Social Proof

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:

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

I’m curious, what made you do it?

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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:

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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

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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:

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John,

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

Happy holidays

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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:

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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

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:

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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.

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

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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.

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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:

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Or maybe it’s just a great product.

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

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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:

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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:

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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/

Exposed: Gary Bencivenga’s “100x its price” marketing investment

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I once heard Gary Bencivenga say—

But wait. First, let me do things properly, and first tell you who Gary is, in the odd case you don’t know, or remind you of the man’s accomplishments, in case you do.

Gary Bencivenga is widely regarded as the world’s greatest living copywriter.

That praise is based not on subjective impressions, but on hard numbers.

An executive at Rodale Press, a big direct response publisher, said that Gary never lost a split-run test when going up against other top copywriters.

An executive at Phillips publishing, another major direct response company, said that Gary had more winners than anybody else.

Gene Schwartz, a legendary copywriter and the author of the bible in the field, Breakthrough Advertising, summed it up by saying there are only four or five true masters of copywriting — and Gary is one of them.

With that intro, let me tell you what I heard Gary say once.

Gary said he advised a client, a publishing company, to purchase a small financial newsletter, lock stock and two smoking barrels, simply because of an enthusiastic testimonial the newsletter had gotten. (The author of that testimonial was a certain Warren Buffett.)

So great, says Gary, is the value of really convincing proof.

Going by that logic, I am hereby putting in my offer to buy Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine — the entire site, all the content, and the domain. I am doing this based simply on the following testimonial, which comes from Gary Bencivenga himself:

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One of the secrets I teach copywriters and marketers who want to be more successful is to be sure they read a great direct response ad every day.

But where do you find an almost limitless supply of great ads to be inspired by?

The best source I have ever found is Lawrence’s site. I’ve been writing copy for more than 40 years now, and I still do my ‘ad-a-day’ thing, just to keep sharp.

I never fail to be inspired with new ideas when browsing through Lawrence’s collection of ads. I would gladly have paid him ten times, even 100 times its price. Investing in your own knowledge is always the greatest investment you can make, and this is one of the smartest ways to do it.

===

I don’t know how much Gary paid to get Lawrence’s daily serving of a great response ad.

I do know I paid Lawrence $97 per month for it for a long time, and then I paid him $997, last year, in one lump sum, for a lifetime subscription.

You, however, can get the same lifetime subscription I paid $997 for, the same subscription that Gary says is “one of the smartest ways” to invest in yourself, and you can get it for free.

You can get it for free as part of the “Unannounced Bonus” promo I am doing for my Copy Riddles program this week, which runs until this Sunday at 12 midnight PST.

For more info on Copy Riddles, or to invest in yourself before this deal disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

This kind of email drives more sales than the average

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Here’s a free marketing tip for you:

If people are buying, it makes sense to advertise the fact.

In the many promos I’ve run within this email newsletter, I’ve always found that when I write an email in which I share a message from someone who’s just taken me up on the promo offer, it drives more sales than your average sales email.

As an example:

Since Monday, I have been running a little promo, the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle, for my original 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

That promo is ending today at 12 midnight PST.

The whole idea behind the promo has been to pile on the bonuses. The little time I’ve had to write emails has been eaten up by spelling out what exactly people get inside the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle.

And so, though people have been buying, I haven’t had time to advertise that fact. Lemme fix that now. Here are a few messages I got from readers who took me up on this offer over the past 24 hours.

First, from email marketer Logan Hobson, who lives in Japan:

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Alright John,

I got 5 copies of “Book” coming to Japan.

Yes, even though I could have ordered them from Japanese Amazon and gotten free shipping with Prime (which is cheaper here than in the US), rankings and sales on the US Amazon have more impact for you so I ordered them from my US Amazon account.

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Second, from copywriter and marketing consultant Chuck Gibson:

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John,

Receipt attached.

I, of course, already have the book, but not printed copies. But it’s the bonus intrigue that hooked me. Very interesting offer.

And a cool way to get your Amazon sales up. Now I have copies to give to certain protégés.

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And third, from a reader who I’m guessing doesn’t want me to share his name:

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Alright, you got me. This is the worst possible time for me to spend any more money since I have to go on a multi-country trip in 45 days and gotta save as much as possible.

Frankly I don’t even KNOW what I’ll do with every book, Maybe leave one in every Airbnb I stay at as a parting gift? That would be funny but anyway, your bonuses are always amazing and they will be great companions for all the travels.

===

As a result of the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle and of dedicated readers and customers like the above, the paperback copy of my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters has jumped from an Amazon book ranking of 1,016,096 at the start of the promo to a current ranking of 75,795.

