Psychology Behind Advertising

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

“Experts are scoffing”: How to manufacture proof out of thin air

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This past January, I kicked off the Insights & More Book Club. Every two months, we read a book specifically because it’s likely to be insightful and offer a change of perspective.

After I announced ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛, the first book club book, Insights & More member Folarin Madehin wrote me to say:

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I don’t know if you know about this already, but here’s one relevant thing that came to mind… I think will interest you (certainly fascinated me):

The mass community response to the archeology community response to the Netflix show Ancient Apocalypse.

Here’s an article that reps the archeologists’ side. [link to an article on Artnet]

Here’s a twitter thread that reps the “masses” side. [link to a thread by the show’s producer]

Basically–the ‘experts’ say “thing wrong!” … and the ‘masses’ say “experts say thing wrong? Proves thing right!” … and of course–the show producer does a great job aligning himself with the masses and using this to his marketing advantage.

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So there you go. That’s how to manufacture proof out of thin air. “If they’re trying to suppress it, it must be valuable, and it must be true, regardless of what it is.”

Tonight, as this email goes out, I and the other members of the Insights & More Book Club will have our bimonthly book club call, to discuss the second book we’ve been reading, ⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛, and to just have an exchange of ideas and questions in a kind of easy and low-pressure mastermind.

After tonight, we will get going with the next Insights & More book. For reasons of proof and intrigue, I won’t publicly reveal the title of that book, but I will tell you it maps to ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛.

I only open up the Insights & More Book Club to new members every two months, as we are starting a new book.

I figure it doesn’t make sense to have somebody join mid way, when they won’t have time to actually read the book.

Right now, and for the next four days, as we are starting a new book, the doors to the Insights & More Book Club are slightly ajar.

If you’d like to join, you will have to be on my email list first.

Expert marketers and copywriters scoff and say my list is all fake. But maybe you can make up your own mind. To try it out, click here and fill out the form that appears.

Discipline in print

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Last night, I got a 4-word reply to my email about how quickly memory fails. A reader with a pseudonymous email address replied with just the following aimless question:

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John How r u?

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I got out my 3-ring binder of previous reader replies. I flipped through the pages in search of this reader’s email address. Sure enough, at the bottom of page 22, I found it. This reader had written me before. On January 24 of this year, in response to an email about teaching people to value your offer, this reader had written me to say:

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Who the fuck do you think you are?

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Now I remembered. I even wrote an email about that reply back in January.

Back then, I decided to keep this guy or gal on my list because 1) I don’t get many abusive replies from readers, and I’m more amused than bothered when it does happen and 2) I thought this reader might provide me fodder for an email in the future. That’s just what happened.

I proactively unsubscribed my “How r u” reader last night. Again, not because I was annoyed or bothered by the pointless reply.

“How r u” reader simply became a noble sacrifice to demonstrate an immensely important and fundamental point about all marketing, and in particular, about email marketing.

I honestly cannot overstate the importance of the following point. Even more so if you’re somebody like me — far from a born marketer, salesman, or promoter, and coming from a rather permissive and lax family background.

The point is this:

A key to all marketing, and perhaps the key to email marketing, is to train your audience.

Once upon a time, when I was very naive, I thought marketing was simply about getting the word out about what you have. “Whole frozen turkey, 16 lbs., $25.91. Walmart.”

Later, I figured out that marketing actually changes people — creates new desires, habits, beliefs. “Welcome to Marlboro country.”

But for some reason — again, I’m far from a born marketer or salesman – it took me a long, long while to connect the fact that 1) if you are creating marketing and 2) since marketing changes people then 3) you should consciously create marketing that changes people in a way that suits you.

This is what I mean when I say, train your audience. Tell ’em what to do. Reward those who do it. Punish those who don’t. And make an example of ’em.

100 years ago, John E. Kennedy said marketing is salesmanship in print.

Today, John E. Bejakovic is telling you, marketing is discipline in print.

