Mental Shortcuts

Free 3-step plan to get more testimonials, perform an X-ray of your market, have buyers recommit to what they just bought from you, and possibly even drive more sales

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Here’s a 3-step plan to get more testimonials, perform an X-ray of your market, have buyers recommit to what they just bought from you, and possibly even drive more sales:

STEP 1. Sell an offer.

STEP 2. Offer people a bonus if they buy the offer now.

STEP 3. When people buy, send them an email with the promised bonuses. At the top of that email, paste in the following mystical, secret, wizard-like spell:

===

Thanks for taking me up on [the name of your offer].

I’m curious, what made you do it?

===

Yes, that’s it.

Yes, I can see your jaw drop and your eyes roll back in your head from mock amazement.

All I can say is, don’t knock it till you try it.

I’ve been doing this all week long with people who took me up on my recommendation for the 1-Person Advertorial Agency.

As usual when I interact directly with people on my list, I’ve been blown away by how little I know, how pale my own imagination, and how rich and surprising it is to go out to my market and talk to them.

You want examples?

I’ve gotten a dozen responses so far, with varying answers to “What made you do it.” Three categories have been prevalent so far:

A. The opportunity of the beast

This being a biz-in-a-box offer, it’s inevitable that people would cite the opportunity of it. Ok, that’s not surprising. But still, it’s different and more insightful to hear it in people’s own words:

#1. “I still don’t plan on leaving my job which I like no matter how successful it is though I might stop working overtime and do this instead once it starts paying. In the meantime it’s not that much of a time commitment that I can’t do both.”

#2. “I like Travis [Sago]’s model of working other’s lists but this method looks equally profitable but might be more helpful in expanding my skills.”

B. A point of differentiation

I hadn’t thought of this one at all, and I didn’t talk about it in my emails. And yet, multiple people brought up the uniqueness of advertorials as opposed to other things copywriters can offer:

#1. “It’s also a point of differentiation since it seems that everyone who hasn’t firmly planted their flag in the email copywriting camp (i.e. most copywriters/marketers) has rebranded themselves as a creative strategist overnight (soon-to-be most copywriters/marketers).”

#2. “Clients who are willing to spend money on advertorials are more serious overall. Meta ads is the bright shiny object that everyone and their dog in law wants rn. But advertorials have been around way longer and sophisticated clients like them a lot.”

C. Because of me

1-Person Advertorial Agency is a great offer, I think its value is self-contained.

And yet, the fact that my readers know and trust me (and maybe even like me???) definitely helps sell the offer, and makes it more credible — even when I say I haven’t used this system myself:

#1. “Plus, as a previous buyer of yours, products you recommend carry more weight than other offers.”

#2. “The fact that you are promoting it. Especially your honesty in saying you have not been taken the course yourself.”

So there you go. Sell something. Then ask people why they bought, and you shall receive.

And now, an important announcement:

The opportunity to get 1-Person Advertorial Agency + the bonuses I am offering is ending tonight at 12 midnight PST.

Along with the core 1-Person Advertorial Agency offer (full details at the sales page below), I am offering the following bonuses:

#1 Horror Advertorial Swipe File, which you can feed to the AI beast so it produces better, or rather, more horrifying advertorials

#2. 26 Rules of Client Management for Copywriters, taken from my Copy Zone guide to the business side of copywriting

#3. Most Valuable Postcard #1: Nota Rapida, which digs into the topic of building long-term relationships with copywriting clients much more deeply

#4. Ghostbuster, Nick Bandy’s 5-stage sequence for reactivating (reanimating?) dead clients or prospective clients

If you wanna get that, you will have to act today. But why not act now, while it’s on your mind? Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

The best writer on the Internet?

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There musta been something in the water last week.

First, I exchanged a couple 1:1 emails with Derek Johanson of CopyHour, about a potential JV deal. At the end of of our exchange Derek wrote:

===

I LOVE your emails.