In the process, it’s leapfrogged such industry standards as Mark Ford and John Forde’s Great Leads, Brian Kurtz’s Overdeliver, and Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Direct Marketing.

So much for the education/demonstration part of this email. Now for the sales.

Like I said, the chance to get the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle ends tonight. If you have taken me up on this offer, check the bonus area I gave you access to, and you will find the following:

#1. Copywriting Portfolio Secrets (Price last sold at: $97)

In this training, I show you how to build up your copywriting portfolio in the fastest and most efficient way, so you can start to win copywriting jobs even today. I show you the best way I’ve found to win 4- and 5-figure jobs I REALLY wanted, even when I wasn’t qualified for them, and how you can do it too.

I previously sold this training for $97. But it’s yours free inside the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle, which also includes my…

#2. No-Stress Negotiation For Well-Paid Copywriters (Price last sold at: $100)

This guide outlines my 7-part negotiating system, which I adapted from negotiation coach Jim Camp. This system kept me sane while I still regularly interviewed and worked with copywriting clients. Follow these seven principles, and you will end up making more money, working with better clients, and being able to stick to it for the long term.

I only offered this information before as part of the $100 Copy Zone guide, which also featured….

#3. How To Get Set Up On Upwork

This free bonus is an excerpt from a short self-published book I wrote once, How to Become a $150/Hr Sales Copywriter on Upwork: A Personal Success Story that Almost Anyone Can Replicate. It tells you how to actually get set up on Upwork — the details of your profile page, your description, your title.

If you combine this bonus with the two bonuses above — Copywriting Portfolio Secrets and No-Stress Negotiation — you have a great shot of winning a job on Upwork by the end of this week, or even today.

#4. Dan’s Timeless Wisdom (priceless, or $25k+)

Between August of 2019 and March 2020, I was in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group. As you might know, Dan started out as a star copywriter at The Motley Fool, and went on to become one of the most successful, most winning, big-money direct response copywriters working today.

Inside his coaching group, Dan dispensed copy critiques, marketing advice, and mystical koans to help his coaching students get to the next level.

At some point, I had the bright idea to start archiving the best and most valuable things that Dan was saying. I got 25 of them down, and they are all included in this document.

(By the way, I never tallied up the exact and rather painful amount of money I paid Dan for the coaching. It was north of $25k. I do know I made it all back, and then some, in just the first two months after I stopped with the coaching, thanks to just one tip I got from Dan.)

#5. Copy Riddles Lite (Price last sold at: $97)

Copy Riddles Lite includes one of the 20 rounds included in my full Copy Riddles program. The round is composed of two parts, in which you practice writing sales bullets, and compare what you wrote to what Mel Martin (as well as several other A-list copywriters) wrote starting with the same prompt.

Do this, and you very quickly realize how much skill went into Mel Martin’s bullets. Fortunately, you also very quickly manage to leech some of that skill from Mel Martin, without spending the months and years of agony it took him.

And once you get a taste for Martin’s skill, then the next step is natural:

#6. “How to Turn Fascinations into Fortunes: Copywriting Secrets To Fascinate, Captivate, And Dominate” (Price last sold at: $97)

Lawrence Bernstein, “the world’s most obsessed ad archivist,” once hunted down a collection of all of Mel Martin’s million-dollar ads for Boardroom, along with other control-beating ads Martin had written for the New York Times book division.

Lawrence then printed out the ads, stuffed them in an envelope, and mailed the collection to Marty Edelston, the founder and CEO of Boardroom.

Did Edelston get a kick out of seeing those old ads that helped build up Boardroom? He sure did.

Marty Edelston was so grateful for these ads that he sent Lawrence a thank-you note, along with a check for $2,000.

If you’d like to see these ads yourself, and study them, and model them for selling your own products, then Lawrence put them together into a collection he called “Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes.”

Lawrence got $2,000 as a thank you for putting together this collection of ads. He then sold this collection for $97.

But you don’t have to pay $2,000, or even $97 for “Fascinations Into Fortunes.”

I’ve made a special deal with Lawrence so you can get “Fascinations Into Fortunes” free, along with Copy Riddles Lite, as part of the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle.

#7. “How I made an extra $1404.53/month in Amazon royalties at the push of a button”

This report outlines a hack, which involves the push of a button — literally, that’s all there is to it — and which made me an extra ~$1.5k per month in Amazon royalties. I used this hack once, over the span of a few months, or rather a few weeks. I made money with it. And I never used it again.

I’m not saying anybody else should use this hack. I’m not saying anybody else should NOT use it either.

All I’m willing to do is to tell you what this hack is, why I’m no longer using it myself, and how you can try it out yourself, if you so choose, to make easy money off Amazon.

And that’s it.

