Psychology Behind Advertising

I challenge you to figure out what’s really going on in this email

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I wrote up the following email in a deliberate way.

If you can figure out what I did, and do the same regularly, it’s likely to be very valuable for you.

​​I challenge you to try and figure it out:

This past Sunday, I did my Simple Money Emails giveaway via Josh Spector’s newsletter. I also opened up the paid and related 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation for sign up.

One of first people to take me up on both offers was Dr. Stuart Marmorstein.

Stuart is the founder and developer of the Assisted Self Alignment Protocol™. He teaches Applied Kinesiology/Muscle Testing classes to people with doctorates in various healing arts. He also runs a thriving chiropractic business in Houston, and he writes a newsletter to his patients both to keep in touch and to keep future business flowing.

And right after deciding to buy a ticket for the 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation, Stuart wrote me to say:

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Thank you again for your generous offers. I took you up on the free ones AND the paid one that will help you recoup your ad spend and keep me from wasting mine later!

I’m not sure when your class is next Monday (I’m still currently in Central Time, U.S. and dreaming of being in Portugal). If the timing is right, I’ll be in the class live, otherwise I’ll catch you on the replay. I always get value from anything you write.

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You might think the point of this email is Stuart’s nice endorsement of me, and showing off his vote of confidence for the upcoming 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation.

And it absolutely is that. But there’s also something more going on in this email.

​​I’m also previewing some of the content I will cover in that 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation, specifically in Sin #7.

​​Because, like I promised you at the start, this email you’re reading does something specific and deliberate.

You might think it’s using the hypnotic word “try” above in my challenge.

But that’s not what I have in mind. ​​

You might think it’s just shameless teasing.

But that ain’t it either.

Maybe what I’m doing is obvious. Maybe it’s not.

​​Either way, it’s something I frequently see business owners, marketers, and professional copywriter not doing in their own emails, even though it’s directly tied to making sales more regularly, more easily, with fewer questions or objections about price, content, exceptions etc.

If you want to find out what I have in mind, then the deadline to sign up for 9 Deadly Email Sins is just two days from now, Sunday Aug 6, 2023 at 8:31pm.

The presentation will happen live, next Monday, Aug 7, at 8pm CET (Barcelona). That’s 7pm if you’re in Portugal, or dreaming of it… 2pm EST (New York)… and 11am PST (LA).

Some time after this 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation is over, I will bundle it up with Simple Money Emails, and sell it for $197, almost double what it costs now.

So if you want to keep yourself from pointlessly wasting your ad spend as well as your education budget… and if you want to confirm to yourself that you bested my challenge and figured out what I did deliberately in this email… then here’s where to get your ticket in time:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

Emily tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen

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Last Monday, Josh Spector’s assistant Emily sent me an email with an alarmist subject line:

“TIMELY: For The Interested Classified Ad Copy Needed”

I was annoyed Emily was pushing me for the ad copy, since there was still a week to go. But I wrote it up and sent it over, along with the link I wanted the ad to go to.

A message immediately shot back. Emily again:

“Thanks for sending your copy and link over. Unfortunately, I’m getting an error message when I click on your link:” — and then a screenshot of an error page on my site.

I rolled my eyes at Emily’s pickiness. Of course it takes you to an error page — I’m still working on it, it’s in draft status!

I took a deep breath and collected myself. I politely replied to Emily and explained the situation. The landing page was still under development. “I will have it ready by the time the ad runs,” I said at the end.

(Cue ominous music. Clouds gather on the horizon, and a sudden gust of cold wind blows the window open in my office, scattering papers everywhere.)

Fast forward to yesterday.

In the eleventh hour before my ad in Josh Spector’s newsletter, I finished all the stuff I needed for it, including that landing page.

I could finally take a break. I decided to set work aside completely for the rest of the day.

I was in the mountains with friends yesterday, so we went for a walk. We had lunch. I packed, and got ready for five-hour ride from the Pyrenees back to Barcelona.

(The dark clouds on the horizon have fully built up now, and they flash with lightning every few seconds. Ominous music swells to unbearably tense levels.)

It was almost time to get in the car and drive home. But even though I’d decided to ignore any work-related stuff for the rest of the day, my resolve broke down.