Literally the only daily emailer I read anymore. I’ve un-subbed from everyone. I don’t know how you do it daily. haha

===

Then I sent out one of my regular daily emails and I got a reply from Parker Worth.

In case you don’t know Parker, he is “just a guy with a neck tattoo,” as per his Twitter bio.

In reality, Parker is quite a bit more than that. He’s got an online audience of over 70,000 people spread across Twitter and LinkedIn and his email list, and in just two years, he’s built a 6-figure business on the back of it, teaching people how to write online.

Parker simply replied to my email and said:

====

John,

I’m convinced you’re the best writer on the internet.

Happy holidays

===

Then I was on a mastermind call with marketer Travis Sago, somebody I have learned more from over the past couple years than anyone else, and somebody I’ve promoted to this list multiple times.

At one point, Travis said to his mastermind folks:

===

I’ll brag on Johnny B. [that’s me, by the way].

Johnny B., when he sends affiliate promos, he brings a buncha people in.

He’s a micro influencer. He’s a big fish in a small pond. That’s all I am too.

But you’ve got these very, very rabid people, and they’re very responsive, because they’re not Mr. Beast and they’re not Grant Cardone. They’re very responsive and a lot of their little ponds will drive so much fucking traffic it’ll blow your fucking mind.

===

I’m telling you this because well, much like milk, endorsements and social proof are best used fresh.

Also, to show you that, as I’ve been claiming, I have the attention and trust of some influential marketers and business owners in my little corner of the Internet, many of whom read these emails every day.

Also, because tomorrow is the grand and dramatic start of my “I endorse YOU” auction.

This is in fact the last email I will send out before the auction starts.

I’ve been talking about this auction for what seems like an eternity. And yet I’m still getting questions about exactly where and how this auction will happen.

The details are the following:

1. The auction will kick off tomorrow at 6pm CET/12 noon EST/9am PST.

2. It will happen inside my Daily Email House community.

I will create a new post to lay out exactly what’s on offer to be auctioned off.

Bids will go as comments under the post. If you are a Daily Email House member, you will be able to bid, if you so choose, by posting your bid as a comment as well.

3. The auction will go on for as long as it has life.

I have had a few dozen people express interest in bidding in this auction. Let’s see who actually will bid, and for how long.

Since I am offering to transfer my own credibility to you (as for my credibility, see above), and since I am guaranteeing the winning bidder to make all his or her money back, I am hopeful of brisk business. But as I wrote yesterday, success is far from certain, and in fact, the road is treacherous.

4. I’ll have a free bonus for you if you make any kind of a bid, even if it’s just $2. The goal is to make this auction fun and lively for as many of my readers as possible.

5. Oh yeah, there will also be a pool party. Did I mention that? I recently moved to a new apartment. I now have a pool. On my terrace. The dimensions are ridiculous (enough to maybe fit a fridge inside, and not much else) and it’s more trouble than use to me. But I have a pool.

Would you like to join me for the pool party? If so, again, doors open tomorrow at 6pm my time. Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/house

I promoted Dan Kennedy’s $0.99 audiobook but when the results rolled in!…

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This past Wednesday, I was moving my stuff from my old apartment, in the peripheral “Williamsburg of Barcelona,” to my new apartment, in the very heart of Barcelona.

It’s stressful to move, even though I have little stuff.

I found some movers on the Spanish version of Craigslist. They showed up unprepared, possibly drunk, and clearly determined to take as much advantage as they could of the fact they were being paid per hour, rather than per completed job.

It took 3 and 1/2 hours for them to move a few plants and a few trashbags’ worth of stuff 3 miles across town.

My day was eaten up with preparing for this move… with witnessing the move in all its glacial fury… and then with recovering from the move ie. hiding the trashbags of stuff in places around my new apartment where I cannot see them and don’t have to think about them for a while.

All that’s to say, on Wednesday I really had no time or brain power to write my daily email.

So I took post from my Daily Email House community, in which House member Anthony La Tour shared how it’s now possible to get get several super valuable, multi-thousand dollar Dan Kennedy seminars for the cost of an Audible audiobook, and I basically sent that out as my email.

Results:

$306 in Audible bounties so far, plus about a dozen readers writing in to say “thank you” for cluing them into this offer.

Conclusions:

#1 Audible can be a legit “in-between” offer to promote

The regular Amazon affiliate program pays peanuts, but the bounties when somebody signs up for Audible are generous — $10 for a $0.99 trial, whether the customer sticks or not.

When you add it all up, and add up some other bounties Amazon is giving to affiliates, you get the $306 I made with my email on Wednesday.

$306 is not “pay for a house” money.

But I wasn’t in the middle of promoting anything anyhow. $306 is a decent return for spending about 15 mins to “write” and schedule an email in the middle of moving apartments.

Of course, in order for this to be a repeatable thing, it would take other unique audiobook deals — either something not available in other formats, or only available for drastically more in other formats, like the Dan Kennedy thing.

#2. There’s great value in telling people something new

On Wednesday, I had no idea whether talking about this Audible deal would make me any money.

I knew it was still a good thing to share this deal in my email.

Because much more than the direct money from the sales you might make, there’s value in telling people something new.

Genuine news hooks readers on opening your emails in the future as well, and at least checking out you future offers also. After all, they might miss out! And few new things are as interesting as a legit new deal on something people already want.

#3. “How can they afford this???”

Audible pays out $10 bounties for somebody signing up for a $0.99 trial.

That connected in my mind to Internet Marketer Igor Kheifets’s pretty irresistible offer to affiliates:

Igor is currently paying out a $30 commission for each affiliate sale of his $3.99 book.

How can Amazon (and Igor) afford to do this?

They can afford to do it because:

1. They know their numbers ie. what a new customer in this funnel is worth to them, and

2. They have high-enough numbers, because they make new customers all kinds of additional offers in the form of order bumps, upsells, downsells, and cross-sells.

And that’s just in that one funnel.

After the customer buys, Amazon and (Igor) own the customer relationship. They can then simply make new backend offers from now till doomsday. As Igor wrote to me as I was promoting his book, “I only need one backend sale to cover everything.”

I’ve long been guilty of not having either of the 2 items above.

#1 (not knowing what a new customer in a funnel is worth to me) is fairly easy and quick to fix.

#2 (not having two dozen other offers to make in one funnel) is less so.

But I’m working on both of them. And I’m sharing what I’m learning, and I’m trying to take some people along for the ride. If you wanna go for that ride as well:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Announcing: Black Friday Bundle Collector’s Edition

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(takes a deep breath)

Today is the last day of the 2025 Black Friday Bundle…

Offers from 11 people, myself included, around copywriting and email marketing, are all being bundled together at a steep discount…

You can find out the full details of what all is included on the page below…

But I can tell you that my part of the bundle alone, a year’s subscription to my Daily Email Habit service, currently sells for more ($494) than the cost of this entire bundle ($299).

(exhales)

HO HUM.

I just dutifully told you all the dry and respectable facts about the ongoing and soon-ending Black Friday Bundle offer.

But frankly, those details are JUST NOT VERY FUN.

What is fun?

Lotsa stuff.

For example, one thing that’s fun is starting a new collection… adding a new item to that collection… and then finally, after much struggle and travail and effort and cost, completing the collection with the last missing piece.

And that’s why I am now announcing:

“THE BLACK FRIDAY BUNDLE COLLECTOR’S EDITION”

The Black Friday Bundle Collector’s Edition is a virtual display case, containing 15 slots for you to lovingly jam the correct item inside.

You fill slots #1-#11 of the Black Friday Bundle Collector’s Edition with items from the Black Friday Bundle, which I told you about above, and which you can get at the link below.

As for the remaining four slots, they are this:

#12. “$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.

#13. “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. The most expensive collector’s item of the lot. Still, if you consider that this Truly Irresistible Coaching Offer you make itself sells for $997, and is truly irresistible, then even one client means this Black Friday Collector’s Edition item will pay for itself.

#14. “How to acquire entire 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 this Colelctor’s Edition item for just $497.

#15. “Huge $$$$ Communities”

How to create and monetize online communities that generate hundreds of thousands of dollars, often from only a few hundred members. People have paid $5k for this information in the past, but you can catch this Collector’s Item today, if you know where to look, for only $97.

As I wrote and tried to make abundantly clear yesterday, I am not giving away any of these these final four Black Friday Bundle Collector’s Edition items.

But if you get items #1-#11 using my link below, I will tell you where items #12-#15 are hiding, so you can go out into the world and catch ’em all, and then stuff them inside your Black Friday Bundle Collector’s Edition display case, to show off when guests visit your house or simply to look at with satisfaction on a nice Sunday afternoon.

This will be the last email I send about this collector’s opportunity, which closes at 12 midnight EST tonight.

If you wanna kick start your Black Friday Bundle collection, and then have me tell you how and where you can get the remaining items so you can complete the whole set:

https://bejakovic.com/greatdeals

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:

===

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.

===

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

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:

===

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).

===

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

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:

===

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.

===

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

===

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.

===

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:

===

Or maybe it’s just a great product.

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

===

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:

===

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.

===

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

===

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.

===

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:

===

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.

===

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/

Why I write such soft CTAs

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On last Thursday’s Copy Riddles Q&A call, Matt Cascarino, Chief Creative Office at marketing agency FARM, asked about the unusual calls-to-action in my emails.

“You don’t just not close hard,” Matt said. “You go the exact opposite way.”

It’s true. Most of the calls-to-action in my emails are “soft,” as in not dramatic, not black and white, without any of the “You are either in NOW or you will be left behind!” that is common in direct response circles.

That’s something I do consciously. I suppose it emerged because I’ve historically sold a lot of evergreen offers.

When there’s no baked-in urgency — and even when there is — I figured I’d treat my readers’ intelligence with due respect. That’s why I don’t make up stuff or use overly dramatic wording that simply cannot be backed up with anything resembling reality.

That said, I’m not above “manipulating” readers into acting now.

But rather than yelling at my readers or threatening them or lying, I’ve learned to use what I know about human psychology. A few words of inspiration can work. So can an appeal to our universal need for sovereignty and control.

Sometimes, such a “soft” CTA has driven in sales that wouldn’t have happened otherwise (I know because people have written in to tell me so).

Other times, the effect was cumulative — a few such emails built up and people ended up buying.

And in all cases, or at least I hope so, it kept my readers reading, without feeling that I lied to them, or pressured them, or treated them as if they were idiots.

Also on Thursday’s Copy Riddles Q&A call was Shawn Cartwright, who runs the online martial arts school TCCII.

Shawn asked if I have or ever will create some kind of product about such soft and psychological CTAs.

The idea sounds cool, but the fact is, even the most subtle and effective CTA matters less than a good headline, and the best headline matters less than a real deadline.

That’s part of the reason why I have been moving away from clever copywriting to sell my existing evergreen products… and why I have instead been promoting lots of new and solid offers, often not my own, which have legit inbuilt timed deadlines.

And on that note, let me remind you of a legit deadline. It’s for the the free live training, which is happening tomorrow, Monday, September 22, 2025, at 9pm CET/3pm EST/12 noon PST.

Mentalist-turned-marketer Kennedy will share email copywriting and marketing secrets that took him from selling $27k of his flagship info product… to selling $544k of the same, to the same audience.

If this interests you, it might make sense to sign up now. You know how Mondays are.

If you don’t sign up now, there’s a good chance this training will slip your mind in the crush of things tomorrow, and the next thing you know… you’ve missed the opportunity.

On the other hand, if you sign up now, you still have time tomorrow to decide whether you really want to attend.

If you find that persuasive, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/kennedy