Persuasion

Five years ago, I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom, notebook in hand, surrounded by trashbags full of my old clothes… but then what happened?

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Over the past few days, I’ve been telling you about different mechanisms of denial. So far, I’ve written about a troll to illustrate flat-out denial… I’ve had some pop science to illustrate reaction formation… and today I wanted to give you a personal story to illustrate a third mechanism of denial.

The trouble is, I cannot remember the personal story. Literally. I’m not joking or making this up.

Because that third mechanism of denial is repression of unwanted memories.

Of course, we all forget stuff all the time. But if you’re like me, you probably think you either forget stuff that’s unimportant… or you forget stuff at random.

Of course, there’s a third option, and that’s to forget important stuff on purpose, because it is inconsistent with the world as you want it to be.

I’ll be honest with you. While this repressed memory topic is definitely interesting… I’m not sure how it can be useful for self improvement, or personal power, or better marketing.

Perhaps it’s because I hate dwelling on the past. Or perhaps it’s because I did think of some useful option, but it was too unpleasant, so I forgot it since.

In any case, if you have any ideas for me on how to use this fact — that people can selectively forget stuff to suit their desired image of the world — then write in and tell me. ​​I’d love to hear what you think.

​​​And I’ll be back tomorrow, if I can remember to do so, with a much more cheery and productive way that people deny unacceptable facts in their lives. You can sign up here if you’d like to read that.

The denial theory of the fake female orgasm

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Over the past few years, it’s become trendy to say, “Stop reading the news, it’s like junk food, bad for your health.”

Maybe so. But without The Daily McMail, where would I find tasty morsels like this headline today:

“Women who make more money than their partner are TWICE as likely to fake orgasms, study reveals”

The revealing study, which came out earlier this year, was pretty straightforward.

Researchers at the University of South Florida surveyed 157 women in sexual relationships with a man. And the researchers asked these women embarrassing personal questions.

Result:

It turns out women who earn more than their male partner (29.6% of the sample) were twice as likely to fake orgasm.

Like I said, that part of the science is pretty straightforward.

Where it gets more murky is the moral interpretation of this sensitive issue. According to Professor Jessica Jordan, the lead researcher behind the study, the interpretation is this:

“Women are prioritising what they think their partners need over their own sexual needs and satisfaction. When society creates an impossible standard of masculinity to maintain, nobody wins.”

In other words, society says that men should earn more than women… but some men fail at this and their egos crumble… and then their women are forced to coddle them as a result.

Perhaps. But perhaps there are other interpretations?

For example, here’s a personal confession:

Some 20 years ago, my mind was warped by reading a pop-science book called Sperm Wars. And ever since, I’ve been a bit of a science Columbo on all things female orgasm.

That’s why I remember a second study, one that came out in 2009, in the pre-gender-dismantling era.

This study was also based on a survey, in this case, of 1,534 couples. The results were summarized in the headline of a Business Insider article:

“Study: Rich Men Give Women More Orgasms”​

The author of the underlying​​ study, a certain Dr Thomas Pollet of Newcastle University, gave his interpretation of the statistics. From the Business Insider article:

“He believes the phenomenon is an ‘evolutionary adaptation’ that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.”

Perhaps this could also explain all those extra fake orgasms in 2022?

Perhaps those faking women just find themselves horribly unattracted to their lower-earning partners. And that’s a problem — both personally and in the relationship.

So what to do?

The best thing really is to watch a little When Harry Met Sally… take notes on the restaurant scene… and put on a similar show the next time it’s time.

Because like I wrote yesterday, denial might just be a fundamental human activity. It might just be something we all do, all the time, in order to make life acceptable in our minds and bearable in practice.

And the fact is, denial manifests itself in different ways.

There’s flat-out denial, which I wrote about yesterday:

“No, of course not. I’m not bothered that you earn less than me. It’s certainly not any kind of turn-off.”

But another type of denial is what psychologists call reaction formation. That’s when you don’t just deny… but you claim or do the exact opposite:

“Yes, yes, take me, you low-earning animal!”

Of course, if my theory is true, it begs the question why these women would deny their lack of attraction in the bedroom… but break down and confess it when questioned by Professor Jessica Jordan.

My only answer to that is that there are different levels of denial.

Some denial is complete — we can’t face up to the fact at all, and we have to change our inner movie to fit what we want to believe.

But other denial is partial — we act as if, we claim as if, but on some conscious level, we are aware it’s not really as if.

Anyways, perhaps you say I’m completely off with my denial-of-unattraction theory.

But perhaps you feel there might be something to my idea. In that case, I’ve got two takeaways for you.

First, if you’re a guy, and the thought of your woman faking orgasm makes you shudder with feelings of shame and inadequacy… then the best thing to do might be to get better at sales and marketing, and start earning more money.

My second takeaway can be summed up by the following headline.

It comes from the tabloid The Daily Bejakovic. And it’s about a study performed at the University of Bejakovic, by a certain Dr. Johann Bejakovic. The headline reads:

“Study: Men and women who emphatically claim anything are TWICE as likely to secretly believe the exact opposite”

Anyways, if you want more ideas on denial, which you can use for your own research into your own mind or the mind of your market, then sign up for my email newsletter here.

A defensive Internet troll sets me straight

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Last night, while my Copy Riddles promo was still going on, I sent an email about a troll who chimed in to say Copy Riddles isn’t good enough for him.

He started by accusing me of name-dropping.

​​He ended by telling me to “go read some stuff from Settle, Tony Shepherd and Andre Chaperon.”

So I did. And I used what this guy wrote to illustrate Ben Settle’s idea that Internet trolls always project.

But no.

​​It turns out Ben and I are wrong about that. Or least that’s what my troll claims, in a message he sent me today:

Kind of sad when you think someone being critical of your emails is ‘a troll picking a fight’ with you. Most people would see that as an opportunity to examine, review and possibly improve. You get defensive and start making (bad) assumptions about someone you know NOTHING about.

1. I’m NOT the one dropping names, 2. I’m doing very well with my own sites and 3. I’m not interested in the new ‘shiny’ objects.

Why would you make assumptions like that?

You’ve written a book that may be the best copywriting book ever – but based on the way you’ve responded to me I doubt it.

PS: I’ve read ALL of Settle’s books. Copy Trolls is easily the worst. Read the Infotainment Book, there’s ideas in there you can use.

I’ve done enough unpaid promotion of Ben Settle’s ideas, so I won’t talk about infotainment today.

Instead, let me get back to what I really love to do. And that’s finding illustrations for deep persuasion, influence, and psychology ideas that I can share with you.

Today’s idea comes from neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran.

At one point, Ramachandran studied people people who had suffered a stroke and were paralyzed in one arm. And yet, these people stubbornly refused to admit they were paralyzed.

This wasn’t just a brave face they were putting on in public.

They truly could not accept that their arm was hanging limp by their side, not responding to any command they gave it.

Ramachandran performed clever experiments to try to elicit whether these patients actually believed they were 100% fine.

The answer was yes. They themselves were convinced their arm was not paralyzed, in spite of the very obvious evidence otherwise.

So is this just a strange corner case in the medical literature… or something for the archives of Internet trolldom?

Ramachandran thinks it’s more than that.

He claims this is a dramatic and concrete illustration of the kind of thing we all engage in, all the time.

Denial, Ramachandran says, is a fundamental human activity. It’s how we manage to live in a complex and often nasty and brutish world, and still maintain an illusion of a coherent, in-control self.

I personally find this idea both terrifying and fascinating. Which of the things I know to be true are a flat-out denial of reality?

​​Or maybe, not even a flat-out denial, but something more complex?

Because flat-out denial (“I’m NOT the one dropping names”) was just one of the mechanisms Ramachandran came across in his paralyzed-but-no patients.

There were five other types as well. You can see a few more of these denial strategies in my troll’s response above.

​​But if you can’t spot them, don’t worry.

I’ll spell out the other five types of denial in my emails over the coming days. You can sign up here if you want to read that.

Like I said, I find this stuff personally fascinating. But it can be valuable, too.

It can help you understand other people better, whether those are your friends… family… customers… prospects… or trolls.

And of course, it can help you understand yourself better. And who knows. Maybe, one day, it can even be an opportunity to examine, review, and possibly improve.

Torture-free deadline for Copy Riddles is near

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Perhaps you don’t care that the deadline to sign up for Copy Riddles is approaching in a few hours. Such is the society we live in.

But it wasn’t always so. For example, Julius Caesar once wrote about a curious urgency tactic used by his enemies, the Gauls:

“By Gallic intertribal law all adult males are obligated to attend the muster under arms; and the last to come is tortured to death in sight of the host.”

Ah the good old days… when a deadline really meant something.

But again, we live in a modern and a civilized society. So the only torture I can inflict upon you is to say:

Come 12 midnight PST tonight (Sunday), I will close the doors to Copy Riddles.

And no amount of pleading about how your car was in the shop, or how the kids were sleeping, or how you only had cash on hand (all excuses I’ve gotten before) will make me crack those doors open a single inch.

​​Not until some uncertain future date, at least a few months down the line, when or if I decide to reopen Copy Riddles.

Again, perhaps you don’t care. But if you do, there’s still a bit of time. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Knock twice before you open this email

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Welcome. First, let me share the traditional greeting:

“Email is great! Yes it is.”

And now, you and I can get started with today’s content:

A few weeks ago, I was rea​ding a New Yorker article. In that article, I came across an interesting idea that’s stuck with me since. ​​I’ll share it with you in today’s email and then we can wrap up this part of our lives and move on to other things.

The article I read was about how good technology is getting at reading our minds, in a very literal sense.

You can now scan people’s brains and have a good idea of how their brains are lighting up in real time.

Combine this with a lot of data of other people’s brains and a lot of fancy software… and we are nearly at a point where somebody can know exactly what you’re thinking… even if you’re just sitting there, eyes closed, doing nothing but smirking.

Anyways, the idea that stuck with me had to do with “event boundaries.” From the article:

He had the class watch a clip from “Seinfeld” in which George, Susan (an N.B.C. executive he is courting), and Kramer are hanging out with Jerry in his apartment. The phone rings, and Jerry answers: it’s a telemarketer. Jerry hangs up, to cheers from the studio audience.

“Where was the event boundary in the clip?” Norman asked. The students yelled out in chorus, “When the phone rang!” Psychologists have long known that our minds divide experiences into segments; in this case, it was the phone call that caused the division.

In other words, neuroscientists now know something that writers have known for millennia:

Our brain loves to create scenes, snapshots, and scripts as a way of making sense of the immense complexity of the world.

This is so obvious that it might not sound like much of a breakthrough. But it has some interesting consequences. Again from the article:

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

But perhaps more interesting is the basic influence idea of exaggerating what people already want and respond to.

​​For example, is it any wonder so many religions have strict rules for entering and leaving a place of worship?

When entering the church, dip your fingers in holy water and make the sign of the cross… do not enter or leave the sanctuary while the ark is open… leave the mosque using your left foot while reciting the dua.

And the point of this sermon is:

People want scenes… clearly marked beginnings and endings… so give it to em. Create doors, entrance rituals, dramatic event boundaries.

You will be helping your audience make sense of both you and of their world. They will thank you for it, with their attention, trust, and perhaps even money.

And that all I wanted to say. Except of course the traditional farewell:

“This email is finished! You can sign up here to get more. Yes you can.”

Why do scammers say they are from Nigeria?

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According a site that tracks online fraud, 51% of all scam emails mention Nigeria.

It seems self-defeating. Everybody knows it’s a scam. The “Nigerian prince” has become a stock joke.

So what gives? Are scammers so dumb? Don’t they know that everyone is on to them?

Well, we now have the answer, thanks to Cormac Herley, a researcher at Microsoft.

Herley came up with a mathematical model of the scammer’s dilemma.

And after a lot pencil sharpening… crumpled-up papers… and banging his fist on the desk… Herley finally solved his mathematical equations.

The answer to “Nigerian scammer” riddle is this:

1. Sending out spam emails is pretty close to free.

2. But “selling” the prospects who reply to those emails takes time and effort.

3. And so scammers want their front-end marketing to repel everybody but the most gullible. Because…

Those are the only people who the scammer can hope to profit from. That’s why scammers say they are from Nigeria… exactly because it sets off warning sirens to almost everyone except real prospects.

Ok, maybe this isn’t the kind of mind-blowing conclusion that required a bunch of fancy math.

But still, it sounds like a solid second argument for what Ben Settle calls repulsion marketing.

The first argument is psychological:

By saying things that repel the people you don’t want… you create a tighter bond with the people you do want. Because if you’re not saying anything to piss off a few people, you’re not saying anything to make anybody bond with you, either.

But the Microsoft research gives us a more practical reason to repel.

Because these days, there are a bunch of ways to get a bunch of free prospects. For example:

You can implement Daniel Throssell’s “Referral Magnet” strategy to create a kind of flywheel for new email subscribers…

Or you can post your stuff on your blog and let Google serve it up to the world forever…

Or you can go into popular Facebook groups, and spread your peacock tail for all to admire.

Free. All of it. But then comes the second step:

Fielding questions/requests/offers from prospects… dealing with customer service… handling refunds if you offer them.

All of these things have a real cost, whether in terms of time, actual work, or simply your psychological well-being.

So my takeaway for you is:

Start repelling people. Or get off my list.

Because as freelance forensic consultant Sherlock Holmes once said:

“When you have eliminated all who would be impossible or improfitable to sell, then whoever remains, however improbable, must be your prospect.”

Are you still reading?

Damn. I tried so hard to repel you. In that case, the only thing left for me to do, even though it hurts me to do it, is to offer you a spot on my email newsletter. Click here and fill out the form.

The success secret that successful people won’t tell you

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Today I want to tell you about the quarter game. Hypnotist Mike Mandel wrote about it a few days ago:

You imagine you will find a quarter somewhere today, as though it’s been left deliberately for you. And Mike says, more often than not, it turns out to be true.

Now, as you might have noticed, I’m a sucker for magic and magical thinking.

I mean, over the past month alone, I’ve sent emails about blindsight… the illusory nature of reality… my own tendency to see mystical significance in trivial events… and even a religious epiphany I experienced at age 20.

And here I am today, telling you to manifest quarters into your life.

I wish I could control myself better so I could look a little more serious and professional… and stop myself from morphing into the male, copywriting version of Rhonda Byrne, the Australian TV producer who made that movie The Secret.

But what to do? Here’s my story:

Yesterday, I went out for a walk. And I played the quarter game for the first time. I told myself I’d find a quarter, as though it had been left deliberately for me.

After a few minutes of walking around, I didn’t find a single quarter.

But then I told myself, “You know what, quarters are fine. But what would be really great is if I found that missing license plate.”

Because this past Sunday, I went to my car — actually, my mom’s 20-year-old white Audi, which I have been using for past six months — and I found the front license plate was gone.

This is a huuuge hassle.

Where I am right now (Croatia), it means I have to go to the police, report the license plate as missing, apply to get a whole new set, then update documents, insurance, the vehicle inspection. It’s such a pain in the ass that I have been ignoring it and instead just not using the car for the past few days.

That’s why it would have been great to “manifest” that license plate back into my life.

It would save me hours or days of sitting around in government offices, filling out paperwork, driving around town… or alternately, stressing that cops will pull me over and fine me and harass me if I don’t do all that.

So there I was yesterday, with the sudden idea to play the license plate game. And the darnedest thing happened.

Within five minutes, I had the missing license plate in my hand. I found it over a wall and down a ditch, in some bushes, close to where my car — well, my mom’s car — had been parked.

I’m not sure how the license plate got there. And I’m not sure exactly how I had the idea to check there.

All I know is that, had I not read Mike Mandel’s email… and had I not half-jokingly played the quarter game… I would not have thought to play the license plate game, or search for the license plate where I did find it. As though somebody had deliberately left it there for me.

But let me wrap this up. Here’s a quote from Eric Hoffer’s book True Believer, about the psychology of revolutions, religions, and other mass movements:

“The remarkable thing is that the successful, too, however much they pride themselves on their foresight, fortitude, thrift and other ‘sterling qualities,’ are at bottom convinced that their success is the result of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. The self-confidence of even the consistently successful is never absolute.”

