Persuasion

Black Friday deals against humanity

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Earlier this week, I came across the following Black Friday trivia:

Cards Against Humanity, a deck of cards used for a popular party game, has a history of making funky Black Friday offers.

One year, they promoted a “Bullshit Box” as a way of distancing themselves from Black Friday craziness.

The box was advertised as containing “literal feces, from an actual bull.”

30k people bought it. It turned out to really be a piece of cow dung, in a little black box, shrink wrapped and mailed to your house.

Another year, rather than offering a discount for Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity hiked up the price of their card deck by $5.

This ended up getting a lot of press and went viral on social media.

Cards Against Humanity ended up as the #1 card game on Amazon that Black Friday, and the company made bank as a result.

These campaigns bounced around my head and influenced how I decided to promote the Black Friday Bundle I am participating in this year.

I figured everyone else participating in this bundle would try to outdo themselves with free giveaways if you buy via their affiliate link.

I decided to try something different, Cards of Humanity-style.

Rather than giving a bunch of additional stuff for free in the form of bonuses, I decided to JUST TELL YOU WHERE YOU CAN BUY FOUR MORE REALLY GREAT DEALS THAT YOU MIGHT NEVER FIND OTHERWISE.

Haha fun and games, right?

Maybe not. Because yesterday, I got this question from a reader:

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I was actually wondering if one gets all of the bonuses as part of purchasing through your link, or if you get the bonus based on the day you purchase it, or you pick one.

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This question got me a bit panicked.

I suddenly realized that, much how I skim other people’s emails, other people skim mine.

Many of my readers are likely to scroll down to the bottom of my email, simply see the stuff I’m listing, and assume that these are actual giveaways, rather than JUST POINTERS TO WHERE YOU CAN BUY THESE DEALS.

Next thing, I imagined myself in Internet marketer jail, wearing one of those striped prison pajamas, a placard around my neck that says, “Made promises he had no intention to keep.”

I would plead to the judge that I did explain everything in my emails, plainly and thoroughly. But the judge would slam down his gavel and say, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking the law.”

And the law is this:

People skim your copy and split their attention across five things. That means you gotta repeat yourself, and make your message black and white, and simple as salt, and then repeat yourself some more.

So to reiterate my Black Friday deal against humanity:

If you buy via my affiliate link, I AM NOT GIVING AWAY ANY FREE BONUSES.

The Black Friday bundle already has a ton of stuff inside, most of which people are unlikely to consume.

So why are people still buying the Black Friday bundle?

Well, I figure that the real benefit is actually purchasing, and getting the thrill of a good deal on valuable and exciting products.

That’s why, if you do buy via my affiliate link below, I WILL TELL YOU WHERE TO BUY THE FOLLOWING FOUR OFFERS, BUT I WILL NOT IN ANY WAY GIVE YOU THESE OFFERS FOR FREE (the whole point is that you gotta pay for them):

1. “$25 Classified Ads”

A behind-closed doors opportunity to get in front of about 20,000 relevant prospects… advertise and test out your offers… get clients and partners… and grow your list… for what works out to $25 a pop.

2. “Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer”

How to get coaching clients to pay you in the next four days, even if you have little experience. This course costs $997. That might not sound like any kind of a bargain, but if you consider that this Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer you make itself sells for $997, and is truly irresistible, then even one client, and this course will pay for itself.

3. “How to acquire newsletters, communities, and online service businesses with no money out of pocket”

Thousands of people previously paid $2,995 for this information, but you can get it now for just $497.

4. [Still to be revealed tomorrow]

Which of these sweet deals do you get if you buy the Black Friday Bundle via my affiliate link below?

NONE OF THEM.

My deal is simply I will tell you WHERE AND HOW YOU CAN BUY ALL OF THEM, OR ANY OF THEM, OR NONE OF THEM, AS YOU CHOOSE.

Clear? I hope so. I am planning to enter this email as “Defense Exhibit 1A” in case I’m ever put on trial for this promo.

Meanwhile, if you wanna take me up on my NON GIVEAWAY OFFER, here’s my affiliate link:

https://bejakovic.com/greatdeals

Announcing: Opportunity to buy more stuff and get more great deals

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Today kicks off the Black Friday Bundle, which is neither black nor does it seem to have anything to do with Friday (today being Thursday).