I impulsively checked my email.

It had been about a half hour since the ad in Josh’s newsletter went out — plenty of time for a bunch of new people to get on my list.

I opened my inbox. But instead of dozens or hundreds of “new subscriber” notifications, I saw…

“Aww dude, clicked that FTI link and it leads to an error page 😳“

“John, I took your offer on Josh’s newsletter but the link is throwing an error.”

“Just tried to get the course. It says that I dont have access to the page”

… plus a dozen or more such messages from existing subscribers, who I’d routed to Josh’s newsletter to get a free copy of my new course via the classified ad.

There’s no knowing how many potential new subscribers, who weren’t yet on my list, clicked on the ad and were taken to the wrong page, with no chance to opt in.

In my daily email yesterday, I jokingly predicted crippling electrical storms or perhaps a meteorite strike to sink my ad in Josh’s newsletter.

But I didn’t account for the real danger:

My own mule-like ability to run a $350 classified ad and genuinely include a wrong link inside of it, which is indeed what happened.

Emily tried to warn me. But I wouldn’t listen.

I double-checked my own link when I submitted the ad.

​​I checked it again when Emily told me it was taking her to the wrong page.

The link was wrong both times, and yet I hypnotized myself into believing it wasn’t.

What’s more, when I clicked on the link myself to test it, it took me to the wrong page. I saw that, but I told myself it was was a website caching issue. “No problem here. It will be ready in time!”

Conclusion:

Too blind… too self-assured… too ready to rationalize away any conflicting evidence.

(Finally, violent storm over, the clouds break. A single ray of sunlight shines through to the soaked and ravaged countryside.)

Almost miraculously, my colossal mistake turned out to be salvageable.

It took me all of two seconds to create a website redirect from the wrong page to the right page. Anybody who clicked on the ad after that would now be taken to the right landing page.

Sure enough, people immediately started signing up for the free course I am giving away via the ad.

And some also signed up for the paid upsell I am offering, 9 Deadly Email Sins. One person who signed up was Shawn Cartwright, the owner of TCCII, an online martial arts academy. Shawn wrote to say:

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Killer subject line and nice flex on the Pyrenees…

Also, killer offer… and something of real value to the business owners like me who love the idea of being copywriting experts but would rather create their products than perfect a sales page or email.

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Here’s why this 9 Deadly Sins training could be of real value to business owners like Shawn:​​​​

It’s the email equivalent of Emily writing to me and saying, “Uhhh, your link doesn’t work. Do you want to double check that?”

Over the past year, I’ve coached, taught, and consulted a few dozen business owners, course creators, coaches, marketers, and copywriters on their email marketing and email copy.

I’ve found that my feedback keeps coming back to 9 persistent mistakes. All 9 of these mistakes are easy and quick to fix. And yet they are widespread, costing people sales day after day.

Perhaps you’re sure that you could never write emails which blatantly violate the laws of good sense and effective salesmanship.

You’re probably right. You are probably not as ready to hypnotize yourself as I am… to dismiss conflicting evidence like I did… or to be over-confident that what you’re doing right now is just perfect, with zero chance of being improved.

​​But isn’t it worth finding out what these most common 9 Deadly Email Sins are, to be 100% sure you yourself are not falling prey to them?

In case that’s got you wondering, here are the full details of this training, which will happen live, next Monday, August 7:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

The world’s most handsome email marketer gives me some unsolicited advice

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Two days ago, I started promoting Steve Raju’s ClientRaker training, about getting richer, nicer, classier clients using AI and LinkedIn.

Reader Fotis Chatz, who writes for Ning Li and positions himself as the “World’s Most Handsome Email Marketer” on LinkedIn, bought ClientRaker yesterday.

​​But being excessively handsome is not enough for Fotis. So he wrote in to give me some unsolicited advice about my launch:

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Just bought it.

Your story about him using A.I. is what “got” me. I’m already using FB with a lil bit of success, curious to see what I can do on Linkedin.

Btw, have you considered creating a bonus specifically for this offer? We did it a lot when I was working with Igor (Kheifets). We’d promote an affiliate offer and either give a product of ours that would cover something missing from the offer, or create something from scratch. Great way to make way more sales and win some affiliate leaderboards.

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What Fotis wrote might be unsolicited advice but it’s welcome advice — because I happen to agree 100%. I’m all for creating valuable bonuses, whether for my own offers or for affiliate offers.

I didn’t do it in this case because 1) I’m swamped with other work and 2) because I believe ClientRaker is so attractive that it will sell on its own.

That said, I might create a bonus in the future if Steve ever offers ClientRaker again and if I promote it again. I’ve had several ideas for what I could do, including a training based on the Authority Audits I’ve been doing this week, or another on how to feel comfortable asking for more money.

If that stirs you a bit, I can guarantee you this:

Every time I’ve offered a bonus for an offer, I made sure to also send it to everyone who bought that offer before I did the bonus.

I want to make it a brain-dead simple certainty in your mind that won’t ever be harmed by taking me up on any of my offer early. But you can certainly be harmed by taking me up on an offer late.

In the current situation, if you wait to take me up on this offer, you can miss the current launch window. You may scoff — but life has a way of getting in the way.

And if life does do that, it might mean you won’t be able to get ClientRaker ever — there’s no guarantee Steve will offer it again since he also has lots of things going on and doesn’t need this extra bit of money.

Or you might have to pay more. Because if Steve does run ClientRaker again, I will use all my persuasive skill to get him to double or triple the price.

And most importantly, you will miss out on any new clients you could very conceivably get just by following the simple, paint-by-number instructions Steve lays out inside this training.

If you actually do what Steve tells you to do, and you win yourself a new client or two in the next month that you wouldn’t have otherwise, that can legitimately be worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to you — depending on who you work with and what you deliver.

Point being, if you’re considering ClientRaker, it can make sense to get it now rather than wait. The following page has the full details if you want some help making that decision:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

I don’t beg pardon for good results, and you don’t have to either

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Yesterday, I made a new offer, Authority Audit. One of the first people to take me up on it wrote:

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You really know your audience (or at least it seems like you’re reading my mind.) This is exactly what I’ve been thinking about, to the point of even redoing all my optins and email sequences. But I know I should be getting way more out of what I got… so thank you for the offer.

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The fact is, I got more people ordering these Authority Audits than I really want to do. I certainly don’t want still more. So I closed the offer down, even sooner than I expected to.

Yes, I’m telling you this to build up my own standing and authority. I’m also telling you as a permission slip in case you need it.

If you got good results, don’t beg pardon for them. Tell your prospects about your results to help them make up their own minds. Take away their confusion and uncertainty, so they themselves can get some of those good results in the future.

But what if you don’t got results yet? One dude interested in the Authority Audit wrote:

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Would this go well for someone that’s starting from scratch?

for a background:

Hated social media and only started one to build some sort of “inbound” system of client acquisition

my plan to write articles and content a la Chris Orzechowski but I’ve yet to find what value is and how to define it.

this is the only concern I have as you’ve proven to be the best at what you do.

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I replied to say that, in his case, there wouldn’t be much for me to review or audit.

I also told him that next week, I will be promoting an offer that might be a better fit — a new training (not my own) for getting clients. For figuring out exactly what value you offer. For defining it in exactly your prospect’s words. So you can start getting leads, clients, results, even if you don’t got ’em yet.

But that’s next week.

For today, I have a little authority- and status-building tip for you.

It’s hidden inside my Most Valuable Email course, as an aside.

​​It has nothing to do with the actual training of the course. Rather it’s something that’s been valuable to me, and so I decided to take a little aside while talking about the MVE trick to share it with people who buy the course.

It’s a little habit you can start today, and tomorrow, to transform how you see yourself and how potential clients and customers see you. It’s something I wish somebody had told me years ago, when I was just starting out. And it’s something that amplifies, rather than clashes with, that client-getting training I will be promoting next week.

​​In case you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Announcing: Authority Audit

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I’m reading a book called The Charterhouse of Parma. It was written in 1838 by a guy named Stendhal, who Friedrich Nietzsche called the “last great psychologist.”

​​The Charterhouse of Parma is all about the love affairs and political intrigues at the court of Parma.

​​Two of the main characters are aging count Mosca, who is the prime minister, and his lover, the beautiful and clever duchess Sanseverina.

​​The two plan on running away from their problems in Parma to live in peace in Naples — but they won’t really have much money if they run away. To which the count rightly tells the duchess:

“It will never be the luxury, greater or less, in which we live, that will insure our position; it will be the pleasure the clever folk of the place may find in drinking a cup of tea in your drawing room.”

I wrote this down because I really think it’s true. It’s good to have the trappings of success, and no doubt they will buy you some standing. But it’s poor gruel compared to the endorsement and approval of people who already have standing.

I’ve got a new offer for you today. It’s cheap. I won’t keep it up long. It’s called the Authority Audit.

Over the past year I’ve consulted and coached a few dozen business owners, course creators, coaches, marketers, and copywriters. I’ve found that my feedback on their personal marketing often comes back to the same few fundamental mistakes.

One of these fundamental mistakes is insufficient authority, status, standing. Not in reality usually, but as presented in the marketing itself.

So my offer with the Authority Audit is that I look at who you are and how you present that to the world. And I tell you where you are falling short on the status and authority part. I tell you how you can use what you’ve already got to look much more authoritative. I tell you how you can quickly build up more status to plug up any holes you might actually have.

Like I said, I’m making this offer cheap, $100. You might say that’s a mistake, and that it’s working against my own status and authority. To which I would say — you’re absolutely right.

The reason why the Authority Audit is so cheap is that I want to take what I might tell you and apply it more consciously myself. Because I too am guilty of the same mistakes often.

I’m also planning to create a more in-depth, much more expensive training about this later. And I plan to use any Authority Audits I perform as material for that future training.

I won’t be offering the Authority Audit long, 2-3 days max, and I will close it off without any ceremony and announcement. I also won’t go into detail here as to how it will be organized and delivered.

That’s why I suggest you only get the Authority Audit if you suspect that you’re not doing a good job convincing the world you are somebody… if you can afford $100 right now… and if you already trust me.

​​If all three are true of you, you can order your Authority Audit here:

https://desertkite.thrivecart.com/authority-audit/

How to relax resisting bodies and minds

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I went to the gym just now, and I tried to do something like the splits.

I sat myself down on the mat. I splayed my legs out. But instead of the necessary 180 degrees, which is what the splits call for, my legs only went about 90 degrees. “The squares, not the splits,” they said to me. “That’s all we’re doing today.”

I tried negotiating with my legs, both together and individually. “No,” they kept saying in unison. “No means no.”

But where persuasion won’t work, force will.

So I put my fists on the insides of my thighs. Instead of trying to spread my legs ever wider, I squished my legs in towards each other, against the resistance of my fists.

I kept this up for about ten seconds. I then relaxed for a moment. And I tried the splits again. Result?

Of course I didn’t manage it. But this time, instead of just 90 degrees, I got noticeably further, 98, maybe 100 degrees.

That’s a little trick I learned a long time ago from Pavel Tsatsouline’s book Relax Into Stretching.

As you, might know, Pavel’s legend is that he was formerly a fitness instructor for the Soviet Special Forces. He loves to use the word “comrade” in his training videos and to cite Soviet-era exercise science to back up weird body tricks.

Such as [imagine it with a Russian accent]: “Contract-relax stretching is documented to be at least 267% more effective than conventional relaxed stretching!”

But it’s not just the body that works this way. The mind does too.

There’s a way to bring people into hypnosis called the Dave Elman induction. A part of it is the usual, “close your eyes, relax” guidance from the hypnotist.

Except once your eyes are closed, the hypnotist tells you, ​​​”Open your eyes. Now close your eyes again and relax twice as deeply as before… Now open your eyes. And close your eyes again and relax even more deeply…”

It’s called fractionation, and it’s supposed to be a reliable technique to bring people into deeper and deeper trance.

Does it really work?​
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Test it out yourself and see. The next time you’re at the gym… or in bed as you’re trying and failing to fall asleep… or perhaps the next time you’re writing a sales email.

And now imagine click below to my Most Valuable Email sales page, and reading all the fascinating and curious things I promise in the headline…

No no, stop imagining. Come back to earth or at least back to this email.

Now imagine that fascination and curiosity building up to an almost unbearable level as you make your way down the sales page…

Seriously stop it. Stop imagining being so fascinated and curious. It’s off-putting.

Except wouldn’t it be fascinating and curious to finally find out what the Most Valuable Email trick is? Of course it would. Here’s where to go to get it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Simple strategy to build your status, turn readers into advocates, and create a content flywheel

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Yesterday, I wrote an email about true magic, in which I promoted my Most Valuable Email course right at the top. I got a reply to that email from reader Jakub Červenka:

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John, I hope you are selling tons of mves.

Had I not bought it already, I would now, just as a thank you for many clever ways how you pitch it.

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Perhaps you skimmed across Jakub’s message just now, without really reading. I hope you didn’t. But even if you did, well…

I always thought that when people write emails featuring a reader comment, it’s all about being 1) pressed for time, because it’s easy to write an email that’s mostly a reader reply, and 2) self-serving, because the reader comment is usually a testimonial or an endorsement of some sort.

And no doubt, both of those are good reasons to regularly feature reader comments in your emails.

But there are other good reasons, too.

For one, it shows off you have readers. Don’t scoff.

Lots of people who write a newsletter don’t have any readers, particularly readers who are engaged enough to reply. So if you do have ’em, and can prove it, it builds your status and authority, independent of the content of the actual reply you got.

For two, it acknowledges and recognizes the reader who wrote in. It’s nice to see your name in print, going out to thousands of people, even if it’s just in an email.

Plus, it can give the reader added benefits. I’ve had Ben Settle featured something I wrote him in one of his emails, and people found me and signed up to my list as a result.

Point being, featuring a reader’s reply can benefit that reader in different ways, making it more likely he sticks around and becomes an advocate, not just a reader or customer.

For three, it encourages more responses in the future. This contributes to all the other benefits I listed above.

I could go on. But if you weren’t convinced by three arguments, what are the odds you will be convinced by a fourth? Slim.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, perhaps you too are in the daily race to find clever ways to pitch your offers. And perhaps you find yourself writing things that are a little too dry and literal. Perhaps you don’t even have any readers replying to your emails yet. If so, here’s a way to fix it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

How to cut your unsubscribes almost in half

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In this email, I’ll write about an idea you’re probably heard before. It might not be anything new to you. In fact, you might not want to read this email at all.

Yesterday I was talking to a coaching client. He recently took over the management of an email list with 50k subscribers.

That’s my preferred position, by the way — a kind of Harry Hopkins-like figure, a back-end advisor and scheme man rather than a front-facing figurehead.

​​Unfortunately I can’t do that with my own emails. Still, I continue to write this newsletter simply because I find the practice so personally valuable.

But back to the coaching call. My coaching client took over the management of this sizable list, and he started sending more regular emails.

At first, he put a paragraph at the top of these emails, warning his audience they would be getting emails more often, along with a link in case they wanted to unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe link right at the start of the email. Result? 50-60 unsubscribes each time.

He then took that paragraph out. Just the usual unsubscribe link left at the end of the email. Result? The unsubscribes jumped to 100.

That’s the idea I warned you about at the start. You’ve probably heard it before.

Really, it’s a tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme. But these days, it mostly gets attributed to Jim Camp’s book Start With No.

Says Camp, never take away your adversary’s right to say no. In fact, go out of your way, make a show, above and beyond, to assure your adversary you respect his or her right to say no. And mean it.

Camp was a negotiator in billion-dollar deals.

In other words, this isn’t just about cutting your unsubscribes. It’s also about making more sales and making more deals. And most importantly, it’s about continuing a valuable relationship into the future.

I’ve repeatedly promoted my Most Valuable Email course in these emails.

Perhaps you’ve decided this course is not for you. Perhaps you’re just not interested in it. That’s fine.

Otherwise, if you’d like more information about Most Valuable Email, you can find it here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

I thought “fake news” was stupid but this is not

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A few weeks ago, I was reading an article about Ozempic, the diabetes drug that celebs are using to lose weight quick and easy. The article appeared in the New Yorker, which is not ashamed of its left-leaning proclivities.

One of the points in the article is that the main harm from obesity is negative perception both by doctors and obese people. In other words, it’s not the fat that’s the real problem.

​​To make its point, the article used the following statistics sleight-of-hand, which put a smile on my face:

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A recent study examined subjects’ B.M.I.s in relation to their blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and insulin resistance. Nearly a third of people with a “normal” B.M.I. had unhealthy metabolic metrics, and nearly half of those who were technically overweight were metabolically healthy. About a quarter of those who were classified as obese were healthy, too.

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A few years ago, there was a lot of fuss over fake news. I always thought that fuss was stupid. Predictably, it has passed now.

I’m not advising anyone to write fake news or to make up stuff.

But you can and in fact you must spin. You must twist facts and figures, cherry pick quotes and stories, and direct and misdirect your readers’ attention at every step.

Not only to make your point, like in that “metabolically unhealthy” quote above.

But also to give people what they want. I mean, I read the New Yorker because I find the articles interesting and horizon-expanding. But I also read it because I enjoy agreeing with the writers’ points of view, and I enjoy even more disagreeing with their point of view.

I hope I’ve managed to get you to disagree with at least some of the points I’ve made in this email.

But if I’ve just managed to make you agree, I’ll have to settle for that today. Tomorrow, I’ll work to do better.

That’s the beauty of writing a daily email. You have a chance to constantly get better at influencing your audience, and to make your case anew, and to get people to agree or disagree with you. If you want to keep agreeing or disagreeing with me, starting tomorrow, you can sign up to my daily email newsletter here.

I am wired for story… from a trusted, liked, famous source

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A non-personal but true story:

Late into his career escape artist Harry Houdini started cutting some corners in his stage show.

Houdini was injured and physically exhausted, and it was hard to put in the same level of shoulder-dislocating, suffocating, skin-tearing escapes he used to put on.

Sure, Houdini still did some of that, but he minimized it. Instead, he filled up the empty time on stage with some magic tricks and with talking. About himself.

One viewer was shocked and disgusted.

This viewer was the newspaper critic for the local paper in Nottingham, England. So rather than simply firing off an outraged email to Houdini to say how the show isn’t as good as it used to be and to demand to be unsubscribed, this critic wrote up the following review and published it in his paper:

“Why on earth should Houdini imagine that any audience would be entertained by hearing a long and uncalled-for account of what he has been doing during the past six years… people go to a vaudeville house to see a performance… not to hear a diatribe on the personal pronoun around ‘the story of my life, Sir.”

Truly, who would want to hear a diatribe on the personal pronoun? Certainly not the critic.

​​But the audience?

Turns out Houdini broke all attendance and earnings records that year. He earned the highest salaries of his career, pulling down $3,750 a week — about $60,000 a week in today’s money.

Now at this point your brain might jump ahead and conclude, That’s the power of personal stories and reveals! Almost $60k a week! Let me get on it!”

But I’ve made the point before, and I will make it again:

Nobody cares about your stories and personal reveals. Not unless you already have real authority and even fame.

When Houdini changed up his show to be more personal and story-based, he had already been performing his stage show for decades. He didn’t change the core of his show during that time, and it’s probably a good thing. It’s what the crowds wanted and expected.

But then Houdini went to Hollywood. He made a couple of hugely successful movies, rubbed shoulders with Hollywood celebrities, and became a truly international star himself, beyond just the vaudeville stage.

That’s when people wanted to hear Houdini’s stories and the details of his personal life — and that’s what he was talking about on the stage. As Houdini himself put it, “Blame it all on the fact I have been successfully in the movies.”

So tell your stories and share your vulnerabilities — after you’re known and respected and even admired. People will love it then.

Before then?

Well, before then you might be interested in my Most Valuable Email training.

Most Valuable Emails never required I have any status or authority.

These emails make it 100% clear I know what I’m talking about, even when I don’t harp on about the great results I’ve had for clients or the testimonials or endorsements I’ve gotten.

As a result, Most Valuable Emails helped me build up immediate and unquestionable authority — even when I had no standing in the industry. ​​

And I claim Most Valuable Emails can do the same for you. In case you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/mve