Hoffer’s point is that people only attempt real change when they feel they have their hands on some “irresistible power.” And this irresistible power is almost always something outside themselves… or at least outside the limits they feel to be their own identity.

Such, it seems, is human psychology. You can fight it. Or you can work with it.

If you can work with it in a socially acceptable way, good for you.

But even if you end up at risk of looking like a male Rhonda Byrne, it’s still a pretty good deal to make.

Because if you just rely on your own “sterling qualities,” odds are you end up sitting around government offices for days… pulling your hair out… and cursing the stupidity and injustice of the world.

The alternative is to effect change in your life without all that stress. And all you have to do is believe — in magic if you have to — and play the game every day.

Last thing:

Every day, I write an email about copywriting, marketing, or woo-woo topics like manifesting quarters. If you’d like these emails to magically manifest themselves in your inbox each day, you can sign up here.

MIT scientists shocked to rediscover ancient direct marketing fact

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Yesterday, a friend forwarded me a trending news item:

“A Nine-year-Old Girl Has Disappeared After Using Moisturizer That Makes You Look Ten Years Younger.”

Unlike me, my friend has a kid, so the fact that he forwarded me this story might just be a symptom of early-onset dad humor. But maybe not.

Maybe it’s a sign of something much deeper… much more sinister… and much more significant… at least if you are interested in persuasion and sales.

​​Because check it:

I read another news item yesterday. It was about a study that came out this past December, from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

These MIT management experts were studying the spread of misinformation online. The question they were studying was this:

Are people who are more digitally literate — for example, who know how Facebook recommends stories — any better at coping with online misinformation than unwashed digital illiterates?

Answer:

People who were digitally literate were much better at gauging accuracy. They could tell apart which stories (about politics and corona) were true and which were fake.

But…

That had nothing to do with which stories the digital literates ended up sharing.

​​In other words, these digital Steve Urkels were just as likely to share fake stories — which they knew to be fake — as the digital illiterates — who believed them to be true.

So there you go. Maybe that explains why my friend, who is very digitally literate, shared that obvious hoax about moisturizer with me.

But more seriously:

The researchers concluded that “measuring digital literacy might be useful for identifying social media users who are vulnerable to believing misinformation.”

That seems naive and shortsighted to me.

To me, this study just shows that the apparent truthfulness or fakefulness of what you say… doesn’t matter much in whether people engage emotionally, and in other real-world ways, with your ideas and content.

Maybe you find that shocking. Or maybe you find it obvious. Because it’s really just a re-statement of the ancient direct marketing truth:

All decisions are made emotionally, and are only primped and preened afterwards with a bit of logic.

Maybe remembering this truth will help you when you try to convince people to buy from you… or just to share some of your content.

For example, my Copy Riddles optin page. One last time, I’d like to invite you to share it.

Maybe by now I’ve stirred up sufficient shock, outrage, or perhaps amusement in you that you want to share this page just because.

But maybe you need some logic. In that case, I also have a bribe for you. For the full details, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

The Playboy cartoon of A-list marketing truth

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When I was 12 years old, I had an accidental run-in with my first-ever, real-world copy of a Playboy magazine.

Along with the usual titillating stuff, all of which I’ve forgotten, I saw a cartoon that’s stuck with me for years. It had three panels:

Panel one showed a guy at the office, sitting at his desk, looking over a bunch of papers. But a thought bubble above his head showed what he was really thinking about:

​​Being out on the golf course.

Panel two showed the same guy at the golf course, about to take a swing. But there was a thought bubble above his head again.

​​Now, he was really thinking about being at home and having sex with his wife.

And maybe you can guess panel three.

It showed the same guy in bed with his wife. And the thought bubble was there also.

​​It showed — of course, the papers back on the desk at the office.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an email about how the best DM sales copy is not selling what it appears to be selling on the surface.

So financial copy is not really selling stock gains… but a feeling of vision and foresight.

And Boardroom’s Big Bastard Book of Secrets is not really selling clever ways to save on car insurance. Instead, it’s selling clever ways to feel smarter than your neighbor.

For a while, I wondered if there is one deep need that could be made to fit all sales letters in all markets.

One option is something that A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos said once. Parris said that, once you ask the “so what” question enough times about any feature or promise… the ultimate benefit always turns out to be, “So I can feel better about myself.”

So that’s one option.

Option two is not to worry about going deep. Instead, just keep the Playboy cartoon above in mind. And just subtly suggest something other than what’s on your prospect’s mind at the moment.

For example, all bizopp offers are upfront about selling big money now. But more subtly, many also suggest a new level of attractiveness that money will make possible.

On the other hand, pickup gurus are directly selling a new level of attractiveness. But on a deeper level, many also suggest the self-acceptance that will come from success with women.

And finally, many meditation programs are selling instant self-acceptance. But on a deeper level — and not even very deep — they are also promising the money that more self-acceptance will bring.

And so it goes, like a kitten chasing its tail. As another A-list copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, said once, “Desires are infinite in variety… and desires are replaced as soon as they are fulfilled.”

So there you go:

Remember the Playboy cartoon above. And you will have a subtle new spell hidden under your wizard’s cloak, which you can cast whenever you want to make money appear out of thin air.

But perhaps you don’t want money out of thin air. Perhaps you just want a spell to drive away doubt and career insecurity, on demand.

Right now, the closest I can give you to that spell is my Niche Expert Cold Emails training. It’s my bribe in case you help me get the word out about this newsletter.

By the way, this promo event I’m running seems to be close to saturating the copywriting world with links to my site. So I won’t keep it going for much longer.

But in case you’re interested in still joining while the joining’s good, here are the details:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

The Law of Reflection

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I expected some blowback to my email yesterday.

For one thing, I was writing about loaded topics — corona, Novak Djokovic, government lockdowns, Prince of Persia.

For another, in the hours after I wrote and scheduled yesterday’s email, the story I was writing about blew up. It went from being something only tennis fans and Australians might know about… to the number one international news items, with the predictable outrage and memery and fixed opinions.

So yes — I was expecting people to write in and tell me how stupid, flippant, and just clearly very wrong my email is.

I should have known better. Because what happened was this:

A bunch of people did write in. Some liked the email and the point I was making. Some offered to be my nemesis (the takeaway of yesterday’s email). Some told me personal stories of their own from the ground in Australia. Some disagreed with the email, in reasoned and civil tones.

But not one person was insulting, aggressive, outraged or seeking to outrage me.

In fact, the last time I can remember getting an outraged response to my emails was over six months ago. The same guy who wrote that outraged response had written me a few inflammatory emails before. So I unsubscribed him from my list, and wrote an email about it the next day.

Like I said, no outrage since. Maybe there’s a lesson in there. In any case, there’s definitely a lesson in here:

“The adversary mirrors you”

That’s from master negotiator Jim Camp. The adversary in Camp’s system is the person you are negotiating with, but it could just as well be a prospect you are looking to sell… a reader you are looking to influence… or a girl you are trying to get on a date.

In fact, Camp’s advice is almost the same as the advice of the late and great pickup coach Tom Torero. Tom used to tell guys that “the girl is your mirror.”

If she looks startled or scared when you approach her… if she won’t stick around to talk to you… if she doesn’t trust you with her phone number… then take a step back. And figure out exactly what you’re projecting into the world, and how you should change it.

In other words, this mirroring stuff isn’t my plea for the world to be civil and boring.

I’m just telling you to figure out how you want your adversaries to feel and act. Relaxed and confident? Fun and playful? Scared and outraged? Then you know what to do. Feel and act that same way yourself.

Or vice versa:

Figure out how you want to feel and act in your life and your business. Just be aware that those are the kinds of prospects you will attract.

If there are enough such prospects, then you’re well in the saddle. But if you don’t have enough prospects who want to feel and act the way you do…

Then you might benefit from the following referral advice from Jim Camp. It is a kind of corollary to Camp’s Law of Reflection above. Camp says:

“What’s the key to getting referrals? It’s simple. Give them.”