The Black Friday bundle includes offers from a dozen people in the copywriting and email marketing niches, myself included.

The dozen or so people who are participating in this bundle are all promoting it to their lists.

How can you stand out among a dozen people standing on stage, all straining to appear the tallest, in front of pretty much the same audience?

I don’t know. But I did ask myself what the underlying psychology is when it comes to bundles in particular, and to Black Friday in general. I came up with following:

1. People buy stuff because they find buying enjoyable

2. They want to feel like they’re getting a deal

Does that sound right? Is that what you want? If so, I’ll give it to you.

I figure that everybody else participating in this Black Friday Bundle will pile on more stuff in the form of free bonuses.

Unfortunately, free bonuses have the downside of being free.

And who wants free, when you can have the pleasure of 1) actually buying something, for real money and 2) still feeling like you’re getting a great deal?

So instead of piling on free stuff, I will tell you where to get more great deals, for real money.

To start, if you buy the Black Friday Bundle via my link below, I will tell you where you can buy something I’m calling “$25 Classified Ads.”

These “$25 Classified Ads” are something I’ve already teased inside my Daily Email House community. But so far, I haven’t shared this secret with a single person (you could be the first).

If you’re a marketer or an agency owner or a copywriter, then “$25 Classified Ads” is a behind-closed doors opportunity to get in front of about 20,000 relevant prospects… advertise and test out your offers… get clients and partners… and grow your list… for what works out to $25 a pop.

(You have to buy a package of 4, for $97, though there’s a way to get an even better deal if you’re willing to buy a bigger package.)

I have used these $25 Classified Ads myself with good results so far, which might possibly turn into great results soon.

I will tell you what these $25 Classified Ads are, and how you can buy these ads yourself — IF you buy the Black Friday Bundle through my link below and forward me your receipt.

Oh, and tomorrow, and Saturday, and Sunday, I will have three more great, buyable deals to share with you.

All of these are deals are ones I have personally invested in (well, except one, which I was gifted).

I can recommend all of them fully.

Of course, if you buy today, I will also tell you the other deals as I tease them out to the rest of my list.

In any case, if you wanna buy the Black Friday Bundle and get a great deal, and then have the opportunity to buy more stuff and get even more great deals:

https://bejakovic.com/greatdeals

To all my dog trainers, pottery instructors, and professional alpaca whisperers

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Yesterday I got a question from Liza Schermann, the original “Crazy Email Lady” and current head copywriter at surging startup Scandinavian Biolabs. Liza wanted to know:

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Why so tempting??

I promised myself never to click through to the sales page of Daily Email Habit. It’s too good an offer not to buy, but I knew I wouldn’t commit. Yesterday, I gave in and clicked against my better judgement.

Anyhow, now I’m wondering:

The example you provide on the sales page is very specific to online marketing. Are most of the prompts geared towards this crowd? Or is it a mix, and people can adjust as they see fit for their own purposes?

I happen to be in this crowd, so it makes perfect sense to me. But maybe there’s a dog trainer, a pottery instructor, or a professional alpaca whisperer on your list who’s scratching their head wondering what to do with a prompt about daily emails (or something similar).

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I got variants of this question all week. In a nutshell:

Daily emails, like the kind Daily Email Habit gets you to write (including the sample prompt on the sales page) will work in any business or industry. The only caveat is you must be willing to put yourself (or some sort of avatar you write behind) as the face of that business.

In fact, that’s the point of daily emails, unpleasant though it may sound.

You’re ultimately selling yourself as the product, rather than whatever your “product” officially is. In the words of Dan Kennedy, a direct marketer who has managed to sell himself for millions and millions of dollars:

“The higher up in income you go, the more you’re paid for who you are, rather than what you do.”

So now the question becomes, are daily emails, the way Daily Email Habit helps you to write, a fit for you?

Only you can decide that.

Maybe you don’t like the business of selling you, even for a premium, and maybe you want your products or services to stand for themselves, at competitive market rates.

That’s a fine decision. In this case, don’t go the daily email route, because the relationship and authority you build up will only interfere with people buying from you on the strength of your product or price alone.

On the other hand, if you want to charge higher prices… or surround yourself with a moat that’s not easily crossed by marauding neighbors… or have a ready source of income whenever your business or personal life needs it… then daily emails work great.

And Daily Email Habit will help you write them, in an effective and (relatively) painless way, whether you are a dog trainer, pottery instructor, or professional alpaca whisperer.

But that doesn’t change the cruel truth:

The price for Daily Email Habit is going up tonight at 12 midnight PST, from a modest $30/month to an obscene $50/month.

If you’re considering getting in before the price increases for ever and ever, and you want the full info on DEH:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/

Nobody’s perfect: I give 4 stars to this new reviewer of my book

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Jerry: Osgood, I’m gonna level with you. We can’t get married at all.

Osgood: Why not?

Jerry: Well, in the first place, I’m not a natural blonde.

Osgood: Doesn’t matter.

Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!

Osgood: I don’t care.

Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I’ve been living with a saxophone player.

Osgood: I forgive you.

Jerry: [tragically] I can never have children!

Osgood: We can adopt some.

Jerry: But you don’t understand, Osgood! Ohh… [Jerry pulls off his wig] I’m a man!

Osgood: [shrugs] Well, nobody’s perfect.

Those are the closing lines of the greatest comedy of all time, as ranked by American Film Institute, namely, Some Like It Hot.

These lines came to mind because last night I checked the Amazon page for my new 10 Commandments book.

I published the book back in May, and though reviews were slow to come at first, I have amassed 46 reviews so far. Well, 46 ratings, from 1 to 5 stars, most of which don’t actually have any kind of review text beyond the number of stars.

So far, while I’ve gotten a couple 4-star ratings and even a 3-star, all the actual thoughtful reviews with written words were accompanied by 5 star ratings as well.

Until last night.

I now have a new text-based review, only 4 stars, which says:

“Book is 5 stars really but nothings perfect… This book seriously is a must read as you will understand at a deeper level human nature…”

What to say?

I give this reviewer 4 stars. I would give him or her 5 stars for the nice things said about my book… but nobody’s perfect.

In any case, if you STILL haven’t yet read my “must-read” book that will help you “understand at a deeper level human nature” — and you know who you are, and I know you are reading — then here’s where to find the number one comedy… and pickup… and con game… and hypnosis… and sales etc. book, as rated by the BFI, the Bejako Fund of Infotainment:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Disconnect at my first FC Barcelona match

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Yesterday, for the first time ever, and after three years of living in Barcelona, I, a total non-fan, went to my first football game ever. And it was super exciting.

FC Barcelona, one of the most dominant and richest teams in the world, was playing Girona FC, a total underdog and second-to-last in the league standings.

The reality of the match:

Barcelona scored early. Girona equalized with a bicycle kick shot. There was lots of attacking and chances on both sides. And then, in the last minute of extra time, Barcelona scored the winning goal.

Honestly, it was the best possible way to see a real live football game for the first time ever.

But what really got me is the feeling of disconnect.

This match happened at the small Barcelona Olympic stadium, where FC Barcelona is playing while their main stadium is being refurbished.

There was almost no advertising anywhere, no flashing jumbotrons, no announcements, no fireworks.

There were lots of empty bleachers because this old Olympic stadium is not really good for watching football, plus apparently some fans are simply boycotting the games since this place is not the real “home” of Barcelona.

As a result, the entire atmosphere felt like watching a local under-17 practice more than some super consequential world-class match… featuring supremely skilled athletes chosen from millions who tried very hard to be worthy of appearing on this same stage… with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line in terms of possible sponsorships, injuries, transfers, etc.

It also felt weird to know that every consequential and inconsequential moment I was witnessing was being streamed all around the world, and that countless photos, reels, writeups, analyses, and stats from this event would appear billions of times on phones and laptops and TVs in the coming days.

I’m not sure what happens when something real, like a bunch of dudes running after a ball on a grassy pitch on Montjuic one afternoon, passes into the symbolic realm, like articles and photos and stories that can live forever.

But something happens.

It’s a very strange and powerful thing, something so strange and powerful that we usually like to shrug it off because the truth of it makes us uncomfortable and forces us to face things about ourselves that we’d rather ignore.

I realize this is all getting a little vague and philosophical.

Rather than waffling on more, I will simply point you to an email I wrote a long time ago.

This old deals with this topic, and in fact talks about a sociological theory that has to do specifically with this. But it’s not just theory. This old email also gives you a practical takeaway for your marketing and writing and branding, if those are the kinds of things you engage in.

By the way, after I wrote this email years ago, I got the following kinds of replies from readers:

“Glorious”

“This is a profound message John. Just a message of appreciation.”

“Daaaamn good!!!”

“The greatest crime you commit is not selling something in your emails. You have the best marketing insights of ANY list I’m on…”

That last comment came from “Australia’s best copywriter,” Daniel Throssell. In case you’re curious what Daniel and my other readers liked so well, and how you can use it in what you do today, here’s the email in question:

https://bejakovic.com/more-real-than-real/

How to get informed (it’s not the news)

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Perhaps you’ve seen the trending anti-news article that’s gone viralish over the past week.

It deals with news versus reality, specifically, deaths as reported in the news versus the deaths people actually die from.

The article compared data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to news reports of deaths in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the news website of Fox News.

Some of the results:

First, there wasn’t much difference between the three news outlets, in spite of different political leanings.

Second, there was a big gap between which deaths get written about and which deaths actually happen.

On the over-represented side, murders were 43 times more reported than their share of deaths. Terrorism deaths got 18,000 times more coverage than their share of actual deaths.

On the under-represented side, deaths from things like stroke and heart disease were underreported in the news by a factor of 9 and 10, respectively.

I personally don’t watch or read the news, and this kind of stuff allows me to be smug. “You see,” I imagine telling some imaginary debate partner, “I haven’t been missing anything.”

The fact is, the news doesn’t represent reality, meaning stuff that happens out there. The only reality it represents is what biases exist in the human mind, across time and across space and culture:

Our cravings for novelty… for low probability, high-impact events… for negative rather than positive outcomes… for individual dramatic stories rather than statistics encompassing millions of data points.

But though I personally ignore the news and even like to be smug about it, it’s not just cynical and self-serving news outlets that do this to us.

We do the same thing to ourselves, all the time, because of habit but also because of our inborn neurology. We focus on the negative… the low-probability… the high-impact… and we weave stories about such things that often have little to do with the reality of of our existence.

This all sounds kinda depressing, and I don’t want you leaving my email that way.

So let me share a resource I’ve shared multiple times over the past year and a half.

It lays out a simple process that has allowed me to see reality more clearly and to challenge stories my brain likes to tell itself.

This process worked for me when I first read about it and tried it a year and a half ago. It’s working for me still.

Maybe most importantly, following this process opened up some sort of a gateway in my mind that’s allowed related ideas and practices to flow in, which have made me more happy and resilient these days than I have felt my whole adult life.

In case you want to get informed about reality:

https://bejakovic.com/stillworking

The bluebird who paid a $10k bill plus travel expenses

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Recently, I had the idea to take a bunch of my previous emails on the topic of pricing and positioning, and to write a book titled “Charge More,” or something like that.

The basic idea being, charge more for what you offer.

But like “Just Do It,” “Charge More” is one of those bits of good advice that people nod their heads to in agreement, but rarely actually follow.

So rather than just repeating “Charge More” for 150 pages to no effect, I figured I would take a bunch of emails I’ve written, with distinctions and stories, to both inspire people to raise their prices, and to give them tips on how to do so in various situations.

And now that I’ve given you that intro, it seems a good time to share a story by sales trainer Dave Sandler, which I read in Sandler’s book You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar. The story goes like this:

Sandler once gave a talk at a business convention, outlining his own homebrewed system for raising salesmen’s self-esteem.

Next day, Sandler flew back from the convention to his home in Baltimore.

At the time, all of Sandler’s business was local to Baltimore. He wasn’t expecting anything to come from the convention.

But the next morning, Sandler got a call from an excited business owner from Indiana, halfway around the country.

The business owner was there at convention. He said he took Sandler’s ideas back to his salespeople. He was flabbergasted at the initial results. He wanted Sandler to come out immediately and give his salespeople the full training.

While this guy talking, Sandler thought to himself, “Well! here’s a bluebird.” It’s like the guy had just flown in through an open window and landed on Sandler’s desk.

At the time, Sandler’s fee for a 2-day seminar in Baltimore was $2,500 dollars (this was in the early 1970s). He was simply waiting for the excited business owner to exhaust himself with talking, and then he’d ask for $2,500 plus travel expenses.

But the business owner kept talking, all about how much money he had spent on traditional sales training… and how happy he had been to hear Sandler speak on this topic, because Sandler was right, and others didn’t get it…

“I do have to spend the night at a hotel and away from home to teach this seminar,” Sandler thought. “Better ask for another $500 and make it an even $3k. I’ll do it once the guy stops talking.”

… but the business owner still kept on, all about the books and tapes and trainings he had purchased for his sales staff, and how none of it had worked… and how much it’s been hurting his business… and how it’s been driving him up the wall and he didn’t know what to do until now…

“I do also have to get on a plane for this,” Sandler thought. “Plus I’ll have to give up some selling time. I’ll tell him the price is $3,500, as soon as he slows down.”

… but the biz owner kept talking and talking, venting and venting, revealing and revealing. Sandler says it felt like the guy talked for an hour, even though it was probably only a few minutes.

Finally the business owner talked himself out. “By the way,” he said, “how much is this going to cost me?”

“$10,000,” Sandler said, “plus travel expenses.”

“Well that’s no problem,” the business owner replied. “How soon can you get here?”

I think there are lots of lessons in this little story. Let me just share one, right at the top, about how Sandler got a warm inbound lead, a bluebird who landed on his desk, ready to to buy without any sales call or persuasion or objection overcoming.

Sandler did it by flying across the country and getting up on stage and giving a talk.

That’s an effective way of getting warm inbound leads, if you’re willing to fly around and get up on stage and give speeches to crowds.

But the same psychology applies whenever you have a platform to speak from, even if that platform is entirely virtual, and even if speaking is really writing, like what you’re reading now.

The key is simply to build a mini-monopoly, a situation in which people in your audience have grown to trust you and to have a relationship with you and to want to work with you specifically, even if you have supposed “competition.”

All that’s to say, if you don’t consistently write daily emails yet, it pays to start. And if you want my help doing so:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Anti-proof #1A

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Yesterday, I wrote an email wondering about a strange social proof conundrum:

Why do endorsements and testimonials sometimes act as powerful proof elements… while at other times they act as a red flag that signals the offer itself is unproven and iffy?

I didn’t have an answer I was convinced by, beyond shrugging my shoulders and saying, “because readers can basically sniff out if you’re coming from a position of power or not.”

I got a number of replies to yesterday’s email, from readers who both disagree with me and agree with me. For example, reader John McDermott thinks it all comes down to gut feelings:

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It obviously depends on the audience to a certain extent, but I think people make buying decisions largely from ‘gut feelings.’ That is, whether the offer invokes their defenses on some ‘spidey senses’ level. Or not.

Just as a salesman shouldn’t actually wear blue suede shoes, an ad shouldn’t show any ‘tells’ that the audience will perceive.

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On the other hand, a reader named Devd thinks it’s about structuring your copy in the right way:

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I think towards the end of the book, Gene Schwartz talked about something related to this in Breakthrough Advertising.

Like being the mind reader, and amply supplying the copy with claim-proof and other stuff as required.

And not blabbering about just proof or claims alone for too long, and having the right thinking process to switch as needed based on the thought process of your prospect after reading each line you write.

That’d probably help avoid the copy feeling too needy, I guess.

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A mysterious French copywriter or marketer, who keeps buying my offers under different names but goes by “Bro in Arms” in his emails, thinks it might not have anything to do with social proof at all:

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Or maybe it’s just a great product.

And like Elon Musk says in his biography, great products sell themselves through word of mouth.

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On the other hand, marketer Sean McCool, whose Persuasion by the Pint podcast I appeared on last Friday, thinks it’s the framing of the endorsement that matters:

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I think the speaker in the letter matters. If a “publisher” is talking about the guru and then shares testimonials about the guru in the letter, that is much more powerful and accepted than if the guru is the voice in the letter.

Thats why so many Agora promos use a publisher.

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And Maliha Mannan, who writes dailyish emails and sells courses over at The Side Blogger, offers an insider’s perspective:

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I have a hard time believing in testimonials, but I know I’m an outlier.

In most cases, as a buyer, a testimonial only works on me, regardless of whether it’s a testimonial about the person making the offer or the offer itself, when I have already developed a positive view of the seller. In that case, a testimonial of the offer itself comes off stronger than that of the person (because I already like the person?)…

On the other hand, as a seller of offers, I usually work with what I have. Since I’m pretty bad at asking for testimonials, most of what I have are things people have said in the passing, and most of these tend to be comments about me.

For example, “I like how you teach,” is an email after someone has taken a course. But it’s not exactly about the course itself.

On a more curious note, I get the best testimonials from fellow info-entrepreneurs. Maybe because we understand what it means to have a really good testimonial, we tend to give out the best testimonials ourselves.

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So? Are we any closer to unraveling this mystery?

I personally still don’t have an answer that convinces me. But perhaps some of the above comments gave you a good idea, maybe even one you can run with in your own marketing.

In any case, it was important to share these reader perspectives. That’s because daily emails should feel as much as possible as a dinner party, rather than as a sermon or a university lecture.

Since I end all my emails by promoting something, let me now point you to my Daily Email Habit service, which helps you write daily emails that feel like a dinner party, while at the same time getting people at the party to pay the tab at the end of the night.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a good number of “fellow info-entrepreneurs” as subscribers to Daily Email Habit. I’ve got testimonials on the sales page from some of them, saying things like:

#1. “Fourth day in DEH. Turned the Elvis bullet into an email. Got a sale to my £170 course. So I’d say the investment has paid for itself.”

#2. “Within 5 minutes of getting your first ‘prompt’ in my inbox, I was cranking out my first email. Zero resistance.”

#3. “10 minutes going from sheer panic about what to write to a finished email building my expertise and selling my stuff.”

#4. “Exactly what I needed to get me thinking about my list.”

#5. “My best Black Friday yet… your service contributed to this result.”

If you’d like to find out more about Daily Email Habit, and see if it might make sales for you too:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/

Anti-proof #1

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A couple days ago, I wrote an email about an unused form of proof, namely testimonials and endorsements for the person selling, rather than for the product being sold.

I first spotted that in the super successful infomercial for the George Foreman Grill. Half the testimonials in the infomercial are for the grill itself. But the rest are for George Foreman himself, like this:

“If George is behind anything, that will be the best thing for America. George would never advertise nothing that’s not good for America.”

After I wrote that email, I got message from copywriter GC Tsalamagkakis, who wrote:

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I’ve seen a lot of people doing it. And I’m sure it works.

But it would have to be executed in a natural way.

Looking at my own reaction (and I may very well be the only one), when I just see those 2 types of testimonials mixed together, it makes me think that the person is desperate to add more social proof and will use any remotely-related testimonials they can find.

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GC’s comment made me think. He’s definitely not the only one to feel like this.

I have myself seen sales pages where only a few lukewarm testimonials are for the offer itself (“quite an acceptable sandwich”)… while the rest of the sales page is padded with other testimonials either for other products by same person (“amazing French fries!”), or just endorsements for the person selling (“the greatest fast-food visionary of our generation”).

On sales pages like this, extra endorsements don’t help much and can even hurt.

I know I have personally felt that such extra endorsements act as a kind of anti-proof element, as a red herring that’s more likely to put questions into my head than lull me into buying.

I asked myself what makes the difference. Why do “seller endorsements” work in the George Foreman infomercial… and don’t work on many sales pages?

I don’t have a clear answer. My best guess is that in one place the extra testimonials are coming from a position of strength, and in the other they are coming from a position of weakness, and that’s something we humans are good at sniffing out.

Maybe you have a better answer. If you do, I hope you will hit reply and enlighten me.

And if you want one more example to help you make you delve inside this profound mystery, I can point you to an effective sales page that features seller endorsements along with product testimonials.

The sales page in question is one for my Most Valuable Email course, and I say it’s effective because I’ve sold many, many copies of this course via this sales page.

The endorsements on this sales page, for me as someone who writes daily emails, come from people like Joe Schriefer of Agora Financial, Bill Mueller of Story Sales Machine, and Daniel Throssell of the Australia Throssells.

On the other hand, there are also a dozen product testimonials, which I’ve picked from a larger batch of positive customer feedback.

I’ve chosen to feature those specific testimonials either because they are particularly enthusiastic (“amazing,” “incredible,” and “more importantly, writing an MVE is fun”) or because the copywriter or marketer benefited from applying the MVE trick in their own or their client’s emails. A sample:

“My inbox is flooded with applause”

“The highest-converting single-email campaign sent to the non-buyers of all time”

“… made me make 5 times more the investment in MVE”

If you wanna see how I integrate both kinds of testimonials into my MVE sales page, take a look below. Just be careful that you don’t get sucked into buying the course itself. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Two Hungarian con men go after my mom

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True story, one that happened two days ago, and that I heard from my mom on the phone last night:

My mom lives in a brutalist high-rise building in Zagreb, Croatia.

She goes outside the building two days ago to throw out the trash.

A car pulls up. There are two guys inside. They roll down the window and start speaking to my mom as she is throwing out the trash.

They explain they are Hungarian. And indeed, they are speaking Croatian with the CHAR-acteristic HUN-garian ACC-ent.

“Are you retired?” one of the guys asks.

My mom says yes.

“Great,” he says. “In that case we have a gift for you.” He hands my mom a brochure. It shows fancy sets of kitchenware.

As my mom is looking over the brochure, the other guy gets out and opens up the trunk of the car. “Come take a look” he says.

It’s like a treasure chest in there. There are silver-plated pots, pans, cutlery, knives, all in opened boxes.

The Hungarians explain they were just showing off their wares at a trade show at the big fairgrounds across the street.

“Now we are going to the airport,” they say. But before they go, the boss has tasked them with giving away the samples before they fly out, and to give them away to retired people.

“Would you like?” they ask. “It’s our gift to you. The only condition is you cannot sell these expensive pots and pans, but just use them yourself. By the way, the boxes are heavy. We can take them to the elevator for you.”

My mom is wary. But it looks like treasure.

And here the con men get ahead of themselves. “It’s all free,” they repeat. Just as a token, as something they can show to their boss to prove they have given the stuff away as promised to someone retired, all they ask for in exchange is any bit of old gold. An earring, a small gold chain.

My mom says she has no gold. (I happen to know this is a lie. She has some gold earrings.)

The con men say how one woman in the neighborhood has just given them some gold teeth from her dead husband. They take out a little medicine bottle and actually show the gold teeth.

“I don’t have any gold,” my mom repeats, “and I don’t need the pots and pans.”

“Everything is ok,” the guys insist. “This is a wonderful present!”

“Why not give it to somebody else?” my mom asks.

“We don’t have time,” the con men say. “We have to get to the airport. If you don’t have any gold, do yo you have any new euro? Just one green one? Just so we can prove to our boss that we’ve given the samples away?”

My mom says she’s not interested. She turns and leaves. One of the Hungarians curses under his breath. And the two drive off.

When I talked to my mom, she was mystified by this encounter. “I don’t understand the logic of this offer,” she said.

I don’t either. I don’t know whether these guys were really looking to trade pots and pans for gold… or if they were just looking to rob people of gold without giving over anything… or if they were using this “wonderful present” as a kind of in to get into people’s houses and to properly rob them, way beyond just an old necklace or some gold teeth.

Clearly, this con is a little ham-fisted, and it didn’t work.

But a lot of the elements of a successful con are there. You can find them with a careful reading of the story above, and if you are enterprising, you can apply them to a successful and legitimate business. In the words of David Maurerer, author of The Big Con, the authoritative record of the golden age of con men:

“If confidence men operate outside the law, it must be remembered that they are not much further outside than many of our pillars of society who go under names less sinister. They only carry to an ultimate and very logical conclusion certain trends which are often inherent in various forms of legitimate business.”

Maybe you find this idea shocking or repulsive.

If so, the best I can tell you is to stop reading now. Because I agree with Mauerer. I think there’s a lot to be learned from con men, without crossing over into the illegal or immoral territory in which they operate. A lot that can be applied, profitably, to various forms of legitimate business.

In fact, that’s one of the core ideas behind my new 10 Commandments book, which deals with the commonalities to be found among con men… pickup artists… door-to-door salesmen… copywriters… hypnotists… stage magicians…. and more.

For 10 logical conclusions extracted from all these disciplines:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments