable all of it is to me (I can’t speak for others.).

I had been trying to learn copywriting as a way to increase my ability to sell and influence others so I had discovered your riddles course and enjoyed it, then the daily newsletter, then the MVE, then the postcards, and today I purchased the Amazon book and subscribed to the bookclub and I have been sitting here in Minnesota, USA as you sit and work in Spain and I wanted to thank you for the work and effort.

Your material and the people you recommend (like Ben Settle) are becoming my approach to how I conduct my life. I am 76 years old and have had some fine coaches and models but discovering you was truly mind-changing. Please keep it up. As you once wrote about Ben Settle (let me paraphrase) “Ben Settle is an acquired taste.” In you, I have discovered what I need. Thanks and PLEASE keep it up.

Tom ODonnell

p.s. Use this any way you choose.

===

I am choosing to use Tom’s very flattering note by featuring it in this email, with gratitude.

But you might wonder whether there’s any point you can possibly take from this email besides the fact that I am a swell guy, at least according to Tom.

There is a point you can take away. In fact, this email is a illustration of an important technique I had spotted last year, and started practicing since.

This technique I believe is very valuable — perhaps VERY valuable. From what I see, it’s also very underused.

In case you are interested, you can see this technique explained and described below in an email I wrote last year.

By the way, I often cringe when I read my old emails, but this particular one happens to be a favorite. In case that’s got you curious:

https://bejakovic.com/send-me-your-praise-and-admiration/

I failed in my quest for the gift of the gab

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Yesterday I tried to win the gift of the gab. I didn’t manage it.

What surprised me was that I found I had really hoped for it. I was almost desperate to get it.

Background:

I’ve been vacationing in Ireland for a week. Yesterday was the last full day. It was supposed to be the climax — going to Blarney Castle outside Cork, to kiss the Blarney Stone.

Legend says that anyone who kisses the stone will be blessed with the “gift of the gab” — the skill of talk, palaver, flattery, “the ability to deceive without offending.”

But the kissing didn’t happen for me. The line to kiss the stone was impossibly long, down the stairs, out the castle, into the gardens.

My friend Sam and I had spent too much time idling around the Blarney Castle grounds, inspecting and enjoying the fern garden, the bee observatory, the lake with the gold treasure at the bottom of it, the horse paddock with no horses, the impressive botanical garden, the wish-granting magic stairs.

What a waste of time.

Because the line for the actual castle was building up in the meantime, putting a bigger and bigger barrier between me and the gift of the gab.

My point:

We all want something external, outside ourselves, a talisman, a magic spell, a divine approval, something to believe in as cause and guarantee for our success, and as a motivator to action.

Regarding my failed quest for the gift of the gab:

The last time I was in Ireland, 10+ years ago, was because I was competing at the European University Debate Championships, even though I had only taken up debating months earlier.

In the decade since, I met two of my long-term girlfriends — relationships that lasted multiple years — when I ran up to an unfamiliar girl on the street and started gabbin’ away.

And today, I have this gabbin’ email newsletter, which is read regularly by some thousands of people, and which provides me everything I ever wanted in life, at least as far as business goes.

Meaning, I shouldn’t really be desperate for a magic stone to grant me the ability to chat, chatter, and use words to connect with people.

And yet, yesterday I found myself scheming to get back to Cork at the very next opportunity, book a hotel near the Blarney Castle, and be the first person in line in the morning to kiss the stone and get that magic gift of the gab.

So I’m writing this email to tell myself as much as to tell you that power and responsibility aren’t in the Blarney Stone or really anywhere else you need to travel to. As Tolstoy wrote, the Kingdom of God is within you.

It can be valuable to remember that.

On the flip side, there’s no denying that something external to believe in will sell, and will sell big. It’s the allure of a new mechanism, as copywriters like to call it.

But let’s get off the ethereal plane and descend to a more mercenary plane:

Specifically, the plane of my Most Valuable Email course.

I’ve made sure that course contains a mysterious and magical mechanism, the “Most Valuable Email trick.” It’s a big part of the reason why many people have bought this course.

But as I make clear on the MVE sales page, what’s really most valuable is the process of applying this Most Valuable Email trick to yourself, which makes you a better marketer and copywriter every day, and which as a side-effect produces interesting and influential and even sellable content.

Or in the words of Spanish A-list copywriter Rafa Casas, who bought MVE right when I put it out:

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Thanks for the course. It’s true that it can be read in an hour, but it needs more resting time and practice to get the full potential out of it. Which is a lot.

===

So if you want to develop and nurture and even cherish the gift of the gab that’s already in you, and learn to sell daily without offending, here’s the full info on Most Valuable Email:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

I was wrong about being a pity-seeking loser

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On the sales page for my Most Valuable Email course, I once wrote:

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People love stories that show vulnerability — from the guru who’s already made tens of millions of dollars. But stories of vulnerability from the panhandler in front of the supermarket? People don’t love that so much.

