Persuasion

I got a hot date tonight HONK

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Yeah, about my hot date… I’ll get to that in a second.

First, here’s a scene from the animated TV show The Simpsons. The scene illustrates a valuable/funny point about influence. But hold on.

I grew up watching The Simpsons. If you didn’t, that’s no problem. You don’t need to like The Simpsons or even to have ever seen a single episode to get what this scene is about, or to understand the underlying point.

Scene:

Moe the bartender is being interrogated by the police for shooting the local billionaire, Mr. Burns.

Moe is hooked up to a lie detector machine. He’s asked if he ever held a grudge against Mr. Burns. He answers no. But the lie detector machine HONKS to indicate he’s lying.

“All right,” Moe says. “Maybe I did. But I didn’t shoot him!” Sure enough, the lie detector machine DINGS to confirm Moe’s statement as true.

“Checks out,” says the cop. “Ok sir, you’re free to go.”

So far, so conventional. But then, Moe executes the following rapid-fire descent into humiliation, to the sounds of the lie detector machine:

“Good,” he says. “Cause I got a hot date tonight!” HONK

“A date.” HONK

“Dinner with Fred.” HONK

“Dinner alone.” HONK

“Watching TV alone!” HONK

“All right!!!” Moe says. “I’m gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue!” HONK

Moe hangs his head. “Sears catalogue.” DING

“Now would you unhook this already please! I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment!” HONK

That’s the end of the scene. Maybe you found it funny even in my transcript above. But if you didn’t, trust me that it’s funny in the original version.

The question is… why?

Is it just funny to find out Moe is a loser? That’s part of it. But would it have been as funny if the scene simply went:

“Good. Cause I got a hot date tonight!” HONK

[Moe hangs head] “Actually, I’m gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Sears catalogue.” DING

My contention is no. That wouldn’t be nearly as funny. Which brings me to the following valuable point that I promised you:

“We build interest by adding more: more movement, more color, more sound, more light, more people, more intensity, more concentration, more excitement. In short, anything whatever that the spectators regard as increasing will also increase their interest.”

That comes from a book about magic and showmanship. In other words, the above advice about adding more is how expert magicians build the audience’s interest.

But it works the same for comedy.

And in fact, it works the same for copywriting.

Stack a bunch of moderately interesting, or funny, or insightful stuff on top of each other… and the effect is multiplicative, not additive.

And with that punchline, we conclude today’s episode. DING

But if by any chance you want more simple tips on building interest and desire in your readers, you can find that here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

A need so strong it actually eclipses survival

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I’m preparing for the Brian Kurtz Titans XL presentation that’s happening later today. I’m still not done with the slides. So I will just quickly share one valuable quote with you and get back to slide-making.

Maybe this quote will speak to you, maybe it will not.

​​Let me set it up first so it has a chance to mean something. Ever wonder about any of the following things:

Why, when a dive bar cleans up and becomes in every way nicer, the regulars often stop coming?

Why, when a run-down apartment building is renovated and repainted, the kids who live there will often tag it with graffiti the first night?

Why, when a rich and successful businessman loses years of work through no fault of his own, he will often rebuild his prosperity in record time?

If you’ve never wondered about these things, that’s ok. Neither have it.

​​But the legendary direct marketer Gary Halbert sure did. and here was Gary’s conclusion:

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Have you ever heard about the hierarchy of human needs? Maybe you studied it in sociology or psychology. Anyway, according to what you learn in college, the #1 human need is survival. After that comes sex. Then, further down the line is the need for an extended family, a need to contribute to society, etc.

I beg to differ. As usual, those college guys have got it wrong. I’ll agree that the #1 need is for survival but #2 is not sex. No sir, #2, just below survival, is the need for humans to remain in their own comfort zone. Not only that, sometimes this need is so strong, it actually eclipses survival.

===

So what to do?

How to overcome this overwhelmingly powerful need for humans to remain in their own comfort zone?

Well, I’ll cover a couple possible answers to this during my presentation to Brian’s group.

But really, overcoming this comfort-zone issue is what the totality of all direct marketing is about.

There are deep psychological principles that direct marketers have figured out, which can be used to move people, in their own interest, against their own inertia.

And there are also many clever tricks and tactics to do so.

I have no hope of covering even a tiny fraction of all this material in an email. But I have prepared a training which guides you through it, and makes these principles and tactics your own. For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Problem: There’s nothing happening in my brain

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It’s day three after my flight back from North America to Europe. Jet lag skipped the first night, but kicked in last night.

I went to bed at 10pm, woke up at 1am, lay awake, got up, read for a while, went back to bed, tossed and turned some more.

I’m guessing it was 5am by the time I finally fell asleep again. I slept until 10am and woke up like I was emerging from a month-long coma.

I’m telling you this because it’s now a few hours later. I’ve gone outside to clear my head. I’ve had breakfast. None of it has helped.

It’s time to write my daily email. But because of this disturbed sleep and resulting confusion, and because it’s very late for writing by my usual standard, there’s absolutely nothing happening in my head.

No new ideas for today’s email.

Nothing good based on recent reader replies in my inbox.

Nothing in my extensive journal that sparks any kind of miserable light in my mind.

In situations like this, I have enough experience that I can brute-force my way and write something acceptable. And that’s what I started to do today as well.

But then I caught myself.

I realized that the fact that nothing is happening in my brain today is my topic for today’s email.

I recently listened to an interview with a stand-up comedian, Chris Grace. Grace was talking about what he does when things are not going well, when his jokes are falling flat, when the audience isn’t responding. He said:

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My main tool is that I never pretend that it’s not going the way it’s going. And I think this is a pretty common standup tactic, which is just to call out exactly what is happening in the room.

​​I think the skill level here is how aligned you can be with the exact energy of you plus the audience. So if there is a certain tone happening or if there is a vibe, the closest you can get to accurately naming that vibe and building from there, it can help you unify the room sometimes.

===

I heard somewhere that the legendary copywriter Gene Schwartz threw out all of his winning sales letters and ads.

Schwartz didn’t have a swipe file to consult. He didn’t have templates. He looked at each sales situation as unique. And he tried to align himself and call out the exact vibe of the market he was writing to, right in that moment. This is how he paid for a penthouse on New York’s Park Avenue… a world-famous art collection… and an all-around ritzy Manhattan lifestyle.

It works in dating, too.

​​I once went on a first date with a Norwegian girl. She was a very smooth conversationalist. I believe she was a psychologist, or maybe a therapist.

Through her professional training, this girl kept the conversation on our date going without the slightest hitch. She made me feel she is very interested in my life story… what I’d studied in my many years of college and grad school… what I think about turtles, life, and the universe.

I kept talking and talking. Gradually, panic started to build inside me. I realized I was drowning in quicksand.

So when the Norwegian girl smoothly transitioned from one waning topic and opened up yet another avenue of promising scientific discussion, I cut her off.

“No, we’re not going to talk about that,” I said.

“We’re not?” she asked. “Why not?”

“Because we need to do some first-date stuff.”

She laughed. “What do you have in mind?”

“This is the moment during the first date when you and I have to work together. We have to see if we can create some kind of sexual spark between us.”

The girl’s eyes sparkled for the first time that night. And the conversation shifted to much more promising waters, about the strange hookup culture in Norway, about how dating worked in Hungary where I was living at the time, and about the kinds of things she found attractive in men.

I’ll leave off that story for now. And I’ll just remind you of the power of calling out the vibe, whatever it is — particularly if it’s not working in your favor.

That’s free, highly specific advice on persuasion and influence.

For paid, more widely useful advice, specifically a framework for owning persuasion and influence skills of all kinds, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Ooooo, child!

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Last weekend, my friend Sam and I went to Savannah. On the drive there, we started started listening to an audiobook of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

That was a 1994 non-fiction book that stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for a remarkable 216 weeks.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil consists of a bunch of character studies of various eccentrics who lived in Savannah in the 1970s and 80s. The book cuts through Savannah society, from the rich and established to the poor and fringe.

Among the poor and fringe was Miss Chablis, “The Empress of Savannah.”

Chablis was a black drag queen.

The narrator of the audiobook, who normally speaks with a neutral accent, voiced Chablis, like all other Savannah locals, with a kind of southern drawl.

Except that in the case of Miss Chablis, the narrator, who sounded solidly white and male otherwise, also had to awkwardly act out dozens of draq-queeny, Black-English phrases such as:

“Ooooo, child!”

“Oh, child, don’t you be doin’ that!”

“Y-e-e-e-s, child! Yayyiss… yayyiss… yayyiss!”​​

I had flashbacks to this earlier today.

I got back to Barcelona yesterday. I checked my mailbox and found a stack of New Yorkers waiting for me.

This morning, I sat on my balcony and flipped open the latest one. The first feature story is about Ru Paul.

“Ooooo, child!” I said, “No more drag queens, honey, please!”

But as I often do, I forced myself to read something I had no inclination to read. I often find valuable things that way.

Today was no exception. I found the following passage in the first page of the article. Jinkx Monsoon, a 36-year-old drag queen who won two seasons of Ru Paul’s reality competition TV show, explained the power of drag:

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It’s armor, ’cause you’re putting on a persona. So the comments are hitting something you created, not you. And then it’s my sword, because all of the things that made me a target make me powerful as a drag queen.

===

If you have any presence online, this armor-and-sword passage is good advice. It’s something that the most successful and most authentic-seeming performers out there practice.

I once saw a serious sit-down interview with Woody Allen. I remember being shocked by how calm, confident, and entirely not Woody-Allen-like he was.

Closer to the email world, I remember from a long time ago an email in which Ben Settle basically said the same thing as Jinkx Monsoon above. How the crotchety, dismissive persona he plays in his emails is a kind of exaggeration and a mask he puts over the person he is in real life.

So drag is good advice for online entrepreneurs.

But like much other good advice, It’s not something I follow in these emails.

I haven’t developed an email persona, and I’m not playing any kind of ongoing role to entertain my audience or to protect me from their criticism.

That’s because I don’t like to lie to myself. Like I’ve said many times before, I write these emails for myself first and foremost, and then I do a second pass to make sure that what I’ve written can be relevant and interesting to others as well.

This is not something I would encourage anybody else to do. But it’s worked out well enough for me, and allowed me to stay in the game for a long time.

That said, I do regularly adopt various new and foreign mannerisms in these emails.

I do this because i find it instructive and fun, and because it allows me to stretch beyond the person/writer I am and become more skilled and more successful.

I’ve even created an entire training, all about the great value of this approach.

In case you’d like to become more skilled and successful writing online, then honey, I am serious! You best look over here, child:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Who’s the best email copywriter out there?

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John Bejakovic. There’s no doubt about it:

John Bejakovic is the best, and in fact, the only reasonable way to describe who wrote this email. In case you missed my name in the “From” field in your inbox and are wondering who this email is from, I hope you’re clear on everything now.

But maybe you’re not clear. Maybe you’re wondering what I’m on about with this non sequitur opening.

​So let me tell you that I’ve been watching a religious studies course on YouTube, all about the Hebrew Bible.

It’s a personal interest of mine. I listen to these lectures while I make dinner in the afternoons.

But it’s not just fun and games listening to lectures about the Hebrew Bible. It’s useful too.

For example, in lecture 5, the religious studies professor mentions “a little work called, “Who Wrote the Bible,” by Richard Friedman…”

(… the professor pauses and smiles after she says this. And then she continues…)

“… which has a great cover because it says, ‘Who Wrote the Bible? Richard Friedman.'”

At this point, the class laughs. ​​They get what’s funny.

My apologies in case I’m about to murder what’s funny. But maybe it’s not as clear here in writing as it was in the live lecture. So let me possibly murder it.

What’s funny on that book cover, and what’s valuable in this email that you can take away from it, is the following:

The human brain is sticky. Once an idea gets in there, however ridiculous, it’s hard to dislodge it. You can use this to your advantage. Such as for example, by planting an idea before denying that same idea, or qualifying or correcting that idea, or even doing a non sequitur.

So who’s the best email copywriter out there?

I am not saying it’s me.

​​After all, there’s no way to measure or compare email copywriters head to head, the way there was when direct mail copywriters battled it out for Boardroom controls.

But I will tell you that I do follow a process each week to make myself a better marketer and email copywriter. Maybe in time it will make me the best, by some arbitrary standard.

Or maybe it will make you the best. Because it’s a process you can follow, too.

This process is called the Most Valuable Email.
​
The Most Valuable Email is the #1 advanced email copywriting technique I use in this newsletter to set these emails apart from other newsletters, to turn myself into a more valuable marketer and email copywriter, and to build up my status and authority.

In case you’d like to find out how I do it, you can get more info here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

My credentials are very near zero, except for one thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People applauded.

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

That’s quite odd when you think about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A weekly email newsletter is good.

A daily email newsletter is better.

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

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

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Exciting update about my No B.S scarcity emails

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

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

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

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

But let’s get back to the present.

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

Until last night.

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

The inside of that exciting email said:

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

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

===

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

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

The email described the prizes for the top 3 affiliates:

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

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

And yet…

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

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

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

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

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

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

===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​​It has your name on it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​​Alex obliges.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s all there inside the course.

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

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

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

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

How to go from not funny to funny

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

What’s coming up in the next few weeks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://bejakovic.com/sme/