Authority

Very insightful AI-generated summary for my book’s reviews

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Yesterday, I checked my little 10 Commandments book on Amazon to see if I have any new reviews. I have no new reviews. But there is something new.

Above all the reviews I’ve gotten so far, there’s a new AI-generated summary that says:

“Customers find the book a great read with great bits of advice. They also appreciate the names of the great bits.”

Huh? Names of the great bits?

​​I’m guessing that’s the AI-generated summary of the following human-generated review, which contains the word “names” several times:

“Short and very pertinent. Loaded with the names of hugely successful giants of the copywriting world and the titles of their successful books. I read the book on Kindle and highlighted many great bits of advice and the names of the great writers sharing advice. If you write ad copy for a living or hope to do so, buy this book.”

Now, this is not one of those “Haha stupid AI, it will never be as smart as us great apes” emails.

I’ve gone on record three years ago, before ChatGPT really broke, saying I think AI will in fact be able to replace any and all human work, including supposedly creative work.

I still stand by that. If AI is not quite there yet today, like with the above review summary, then it will get there tomorrow, or the day after.

That said:

My awkward AI summary above actually makes an insightful point. Humans do appreciate the names of the great bits.

Specifically, we appreciate the names of great bits known as other humans.

I’ve noticed I get turned off when I realize something is AI-generated. Not because it’s inferior in quality. Often it’s not — often it’s actually better. But I still get turned off, simply because I realize it’s AI-generated.

Really, this isn’t anything new.

I haven’t been to many standup comedy shows. But I have heard they are typically set up in a 1-2-3 order:

Number 1 comic is unknown and often terrible. Number 2 comic is unknown but really good, on the way up. Number 3 comic is nationally famous and has been so for a few years.

Objectively speaking, the no. 2 comic will often deliver the best, tightest, funniest set.

But it’s the no. 3 comic who will draw the biggest laughs, simply because people have come to see him, because he’s the headliner, because he’s got the name they know. The quality of the content is actually secondary or tertiary.

While there are still humans, and while there is still work for us to do, there’s a lesson to be drawn from that.

​​And now, related to that lesson, here’s my offer to you:

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about creating some kind of a workshop or program to help people build up their status, their authority, their name. How to do this is a personal interest of mine. And maybe I can help you do it, quickly and thoroughly.

I haven’t yet decided whether to organize this workshop or program, or how it would look. But if you’re interested, just hit reply and tell me so.

I won’t have anything to pitch you — not yet at least. But I want to hear from you, and I want to talk to you, and see if I can help. So if you’re interested, hit reply and let’s talk.

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.
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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/

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/

#1 common feedback to my coaching group last night

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Last night I hosted the first Write & Profit coaching call.

I aimed to get 5 qualified people to join this coaching program. And I got five qualified people.

We had the owner of dog-training business in the Midwest who’s had thousands of clients… a harp-playing marketing specialist who helps offline service businesses get online… a copywriter who’s gotten some big wins for coaches… a London banker who went on a hero’s journey to find satisfaction in his well-paid corporate job, and now teaches others to do the same… and a 24-year-old fitness wiz who’s already got a coaching business with hundreds of high-ticket clients.

All five are great at what they do.

All five have success stories to share, either their own or work they’ve done for others.

And yet, there was one piece of common feedback that I had to give all of them.

It probably applies to you too.

It certainly used to apply to me, and still does on some days. It’s this:

None of them was not making adequate use of their status, endorsements, case studies, and success stories.

Maybe you wince when I say that. If so, you should know that doing it adequately doesn’t have to feel tacky, like maple syrup left to dry on the counter.

You can build up your status and share success stories in a natural, even helpful way. For example, consider what I did with this email.

I told you about my coaching program. I told you I filled it how I wanted to fill it. I built up the people inside the program to highlight they are qualified and successful.

And if I could only find some way to also work in the fact that I got these 5 people to each agree to pay me multiple thousands of dollars, using a 3-page Google doc, with no sales calls, no pressure or awkwardness, no haggling over price…

… then you might ask me how? How did I do it? And more importantly, how can you do it?

It certainly isn’t a magical 3-page Google doc that makes sales like that.

Instead, it’s a constant commitment to share your own status items, case studies, success stories… and to stuff those into regular emails, that are written so that people will want to keep reading.

If you have inhibitions about doing the first, then this email you’ve read should help you with that.

As for the second:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Don’t be like me

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For the past two days, I’ve been running a kind of flash offer I’ve called Copy Riddles Lite.

In order to promote that, I have finally done something I should have done months ago, and that’s to go through the emails that Australia’s best & world’s most provocative copywriter, Daniel Throssell, wrote to promote Copy Riddles back in September.

Daniel’s emails are filled with gold I could and should have been using to promote Copy Riddles ever since. Such as, for example, the following quotes:

“There are few other courses I fully and wholeheartedly endorse as strongly as one of my own. Copy Riddles is one of them.”

“I have literally never had so many people write to me after I start promoting something, offering unsolicited & gushing feedback on it!”

“It’s the most brilliant course concept I’ve ever seen … literally a gamified series of sequential puzzles that teaches you copywriting.”
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So don’t be like me — lazy, careless, and self-defeating when it comes to promoting your own good offers.

Instead, when people write nice things about you and what you sell, save those comments… cherish them… casually drop hints about them over tea or coffee… and every Sunday or even more often, stand up on a soapbox, and openly and dramatically read out those flattering endorsements to everyone who might be interested and many of those who are not.

The Copy Riddles Lite offer is closing down tonight, in another 8 hours, specifically at 8:31pm CET.

Copy Riddles Lite is not a gamified series of sequential puzzles. That’s the full Copy Riddles course, which contains 20 such sequential puzzles.

Copy Riddles Lite contains just one such puzzle.

But it’s a puzzle that stands alone, without the rest of the Copy Riddles program. And if you can guess the right answer — or even if you don’t, but you put in the effort — it will teach you something very valuable about copywriting, in a very short period of time.

Copy Riddles Lite is priced lightly, according to its lite nature. And if you buy it and decide you want to upgrade to the full Copy Riddles program, I will credit you the price you paid for Copy Riddles Lite.

So if you’d like to get this piece of a highly endorsed training before I close down the cart, here’s where to go (no sales page, just an order page):

https://bejakovic.com/crl​​

Magic words that bring you status

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Yesterday, I went on Twitter in search of my own name.

What I found was a photo somebody had posted of a densely scribbled page, containing the text of one of my emails.

I squinted and leaned in so far my nose almost touched the screen. It was true.

People are actually copying out my emails by hand as a way to learn email copywriting.

It was a bizarre moment. It reminded me of the first time I printed a black-and-white photograph in my high school’s darkroom.

Take a normal-looking piece of paper, expose it to light for a second, then dump it into a bit of clear, water-like liquid. A picture emerges of something you had photographed days or weeks ago.

It feels like magic, because the ingredients seem so ordinary — paper, light, a bit of water-like liquid.

I’ve been writing this daily email newsletter for 5+ years. At first, I was writing mostly just to practice and then sending my emails out into the void.

After a while, I created an offer. I sent out an email just like the ones I had been sending out. Except this time, money came back at me.

It felt like magic, because it was still the same ordinary ingredients — a bare-bones text editor, ActiveCampaign, the blue “send” button.

Since then, I’ve continued sending the same text-only emails, just words in a text editor. And that’s been good enough to give me status and authority in this field. I got into copywriting some ten years ago by hand-copying issues of Gary Halbert’s newsletter. Today people are copying my newsletter issues by hand.

A few days ago, I announced I’m looking for five beta testers for a 3-month group coaching program.

The goal for this group coaching program is to implement the techniques and ideas I talked about on the “How I do it” call I held on Monday. Write interesting emails… build a list… grow your status… make money.

I announced this group coaching program to the people who were there for the live “How I do it” call, and to the people who signed up for the recording.

And in spite of the fact I once again managed to muck up the tech, so that some people never got the link to join the live call, and others never got the recording, I’ve so far filled three of those five spots. I also have a few people who’ve expressed interest in the remaining two.

But I want to get this sign-up process wrapped up now, so I can kick the group coaching off.

So if you’re interested, hit reply and let me know a bit about who you are and what you do.

I will send you a doc with the full info on this 3-month program, and you can decide if it’s for you or not.

If not, no problem. But if yes, then you can join us, and we will start next week.

Two main chain cutters that delink price from product

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The past few days, I’ve been reading the eye-opening “No B.S. Marketing To The Affluent” by marketing coach Dan Kennedy.

​​​​As you can imagine, one of Dan’s main points is that you should charge a lot, and that you can, because with a bit of thought and preparation, it’s easy to break the heavy chain that links product to price in most people’s minds.

Dan suggests two main ways to do it:

“The two biggest chain cutters that delink price from product are 1) who is buying and 2) the context in which the product is presented, priced, and delivered.”

There’s a lot in that one sentence. So let’s get specifical. Let me tell you just one specific way to create a high-price selling context.

It’s to assume authority.

In the olden days, this meant getting a soapbox… walking to the the northeast corner of Hyde Park… putting your soapbox down on the ground among the chestnut leaves… stepping onto the soapbox… and starting to talk.

The modern-day version of this is creating your own digital platform of any kind and using it to communicate.

Because there’s some shortcut in the human brain, so that when you speak from a platform, the rest of us listen.

Sure, some of those listening will walk away after a time. But others will continue to stand there, transfixed, nodding their heads.

And if you, the speaker, ever deign to directly address me, the transfixed audience member, I’ll get a flush of excitement. I’ll look around to make sure others saw it too. “Did you catch that? He spoke to me! He made me an offer, directly! It’s expensive, but what else would you expect? He’s an authority!”

I know I react like this. I imagine that if you are honest with yourself, you will find you react like this too.

All that’s to say, get your own soapbox if you haven’t got one yet. Or get me to create one for you. ​​

And on that note, today is the last day I’ll be talking about my done-for-you newsletter service.

​​Your own newsletter is good for business, good for authority, and great for delinking price from product.

So if you have a business, but you haven’t got a newsletter, then take a look here for more information on this service:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-done-for-you-newsletter-service/

My alternative to shameless teasing

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A couple days ago, I gave a copy critique to a successful course creator. Let’s call him Liam.

Liam is writing a welcome sequence for his newsletter. He has decided to not promote anything in his first seven emails, but rather just to offer solid advice and inspiration — the dreaded “value” autoresponder.

While I certainly don’t condone the nasty practice of not selling anything across seven welcome emails, I figured Liam’s mind was made up on this point, so I didn’t argue it. But I told him that, even if he is not selling his main course in these emails, he can certainly seed it.

Liam already does this already to an extent, by teasing his course in a PS and saying something like, “… if you liked this, you’ll find more good stuff like it in my course XYZ, which I’ll tell you more about soon.”

Teasing like this is fine. It works, and it can work great, the more shameless you’re willing to get with it.

But there’s an alternative to shameless teasing.

​​It makes for more natural content. It’s more sly. And yet it can be even more effective than teasing itself.

Would you like to know what I have in mind? ​​What I told this successful course creator? What I practice myself to good effect from time to time?

I’ll tell ya:

It’s simply to use yourself and your products as your case studies when illustrating a point that the reader should take away.

How exactly do you do that?

Well, look at what I’ve done in this email. I could have made the same point — use yourself as a case study — by talking about some legendary and dead marketer like Gary Halbert… or by referring to a scene from a movie like Brokeback Mountain Part 2.

Instead, I did it by about talking about ME ME ME, or more specifically, the way ME interacted with a client and the advice me gave him.

Which brings me to my offer today:

I do not offer one-off coaching critiques. Well, I did with Liam, but that was a special case, and not something I offer otherwise. Forget about that.

What I do offer is medium- to long-term, one-on-one coaching. It involves both email copywriting — you got a free tip on that today — and more broadly, easy marketing and money-making levers that I spot in your business, the pulling of which is often more lucrative and long-lasting than making any copy tweaks.

My coaching is expensive, and I only take on people rarely, when I feel they have a good chance of profiting and quickly.

If you are interested in getting my critical eye, help, and guidance applied to your business, then hit reply. Tell me who you are and what you do, and we can start a conversation to see if it might be a fit.

A VERY busy man writes me a note

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

“Oh God,” I thought.

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

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

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

Here’s Tom’s note:

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

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

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

Tom ODonnell

p.s. Use this any way you choose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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