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Turns out I was wrong. People do love stories of vulnerability from people who haven’t achieved anything — as long as those people make their plea on Facebook or Twitter. From an article I just read, “The rise of pity marketing”:

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Two weeks ago, at the start of the Edinburgh Fringe, an actor named Georgie Grier posted on Twitter to say only one person had turned up to her one-woman preview show, attaching a picture of herself crying with the caption: “It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s fine…?”

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Within hours, Grier had thousands of replies to her Tweet, including from other, more successful comedians, encouraging her to keep going and saying they had bought tickets to her show. The next night, Grier played to a packed room.

The article I read gives other good examples to make the case that being a pity-seeking loser on social media is now a viable business strategy. The article wraps it up with the following observation:

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Is it real success if you had to publicly declare yourself a failure to achieve it? Those who opt in to pity marketing seem unconcerned, given it can yield major (if short-term) returns.

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Phew. This gives me a bit of a lifeline.

Because I find pity-seeking revolting, both in myself and in others. I want to continue my war on it.

But how can I, when it clearly works, and I was wrong to say it doesn’t?

Well, I’m shifting my angle of attack. My hope lies in the key phrase above, how pity marketing can create “major (if short-term) returns.”

Because there’s no way in hamfat that pity seeking can truly be a reliable strategy for the long term.

In the current moment, pity seeking seems to be viable in general.

And in the current moment in your career, whatever it is that you do, you might post on social media that you have no readers/audience members/customers/clients/sales/whatever. And if you also post a video or a pic of yourself, red-eyed and teary, you might draw sympathy and maybe even a short-term spike in business.

But it’s not something you can do every day.

No, for every day, you need another strategy.

Because the pity reservoirs in most people get depleted pretty quick.

But the reservoirs for being amused, surprised, taught something cool and new, benefited directly and indirectly, well, those reservoirs run very deep.

There might be multiple strategies that allow you to tap into those deep reservoirs over and over again.

I know of one such strategy, which I can personally recommend. It’s my Most Valuable Email trick. In case you’d like to find out what that is, so you can start using it today, tomorrow, and the day after to grow your audience and influence and income while making yourself into a better and more skilled person:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

I got burned by a deadline, don’t let it happen to you

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This past Tuesday I got an email with the subject line,

“We’re funding your newsletter growth”

The body of the email explained that Beehiiv, the Substack competitor I use for my new health newsletter, was offering to match any money I might put into its Beehiiv Boosts service, up to $2,500.

Boosts are basically a coregistration service for various Beehiiv newsletters – you subscribe to one newsletter, you immediately get a bunch more paid recommendations you can subscribe to with just one click.

I had already used Boosts before. I knew it worked fine and delivered quality subscribers.

So taking advantage of this new “deposit matching” offer to the max was a no brainer. I understood fully that it translated into 1,000-1,250 extra subscribers for free.

To seal the deal, later in the day I got an email from my friend Will Ward. Will wrote:

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Hey you are using beehiv for your [health] newsletter right? This seems like a pretty good offer. Am considering switching over to max out the matching.

Are you on the $99 / month plan?

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I smiled and nodded to myself with satisfaction. I’m all over it already, Will.

The next day, Wednesday, I went to check the deadline for this matching offer — by when do I have to deposit the money to get Beehiiv to match my deposit?

My eyes got wide, then shot forward out of my skull, and snapped back into their sockets.

It turned out the deadline had already passed. The offer was only good until end of day, Tuesday. I hadn’t noticed this in the one and only email about the offer.

As that realization sank in, that self-satisfied smile left my face.

“Well,” I said to myself, “I never really wanted this offer anyhow.”

I even meant it in that moment. Of course, it wasn’t true. It was just my brain trying to cover up a screw-up with a tolerable emotion rather than anger or frustration.

The fact is, I got burned by the deadline. But it doesn’t have to happen to you.

Because three hours still remain before I will retire my Most Valuable Postcard #2, at 8:31pm CET tonight.

The reason why I’m retiring this offer, in case you’re curious:

As the name of it suggests, MVP #2 is really just the remains of my short-lived subscription offer, the Most Valuable Postcard, which I ran last summer.

MVP #2 should be a standalone course, with clearer positioning, with its own sexy name, with a bit more bulk, and with an extra zero or two in the price.

So I will retire it. Maybe I will bring the content back in the future, changed slightly and priced much higher.

But if you would like to get it before it disappears, at the current very affordable price, you can buy it today, of your own choosing, at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp2/

The shutout or prat-out

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I’m now reading the Big Con, written in 1940. It’s all about con men playing the big con — not just street hustlers nickle and diming, but elaborate operations involving dozens of men, which took in $25k or $30k or even $50k at a time from a well-heeled mark.

​(​That’s the equivalent to $549k or $659k or $1.1M in today’s money.)

The Big Con is filled with quirky and unfamiliar lingo that describes techniques based on deep and familiar human psychology. One such term is the “shutout” or “prat-out.” From the book:

“He doesn’t know it, but he has been given the ‘shutout’ or the ‘prat-out,’ a clever method of stepping up the larceny in the veins of a mark when the manager feels that he is not entering into the play enthusiastically enough. It may be repeated several times so that the mark is fully impressed with what he has missed.”

The shutout or prat-out works like this:

The mark — let’s call him James Markham — gets acquainted with an affable, attractive man. Let’s call this second man John Conway, for he is a con artist.

Through various loops and intrigues, Conway convinces Markham that he has access to inside information on horse betting.

Conway gives Markham a tip on a sure-thing pony.

Markham bets.

And Markham wins. His excitement and greed flare up.

Conway feeds Markham another sure-thing tip. Let’s say Challedon to win in race 4.

Markham stands in line at the betting parlor to put down that bet before the race starts.

But there are a few people ahead of him in line. Unknown to Markham, all of them are part of the big con.

Each one is placing very large bets. It’s taking a long time. They finish one by one while Markham hops nervously from foot to foot, dreaming of the score he will surely make once he bets on Challedon in race 4.

Finally it’s his turn to place his bet. But right before he can hand over his money and tell the bookie which horse he wants to bet on, the announcer for race 4 says:

“And they’re off!”

It’s too late. Betting on race 4 is closed.

Markham listens to the race results as they come in. Challedon lags at the rear.

​​Markham listens with attention.

​​Challedon starts to move up. As the horses enter the home stretch, Challedon is in fourth place. But Challedon presses forward. Neck and neck through the finish line. Challedon wins!

​​And Mr. Markham sits there, stars in front of his eyes, calculating the small fortune he would have made had those bastards in line ahead of him been just a little faster with their bets.

Mr. Markham has been given the shutout or prat-out. He is now much more ready to be set up for the sting — to be separated from his $25k or $30k or $50k. That’s the equivalent to $549k or $659k or $1.1M in today’s money, in case you forgot.

But what’s really going on here?

And how can you use shutout or the prat-out in other, less larcenous fields of influence?

Perhaps it’s obvious to you.

Or perhaps I’ve given away too much in this email.

But if not, if there are valuable details you are unsure of or are still curious to learn, then you can find a full treatment of the underlying psychological principle in my Most Valuable Postcard #2, informatively titled the Ferrari Monster.

As I explained yesterday, I will retire MVP #2 tomorrow at 8:31pm CET.

The reason why, in case you’re curious:

As the name of it suggests, MVP #2 is really just the remains of my short-lived subscription offer, the Most Valuable Postcard, which I ran last summer.

MVP #2 should be a standalone course, with clearer positioning, with its own sexy name, with a bit more bulk, and with an extra zero or two in the price.

So I will retire it. Maybe I will bring the content back in the future, changed slightly and priced much higher.

But if you would like to get it before it disappears, at the current very affordable price, you can buy it today, of your own choosing, at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp2/

How to seek out testimonials

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Yesterday I held a coaching call with a coaching client. At the end of it I asked if he had any last questions for me. He did:

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Do you do anything to seek out testimonials? Because I don’t feel I’ve gotten anything since I’ve purchased your course that enticed me to do it. But maybe I might have missed it. I feel I don’t do a great job of it. I have one follow-up email for people who purchased my [course] a week later and another one for [his other course].

===

Great question.

Testimonials are super important, both for possible future buyers and for that person who just bought — it makes it more likely they appreciate what they just bought, and get value from it, and stick around.

Beyond that, testimonials are super important for you, the person who created the course — or at least they are for me.

Making a sale is nice, I won’t lie.

​​But hearing that somebody actually appreciates your work (as I’ve had happen lots of times) or genuinely had a life-changing experience due to it (as I’ve had happen on a few occasions) makes you feel good about what you do… makes you more likely to stick with it for long term… makes you more likely to put in extra effort with the next product you launch, because you realize what can be at stake.

So how do you seek out testimonials to benefit your present customers, your future customers, and yourself?

Here are three different strategies, ranked in terms of how effective they’ve been for me:

One, like my coaching client said, is an automated followup process. It’s better than nothing, but I’ve found it pretty weak in general.

I had a followup email for my Copy Riddles course back when it was delivered as a “live” course that went out one email a day. After the complete batch of course emails had gone out, I would let a couple days pass, then send out an extra “what feedback do you have for me” email.

​​I did get a few testimonials that way, but it was nothing to write to a motel, hotel, or houseboat about, and certainly not to home.

The second strategy I’ve used is a request for a testimonial inside the product itself. I usually end my courses with a little signoff. Here’s how I end my Most Valuable Email course:

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We’ve reached the end of this course. I want to say thanks once again for your trust in me, and for getting this course. And I’d like to commend you for making it to the end — most people never do that.

I hope you will apply this Most Valuable Trick for yourself, because it really has been that valuable to me, without any hyperbole. And it can be the same for you. If you do apply it — when you do apply it — write in and let me know the results. I’d love to know.

Good luck, and I hope to hear from you soon.

===

I have had a fair number of people finish courses and write in with feedback after I prompted it like this. Perhaps it’s a better moment than when a followup email arrives — the end of a course is an emotional high, at least if the course is good.

But the third and most effective way I’ve sought out testimonials is simply engagement, as in:

1. Writing engaging emails (the recent “Even numbers for the dead” email drew a lot of replies, including some that were effectively testimonials)

2. Using engagement bait (as I do often, see my “Magic boxes” email from a few days ago for that)

3. Actually engaging directly with readers, in some limited but real way

And of course, when people give you testimonials, you want to encourage more such behavior. That means you feature the testimonial not just on your sales page, but in your emails. Name the person. Say you appreciate what they’ve done for you. And mean it.

Let me give you an example:

A few days ago, out of the blue, I got an email from a new subscriber, Pete Reginella.

​​Pete had bought my 10 Commandments book on Amazon without being previously on my list. He signed up to my list to get the little-known, apocryphal 11th Commandment. He read the welcome email which delivers the bonus, which starts out like this:

“First off, thanks for reading my 10 Commandments book all the way to the end. I’d love to hear what you thought of it, particularly if you thought it was wonderful. Just hit reply and let me know.”

Pete did write in, and I’m grateful to him for it. Here’s what he had to say:

===

Hey John,

I’ve read lots of copywriting books in my short time as a copywriter and I must say…

Yours was actually the only one I couldn’t stop reading.

I actually read it all in one sitting.

It was very easy to consume and well written.

===

So that’s a short how-to course on seeking out testimonials.

As for a short how-to course on the supreme element of your copy to worship above all others…

… ​​​and a short how to course on getting everything you want in life, at least the material stuff…

… ​​and a short how-to course on making your copy easy to consume…

… ​​for all that and more, check out my 10 Commandments book:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

One big proof element

by

I read a story this morning about Tim Meeks, the inventor of the harpejji.

The harpejji is a new instrument, one of only a few new instruments invented in 21st century to actually take off. It’s a combination of a piano and an electric guitar. It sells for $6,399 a piece, and Meeks sold more than $1 million worth of them last year.

That’s where we are today. Here’s how we got to where we are:

Meeks invented the harpejji in 2007. He made videos of himself playing the thing. He showed it off at music festivals. He had a few other harpejji enthusiasts play it and hype it up for him.

Sales. Were. Meager.

And then one day, Meeks was at a trade show in Anaheim, CA. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, can you teach me how to play this thing?”

Meeks stared for a moment and then snapped out of his trance. “Sure,” he said. “Sure! Of course! I’d love to!”

It was Stevie Wonder who was asking.

Stevie Wonder loved the harpejji. He bought one immediately. He has since performed a bunch with it in public.

And here we are today. Point being:

One big proof element can be worth 100 small or middle-sized proof elements.

In fact, entire sales promotions, and even entire businesses, have been built on the back of one big proof element.

So if you’re smart, you will work to get yourself such a big proof element, or maybe even to bake it in to your offer when you create it.

But on to business. I have my Most Valuable Email course to sell. And odds are, you haven’t bought it yet, because only about 5.1% of my list has bought to date.

I’ve shared lots of proof elements for MVE so far:

My own results, tangible successes, and intangible benefits resulting from applying the MVE trick…

The reason why of the thing, which I hint at publicly and explain in detail inside the course…

The testimonials and endorsements and even money-making case studies from many satisfied customers.

The fact is though, none of this qualifies as the One Big Proof Element.

So let me tell you that feared negotiating coach Jim Camp used the Most Valuable Email trick on the very first page of his legendary book Start With No.

This book has formed and influenced other influential people, like email marketer Sen Settle… business coach Travis Sago… and FBI negotiator Chris Voss.

Did all these influential folks find Start With No influential because of the ideas inside?

Yes, but — the presentation was also immensely important. In fact, in the case of somebody like Camp, the presentation and the ideas were really an indistinguishable blend.

If you’re a Jim Camp fan, it will be obvious to you how Camp is using the MVE trick in Start With No once you know what this trick is.

And whether or not are a Camp fan, if you would like to have similar influence on your readers, particularly the influential ones among them, then Most Valuable Email might be your ticket. Here’s where to buy it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve