Mental Shortcuts

Flash roll: The following presentation has been paid for by Desert Kite Enterprises

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I’ve been on a hiatus from the usual marketing mailing lists over the past few weeks, so it took me a while to find out that Joe Sugarman died recently.

I’ve written a lot about Joe and his ideas in this newsletter.

In part, that’s because Joe’s Adweek book was the first book on copywriting I ever read. It gave me a lot of ideas to get started in this field, and to a good extent influenced my writing style.

But also, I’ve written a lot about Joe just because he was such a successful direct marketer, who was willing to publicly share the many million-dollar insights he had over his long career.

I found out Joe had died from Brian Kurtz’s email last Sunday. Brian also sent out a link to the infomercial for Joe’s BluBlockers — which became Joe’s biggest success, bringing in over $300 mil.

I actually bought a couple pair of BluBlockers a few years ago. So I was happy to finally see the full infomercial. In a nut, the entire 28 minutes is just a frame around a bunch of on-street testimonials that Joe collected for BluBlockers.

But ok.

Maybe you’re starting to wonder if this email will have any kind of marketing lesson, or if I will just reminisce about Joe Sugarman.

I do got a lesson for you.

​​Take a look at the following bit of sales patter delivered by Joe in the infomercial. It comes after some testimonials by people who say that BluBlockers allow them to see as well as they do with prescription sunglasses.

“I know BluBlockers aren’t prescription sunglasses,” the host babe asks Joe, “but why do so many people think that they are?”

Joe responds:

“BluBlockers block 100% of blue light. Not only the ultraviolet light but the blue light as well. Blue light does not focus very clearly on the retina. And the retina is the focusing screen of the eye. Now all the other colors focus fairly close to the retina. But not blue light. So if you block blue light, what you see is a lot clearer, and a lot sharper.”

If you have read Oren Klaff’s book Flip the Script, you might recognize this as a flash roll. It’s basically a rapidfire display of technical language used to wow — or hypnotize — the prospect into thinking you’re legit.

(To make it clearer: the original flash roll was a term used by undercover cops. They flashed a roll of cash to a drug dealer to show they meant business.)

For over two years, I’ve been collecting ideas related to the use of insight in marketing. That’s when you say, “Ahaaa… it makes so much sense now!” And in that way, you become open to influence.

Several people have suggested to me to include Klaff’s flash roll idea. I resisted.

After all, what is there to intuitively make sense of in Joe’s argument above? He’s just throwing some technical facts at you. They could be completely made up. You have no way to actually experience or validate those facts for yourself.

But it doesn’t matter.

The people who told me the flash roll creates a feeling of insight were right. I was wrong.

That same feeling of deep understanding — which is usually triggered when you experience or understand something for yourself — well, it can be triggered, on a slightly smaller scale, just by an adequate display of authority.

“So you’re telling me to include more authority in my sales copy?” you ask. “That doesn’t sound very insightful.”

What I’m actually telling you is that there are better ways of creating insight. But if you got nothing else, then some technical jargon, or perhaps a scientific study, can be good enough to get people to say, “Ooh… I get it now!” Even though they really don’t.

As for those more powerful ways of creating insight, I’ll write about that one day, in that book I’ve been promising for a long time.

For now, I’d like to tell you about an interesting article. It’s titled “Beware What Sounds Insightful.”

This article points out the unobvious truth that there are mechanisms of creating the feeling of insight… and that they can dress up otherwise mundane or even ridiculous ideas as something profound. It even gives you some more examples of flash rolls, by some of the most insightful writers out there on the Internet. In case you’re interested:

https://commoncog.com/blog/beware-what-sounds-insightful/

Mood is a thing for cattle and loveplay, not selling

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Last night was the first time I’ve ever walked out of a movie theater.

I nervously edged forward in my seat… I clutched my jacket and my backpack… I waited for the end of the scene… and then I gritted my teeth and pushed through the long row of legs and their groaning owners and the boxes of popcorn these leg-owners were holding.

Once I had tripped and stumbled over all these people, I made my way through the darkened theater, out the emergency exit, and out into a world of light and air and freedom.

I asked myself later what had happened to me. After all, I’ve suffered through worse movies than this, the 2021 version of Dune. Why did I decide to bolt this time?

Maybe it was the fact it was my first time in a movie theater in over two years.

Maybe it was the movie itself. After all, compare the same line from the mysterious 1984 version, which I like a lot, to this present, lifeless version:

“Not in the mood? Mood’s a thing for cattle and loveplay, not fighting!”
— Dune (1984)

“Mood? What’s mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises, no matter the mood!”
— Dune (2021)

So yeah, there were those reasons. But I realized what the biggest reason was simply:

I had gone to see this movie by myself.

I’m in transit between two cities. I had some free time, and a few people had recommended this new Dune. So I decided to go to the movies, even though I had no one to go with.

It turned out to be a rare blessing.

I didn’t have to bribe, convince, or beg anyone to agree with me. I didn’t have to look over to my movie partner, look imploringly at the exit, and then look back, trying to see if the person next to me understood that now’s time to get up and get the hell out, and avoid wasting two more hours of perfectly good life.

In my experience, that’s often not the case. Not when it comes to movie going. And not when it comes to life in general.

I recently wrote about the many hooks that keep people stuck in the status quo. Even when the status quo is dull, sepia-toned, and threatens to drag on endlessly, like this new version of Dune.

Well, other people are the most powerful of these hooks, both directly and indirectly.

That’s an unavoidable fact of life. And it’s something you will have to deal with in your marketing.

So my point for you is this:

Many marketing gurus will try to sell you new tricks to help you agitate the spleen out of your prospect. The idea being, once you get somebody in the right mood, he will finally take action.

A dangerous mistake, I say.

In the words of Jonah Berger, instead of asking what would encourage change, ask why things haven’t changed already.

And if you are trying to get your prospect to take real-world action… or make a transformation in his life… or just make a really big purchase, which might end up helping him… then think about other people in his life. And somewhere in your marketing, equip your prospect to deal with these other people.

​​Give your prospect a buying system, not a mood. After all, there’s a world of light and air and freedom at stake.

Now, in a moment, I’ll give you a chance to transform your life, by signing up to my email newsletter and getting a steady stream of valuable persuasion and marketing ideas.

But you might think how your spouse, kids, or wife might react if they see you reading yet another newsletter on your phone, when you should be paying attention to them.

When they try to make you feel guilty about it, tell yourself, and them if you like, that it’s a temporary sacrifice, so you can build a better life for all of you.

But that’s all assuming you sign up to my newsletter. It’s not for everyone. But maybe it is for you. If you want to find out, here’s where to go.

Dark and disturbing

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Today’s email is dark and disturbing. I mean it. Read at your own peril.

Many years ago, late one night, I was watching TV and I saw a fragment of a courtroom drama starring Robin Wright. (She also played Buttercup, if you’ve ever seen the Princess Bride.)

In the movie, Wright’s character is testifying against her violent and abusive ex-boyfriend. Even so, she is still in love with the guy. She even interprets his acts of violence as signs that he cares.

I’ll admit, this made me morbidly curious. It had a ring of truth to it. But after all, it was just a movie.

Then a couple days ago, I shared a Rolling Stone article about get-rich-quick master David Bendah. And while I was looking at that article, I saw something in the sidebar. The number 1 trending article on Rolling Stone right now:

“Marilyn Manson: The Monster Hiding in Plain Sight”

It’s same story as that movie I saw long ago. But it’s real — or at least that’s what many of the women Manson has been with claim, including in court.

One of Manson’s exes reports being locked in a cramped, soundproof space that Manson called the “Bad Girls’ Room.”

The first time it happened, she was screaming and kicking to be let out.

In time, she says, she learned to stop fighting, because Manson enjoyed her struggle.

In other words, this happened many times. This grown, independent woman was locked up in a soundproof closet space as punishment… she was humiliated and horrified… and she came back for more.

Another woman, actress Esme Bianco from Game of Thrones, claims Manson abused and raped her for 2 years.

The final straw, Bianco says, was when Manson started running around his all-black, meatlocker-cold West Hollywood apartment, smashing the walls with an axe, and screaming that she was “crowding him.”

2 years of rape and abuse. And it had to take an axe for a successful Hollywood actress to finally get out.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to blame the victims here.

I just think that looking at extremes in life shines a light on more everyday situations.

For example, how conflicted we all are.

There are bad situation in life. And yet, so many hooks, physical and mental, keep us from packing up and leaving.

There are also many possibly good future outcomes. And yet, so many hooks, physical and mental, keep us from moving towards these outcomes.

So that’s my takeaway for you.

Maybe there have been times when you’ve made people an amazing offer. And you couldn’t understand for the life of you why people weren’t running to take you up on it.

Well, there is the chance that your offer was not as amazing as you thought. Or maybe you botched the marketing.

But even if you get everything just perfect, only a few percent will ever respond to even the best offer.

Why?

Well, for reasons like this, the conflicts that exist in us, even in the most extreme situations.

And if you keep this dark and disturbing truth in mind, and find ways to address it, you might have a chance to sell — and maybe help — a lot more people.

Or not.

As another example, I have an offer for you. Marketing and copywriting and persuasion lessons… delivered to your inbox in small, fascinating packages, each day… all for free. Will you take me up on it? Well, I won’t be surprised if you don’t. But if you want to, here’s where to go.

Send me your praise and admiration

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When I was a teenager still living at home, a fixture in my mom’s kitchen was the Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine aka the George Foreman grill.

My mom spent a minimum of one hour each night cooking after she got home from work. The George Foreman grill was the only “high tech” gadget she ever used. I fondly remember the many hundreds of pounds of olive-oil basted chicken thigh she prepared on the George Foreman grill and fed me over the years.

A few days ago, I looked up the history of the George Foreman grill.

George was unwilling to promote it at first. “I’m not interested in toys,” he said. But he agreed after his wife made him a hamburger on the grill.

And good thing, too. The George Foreman grill has sold well over 100 million units to date. And George Foreman made an estimated $200 million in royalties from having his name — and signature — on each grill.

Most of those 100+ million units were sold through retail. But the George Foreman grill got its start with an infomercial.

Thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, I found the original 28-min George Foreman grill infomercial. I watched it. it’s honestly great — fun viewing.

And if like me you are interested in ideas and the history and development of ideas, this infomercial holds many valuable lessons, as long as you can spare 28 minutes and a bit of brainpower to write down notes.

Today I want to share one note I wrote down while watching the GF infomercial. It might seem obvious to you. But it was a revelation to me.

So, like any successful piece of direct response advertising, the GF infomercial has testimonials. The first batch of testimonials is what you might expect — about the product and what it will do for you.

But the second batch of testimonials has nothing to do with the product. Here, check it out:

TESTIMONIAL 1: “If George is behind anything, that will be the best thing for America. George would never advertise nothing that’s not good for America.”

TESTIMONIAL 2: “George Foreman and food. You can’t beat that. Because George is big on hamburgers. And he’s a big guy. So he’s a great person to find out about new product that has to do with food. I didn’t have any doubts when I knew George was promoting it.”

So that’s my tip for you for today:

People are easier to sell than products or ideas. But you still have to do some selling, even to sell a person.

So have testimonials not just about your offer and how good it is…

But also about who you are, and why that’s a good thing. And like George, you might find one day soon that there are millions of dollars dropping into your lap unexpectedly.

“Oh yeah?” you say. “You know, Bejako, I would consider buying into your tip, if only I trusted you more. If only I had some testimonials to sell me on you.”

Fair point. I have to admit I’ve been very, very slack about collecting testimonials for this newsletter, for my products, and for myself.

But I’ll change that going forward.

And if you want to help me kickstart my testimonial chopper, then hit reply and write me something nice.

If you enjoy these emails or you’ve gotten value out of my books or courses… you can write me that. That would be fine.

But what would be even finer if you write me and say, “If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good.”

​​Write me that you have no doubts if you know I’m promoting something.

​​Or even — if you can somehow stomach to do it — write me that I’m the best thing for America. When it comes to persuasion and influence at least.

Oh, and if you are not yet sure I’m the best thing for America… you might join many other smart and successful marketers and copywriters, and sign up for my email newsletter.

The #1 rule for independent thinking

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One day not so long ago, I was taking a short six-hour break to poke around the Internet, when I saw a trending article that made me chuckle. The title read:

“25 Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life”

I chuckled because the term mimetic — how humans imitate each other — exploded in popularity in the second half of last year. The source of the explosion was the book Wanting, which was published last June and soon after became a bestseller. Suddenly, mimetic was everywhere.

And that to me was the funny bit.

Mimetic the term is itself mimetic. And so that article about anti-mimetic strategies is a little like writing,

“An Independent Thinker’s Guide to Independent Thinking for Other Independent Thinkers”

I bring this up because of a fundamental belief I have, which I want to share with you. Maybe it will resonate with you, and maybe it will even be valuable to you in some way. My belief is this:

If an idea is worthwhile, it will still be worthwhile in a year from now.

On the other hand, if an idea seems worthwhile today, there’s a good chance it won’t seem so in a year.

This leads to a simple rule:

Only give your attention to the many ideas that have survived for at least a year. Articles, books, scientific theories, comic strips, cocktail recipes, Saturday Night Live skits, terms and phrases.

And yes. I understand the contradictory nature of sharing this idea with you in a disposable daily email. The only thing I can say is that I’ve never shied away from contradicting myself.

Anyways, Wanting, the book, was published on June 1, 2021. I still haven’t read it — and I won’t, at least until its one-year anniversary. That’s what I recommend to you as well.

But maybe you’re looking for something to read.

Maybe even something that’s been around for more than a year.

In that case, I can further recommend a little book I wrote and published some 18 months ago.

It collects 10 ideas — some of them a few years old, some a few decades, one almost a century — from 10 of history’s most successful and most influential direct marketers and copywriters.

To find out more or to grab a copy:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

How to be seen as a more credible source of solutions and advice

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Today, YouTube served me with up a recent interview that PBS did with Garry Kasparov.

Kasparov was World Chess Champion for 20 years and then an opposition leader in Russia.

“Unfortunately,” the interviewer said in his opening move to Kasparov, “you turned out to be right. Back in 2015, you wrote a book called ‘Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.'”

The interviewer took a breath after reading out that title. He went on:

“Now that we see what he’s doing, what should our response be?”

Given Kasparov’s book, this might seem like a reasonable question to ask.

And that’s just the point I want to make to you today. There’s something important hiding inside that question.

In the words of Mark Ford and John Forde from Great Leads… the fact that you understand what’s wrong can help make you seem like a more credible source for solutions, too.

The fact is, just because Kasparov wrote a book critical of Putin gives him no special insight on how to stop the raging war in Ukraine. The two are about as related as knowing that “heavy turbulence makes for unpleasant flights” and knowing how to land a jumbo jet.

And yet, it doesn’t matter. The human instinct to jump from one to the other. Because when we’ve got trouble, it’s natural to look outside ourselves for the solution. And at those times, we are willing to accept a lot of things as qualifications and authority.

The takeaway for you is clear:

Don’t build a better mousetrap.

Instead, write a book. Educate your prospect about the dangerous breeding habits and expansionary intent of the eastern harvest mouse. “The eastern harvest mouse is coming,” your book should say. “And it must be stopped.”

Ok, let’s get to the business end of this post:

If you want more advice on building credibility with your audience, you might get value from my email newsletter. That’s where I regularly write about reasons that credibility fails. You can sign up for it here.

Marketers are from Mars, prospects are from—?

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John Gray catches a lot of flak for his 1992 best-seller, Men are from Mars, Women are from Wenus.

But I’ve personally gotten a lot of use out of this short idea from Gray’s book:

“The most frequently expressed complaint women have about men is that men don’t listen. Either a man completely ignores her when she speaks to him, or he listens for a few beats, assesses what is bothering her, and then proudly puts on his Mr. Fix-It cap and offers her a solution to make her feel better. He is confused when she doesn’t appreciate this gesture of love. No matter how many times she tells him that he’s not listening, he doesn’t get it and keeps doing the same thing. She wants empathy, but he thinks she wants solutions.”

The thing is, it’s not just men who prematurely jump to solutions. And it’s not just women who will ignore offered solutions, even when they are perfectly good.

We are all like this, much of the time.

When we are frustrated, most of us hate having suggestions tossed at us. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? It would never work in my case! Why don’t you just listen for a second?”

I know I’ve reacted like this, at least internally, while keeping up a stoic front. And I’ve seen plenty of other guys — some of them manly, practical-minded men – nervously shrugging off good solutions to their ongoing problems.

The question to me is why? Why do women and men both choose not solve problems for which there are good solutions?

I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about this.

My conclusion is this isn’t a trivial human quirk, or like Gray says, just a hysterical cry for a bit of empathy.

Instead, my feeling is it goes back to fundamental human needs, like those I talked about yesterday.

Specifically, the need for uniqueness… and the need for meaning.

​​It might not seem very rational from the outside, but it makes perfect sense from the inside:

People will hold on to their problems just so they can keep feeling unique. “I might not have much… but I’ve got trouble like nobody’s ever seen.”

Or they will cling to pain and failure, even when there’s an easy way out. Because if there really is an easy way out, then what was the purpose of all that suffering they’ve experienced in the past?

In other words:

You might be selling your prospect a shiny new chrome pipe. And your prospect might desperately need it — the old pipe is rusted out and the basement is filling up with water. But what you don’t realize is that installing that new pipe might undermine the very foundations of your prospect’s house.

So that’s the problem that you face.

It’s tricky.

And it’s definitely unique.

But don’t worry. I won’t irritate you with any pigheaded suggestions for how you can solve this problem. At least I won’t do it here.

I’ll save that for an upcoming paid product. Maybe I will call it Marketers Are From Mars, Prospects Are From— but where exactly? I still have to work that part out. In case you want to get notified when this mansplaining guide comes out, sign up for my email newsletter.

My guilty-pleasure morning ritual gets an ugly update

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I sat down a few moments ago for my guilty-pleasure morning ritual. The coffee was ready, I flipped open my laptop and—

“Oh what the hell is this,” I said out loud.

The game was still the same. But the background of the site had changed from dark gray to white.

I checked the URL. It was no longer some weird .co.uk domain. It was now nytimes.com.

Perhaps you’ve seen the same.

After all, millions of people around the world have all been playing this game each day, and millions more have been joining them week by week.

The game is a word-guessing game, called Wordle, created by a guy named Josh Wardle.

Wardle created Wordle some time ago as a game that just he and his girlfriend could play together. His friends and family got in on it too. Then Wardle released Wordle publicly on his website last October.

That first month, a total of 90 people played it.

Two months later, in December, the number of people playing Wordle each day had grown to 300,000.

By January, it was millions each day.

On February 1st, the New York Times bought Wordle from Wardle, for a “low 7 figures” sum. And today, here we are, with the stupid, white, failing NYT background.

Oh well. In the end, the corporations absorb everything. But let’s talk influence:

I can see many things that went into making Wordle a success. I want to point out just one. It might be relevant to you if you are interested in the creative or marketing side of reality.

Like, I said, Wordle is my guilty-pleasure morning ritual.

That’s because there’s only one Wordle puzzle each day.

Once you play — whether you win or lose — that’s it. You gotta wait until tomorrow, when the next one comes out.

This has a few key consequences:

One of course is scarcity. It makes each Wordle puzzle feel more valuable and interesting. It keeps you coming back day after day.

Two is that you can’t glut yourself.

With most games – and with things other than games too — I often keep playing to the point where I start to feel disgusted.

But there’s no risk of that with Wordle. It’s like a Spartan marriage. The two sides meet only rarely, and are full of desire for each other.

But maybe the most important thing is that each Wordle puzzle feels unique and real.

Wordle grew so quickly because players shared their results on Twitter. (Through a clever design, Wardle allowed people to share their results without giving away the puzzle.)

That worked because there is only one puzzle a day. Everybody in the world who played Wordle on a given day had that same puzzle.

In other words, it made sense to brag about your results, because other Wordle players actually shared your experience. It even created a sense of connection to other people playing Wordle.

But maybe you haven’t played Wordle yet, and you’re getting lost in what I’m talking about. Or maybe you’re wondering what this might mean for you, or how can you use this.

I’ll give you just one idea bouncing around in my head:

For a long time, I’ve been writing these daily emails, and then posting them to my website as an archive. This has helped me in the past because these blog archives were the main way people found me and my newsletter.

But that’s slowly changing. And so today I remembered an idea I had a while ago:

To scrap the archive, and simply post the latest daily email on my site. Each day, the email on the front page would be updated, and the previous email would disappear. Plus there would be a newsletter optin form for people who don’t want to miss out.

I’m not sure if this is smart. I’m not sure whether I will do it. But maybe.

Because Wardle’s Wordle success shows that in a world where everybody’s working hard to get you as addicted and engaged as possible… less can be more.

Anyways, if you have any advice for me on the technical side of how I could easily implement my latest-email-front-page idea on my WordPress site, please write in and let me know.

And if you haven’t played Wordle yet, you can find it on the white-background page at the link below. (I got today’s puzzle in two tries only — my best score yet.)

https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html

Torture-free deadline for Copy Riddles is near

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Knock twice before you open this email

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Welcome. First, let me share the traditional greeting:

“Email is great! Yes it is.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the point of this sermon is:

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

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

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

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