Those seven bonuses, with a real-world value of $386, counting just what they sold for previously, are what you get if you’ve already taken me up on the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle.

And if you haven’t yet taken me up on it, here’s how you can:

1. Get five (5) paperback copies of my original 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

2. Forward me your Amazon receipt.

I will then set you up with the Buttered-Up Bonus Bundle.

The deadline is tonight at 12 midnight PST. After that, no more bonuses — I am merciless about this. To get in while the doors are still open:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The dark side of social proof

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Here’s a story of a lovely refund:

Some time ago, I promoted an affiliate offer. As with all affiliate offers I promote, I made sure it’s a great offer I can fully get behind.

A guy from my list, somebody who regularly replied to my emails but never bought anything, bought this offer via my affiliate link. Then a few days later, he refunded it.

That’s part of the deal. Sometimes people buy, and if you offer a money back guarantee, sometimes they refund.

The following however is not part of the deal:

That refunding customer started writing me emails. First he explained that the course he bought didn’t have that “wow factor” and that’s why he refunded. He also asked what I would have done in the same situation?

In a future email, he complained that the course creator wasn’t replying to emails and inquiries quickly enough.

And finally, once the refunding reader got his refund, he claimed he couldn’t see the money landing in his bank account (even though the money was refunded as per ThriveCart). He kept writing me updates about the supposedly pending refund for a couple months.

Maybe the point of my story is not really clear, so let me spell it out:

The point is social proof.

People take an action or make a decision.

They then have to create the reality for themselves that this was the right thing to do.

And since we are social animals, that means getting others to agree with us and feed that back to us, otherwise it’s not really real.

That’s what I felt was going on here. This refunding customer seemed to have no rancor for me for promoting an offer that he decided to refund. Quite the opposite. He was writing me messages for months, trying to get me in some way to agree that either the course or the course creator were to blame, and that he was right in his decision.

Maybe you know the famous story of a UFO cult who was expecting a UFO to land in Chicago on Dec 21 1954, and whisk away the believers before a huge tidal wave wiped out the face of the Earth.

December 21 came and went. No UFO came. No tidal wave came either.

The UFO cult was headed by a woman named Dorothy Martin. She was in contact with the aliens via automatic writing (and sometimes over the phone).

In the hours after the supposed UFO arrival failed to materialize, Martin got the message that the aliens had decided to spare the Earth because of the good work of the UFO cult in spreading the word.

But here’s the really curious thing:

The UFO cult, which until then had been very secretive, very hostile to publicity, very closed to outsiders, suddenly went on a PR blitz, announcing to the world the good news. It was no longer enough for the cultists to be in direct contact with powerful aliens who had decided to spare the Earth from destruction — everybody else had to know about it too.

So that’s the dark side of social proof. We don’t just rely on others’ experiences to help guide our beliefs and decisions. We also seek to convince others that our beliefs and past experiences are right.

That’s all I got for you today. I realize it’s a somehow nasty thing to talk about, a bit destabilizing and inhuman. A positive way to spin it is that our reality is co-created with others, and that you have the opportunity to impact and guide that.

Anyways, if you want to see social proof in action, I’ve got about six pages’ worth of it below in the form of testimonials, creating a reality that my Daily Email Habit is a wonderful service, maybe the best service in the world, at least if you have an email list. I believe it, and I really want you to believe it too, so please click through and start reading:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

No response

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Here’s an idea that I’ve found to be true:

If you do a good job getting people to consume and digest your content all the way through, it’s much easier to get great testimonials, ones you can actually feature because they say something substantive, and because they have a real shot of converting others as well.

I bring this up because last night, a copywriter named Pete, who’s been on my list for a while and who has already bought a few of my previous offers, signed up for my 3rd Conversion training, all about consumption and digestion.

When I asked Pete why, and what he’s hoping to get from the training, he replied:

===

Reason I joined is, because I’ve done a few workshops in the past few months that I’ve repurposed as content to sell.

Some people bought, but when I send emails to them to get feedback I get no response.

Which I’m assuming is because they haven’t gone through it.

If they thought it sucked, I’m certain I would hear about it. As negative people usually have something to say lol

===

I’m not sure if people who think an offer sucked usually have something to say about it. I know I like to keep my mouth shut and just go elsewhere.

I’m not saying that’s what happened in Pete’s case, and there’s no reason to think so based on his message.

But I do know what I told you above:

If you do a good job getting people to consume and digest your content, it becomes much easier to get great testimonials, or at least feedback and response of some sort.

And as an example of that, I can tell you that last month, Pete bought my Most Valuable Emails and the stripped-down version of Simple Money Emails. When I wrote to him to deliver the courses, he replied:

===

I stayed up last night to binge read everything in MVE…

And all I have to say is, you’re not charging enough, dude.

After going through Copy Riddles and now MVE, and I’ll likely do the same with SME…

Everything you sell is solid.

Always grateful when I see one of your emails roll in.

===

Today, I’m not selling either Copy Riddles or MVE or SME, though of course if you’d like to give me money for those, you can.

Today, I’m simply trying to tell you it’s the last day to sign up for the 3rd Conversion training.

On the training, I will cover a small number of techniques, ones I’ve used and ones I’ve had used on me, to get people to actually go through your paid courses and ebooks and programs, ideally to the end.

I’m only charging $100 for this training. It’s probably not enough, but I’m doing it because frankly I want to organize this knowledge in my own head.

Doing it live, in front of an audience of people who are genuinely interested and can profit from it, is a good motivator for me.

In other words, money and sales are not main reason why I’m putting this training on.

That said, money and sales can be the main reason why you might want to join me on this training.

Everything in your business — from your ads to your emails to your sales pages (hello testimonials) — becomes much easier if people get value from what you deliver.

And in order for them to have any chance of getting value from what you deliver — beyond just the thrill of spending money on something — they have to consume and digest what you’re selling them.

The deadline to sign up for the 3rd Conversion training is tonight, Wednesday, at 12 midnight PST.

The training itself will happen on Zoom tomorrow, Thursday, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. There will be a recording which I will send out after the call, though if you can make it live, you and I both are sure to benefit more from it.

If you’d like to get in before the doors close:

​https://bejakovic.com/3rd-conversion​

Not even Cialdini could coax, talk, or shame a solution to this problem

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Towards the end of chapter 4 of Bob Cialdini’s book Influence, Cialdini shares a personal story that I want to share with you today.

I want to share this story with you because it serves my purpose.

But you might want to read this story because it can help you achieve your purpose as well.

Here goes:

Robert Cialdini, a world-famous expert in influence, persuasion, and communication, wanted to get his 3yo son to learn to swim without wearing an inflatable inner tube.

Each year, a bunch of kids in Arizona, where Cialdini lived, drowned in unattended pools. Cialdini wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen to his boy.

So he tried a direct appeal — “Let’s teach you how to swim, son.”

NO!!! was the response. ​​Cialdini’s kid liked water, but he was terrified of getting in without the inflatable inner tube.

No matter how Cialdini tried to “coax, talk, or shame” his 3yo son, the boy wouldn’t let go.

Fine. Cialdini hired a graduate student of his, who was also a lifeguard and swimming instructor, to get his son to learn to swim.

Nope. Once again, the kid refused.

Not even the lifeguard’s professional techniques could overcome the boy’s fear of swimming without the inflatable inner tube.

Fast forward a couple days. Cialdini’s kid was attending a day camp.

One day, as usual, Cialdini went to pick his son up. And he saw a shocking, never-before-seen sight:

His kid was running down the diving board at the pool. He reached the end of the diving board and jumped into the deep end. No inflatable inner tube.

Cialdini rushed over, ready to dive in the pool and to rescue his certainly drowning son.

Except the kid wasn’t drowning. He was swimming.

Cialdini was stunned. He helped his kid get out the pool. And he asked the boy how come he could finally swim without his inflatable plastic ring.

Response:

“Well, I’m 3 years old, and Tommy is 3 years old. And Tommy can swim without a ring, so that means I can, too.”

You can probably imagine a bright-red handprint on Cialdini’s forehead as he slapped himself upon hearing that.

Point being:

We’re all looking for some kind of confirmation that what we’re trying to do is actually possible.

Examples from others can help there. But in order for it to actually help, those others must have the same limitations we have.

If you’re 3 years old, it doesn’t help much to see a 26-year-old lifeguard swimming without an inflatable plastic ring. But when you see 3-year-old Tommy do it, then that means something.

And now to my purpose:

If you are not yet writing daily emails for your personal brand, or if you are not yet successful with it, then next Thursday I’m putting on a workshop called Daily Email Fastlane.

A key part of this workshop will be the common elements I’ve seen among three daily emailers I have coached over the past 18 months.

​​These three coaching students have stood out to me in terms of the money they make, the stability of their income, and simply in how much they seem to enjoy their business and their life.

My claim is that seeing inside these guys’ businesses can help you overcome your own self-imposed or real limitations.

​​Because among these these three daily emailers, you can find at least one who has faced the kinds of problems that you might be facing now:

– a small list
– an unpromising niche
– leads without money
– imposter syndrome
– a genuine lack of credibility

And yet, these three guys turned out successful. Maybe seeing their examples can make you successful also, and quickly so.

If you’d like to join me for this workshop to try it for yourself, here’s where to dive in:

https://bejakovic.com/daily-email-fastlane