Of course, maybe you don’t agree with me. Maybe you think I’m saying something offensive or crude or just wrong. In that case, I invite you to write in and tell me so. I promise to read what you write me, and to reply as politely and thoughtfully as I know how. Perhaps publicly.

In any case, let’s get on to the discipline:

For the past couple days, I’ve been talking about a group coaching program I’m planning for the future. The goal of this coaching program is to get people writing daily emails, regularly and well.

Right now, if you’re interested, you can get on the waiting list for that program. The waiting list is the only place I will make this program available.

And as I say on the optin page for the waiting list:

If you do sign up to the waiting list, you will get automated email from me with a few questions. Answering those questions will take all of two minutes, but it will give me valuable information to see whether this group coaching could actually be right for you. Please reply to that email within 24 hours with your answers. I will take anyone who doesn’t do this off the waiting list.

So far, a good number have signed up for the waiting list and have written me in reply to that automated email. I wrote back to each of them individually to say thanks.
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​But a few people have signed up to the waiting list, and then failed to reply to the automated email within 24 hours.

Maybe they changed their minds about the coaching. Maybe they simply forgot. Maybe they were testing me.

Whatever the reason may be, I took them off the waiting list, and I prevented them from getting back on. They might be fine people, but they are clearly not good prospects for a strict coaching program, which is what I intend for this program to be.

If you’re interested in this coaching program, then the first step is to get on my email list. Click here to do so.

I bet you already knew what I’ll write about in this email

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Last night I went to see Air, the new Ben Affleck movie about how Nike signed Michael Jordan.

Air is a typical rousing Hollywood stuff — a scrappy underdog does what it takes to win. It was fun to watch, but as the movie neared its emotional climax, I started to feel a kind of gnawing in my stomach.

I kept thinking, “This is it? This is what life is all about?”

A bunch of overworked, overweight, aging people in an office, hollering and high-fiving each other and gazing knowingly into each others’ eyes after their one triumph — getting a 21-year-old basketball player to agree to wear one kind of shoe instead of another kind of shoe?

But the movie is set in the 1980s. Maybe it reflects the corporate ideals of that era.

Anyways, let’s get back on track:

At the start of the movie, a convenience store clerk chats with the main character, played by Matt Damon. The clerk obviously knows a lot about basketball, and is sure Jordan won’t turn into anything big. The Matt Damon character is the only one who believes.

By the end of the movie, thanks to Matt Damon’s dogged believing, Nike signs Jordan in spite of impossible odds. Jordan immediately becomes a huge star. Nike goes on to sell a hundred million pairs of Air Jordans in the first year alone.

Matt Damon goes back to the convenience store and chats up the clerk again. The clerk nods his head. “I always knew Jordan would be a big thing,” he says.

“We all knew,” the Matt Damon character chuckles as he walks out the store.

As I’m sure you already knew, human memory is fallible. We forget, misremember, and flat-out make up stuff if it suits us and matches our sense of self.

You might think this only happens over the span of months or years, like it did with that convenience store clerk in Air.

But maybe you saw — and failed to remember — a new scientific study that went viral earlier this month. Scientists managed to show that people misremember stuff that happened as recently as half a second ago. And if the scientists stretched it out just a bit longer before asking — two seconds, three seconds — people’s memory became still worse and more inaccurate.

So my point for you, specifically for how you deal with yourself, is to write stuff down. Because you sure as hell won’t remember it.

And my point for you, specifically for how you deal with your prospects, is to keep reminding them, nudging them, and telling them the same thing you told them a million times before.

You rarely have people’s full attention. And even when you do have their full attention, they forget. Even if you just told them a second ago.

The only way your prospects are sure not to forget, and to maybe do what you want, is if you remind them today, tomorrow, the day after, and so on, hundreds of millions of Air Jordans into the future.

Which brings me to the group coaching I am planning. I first wrote about it yesterday. Now that I mention it, I’m sure you remember.

This planned group coaching is about email copywriting for daily emails — so you can remind your prospects of your offer over and over, in a way that they actually enjoy.

If you’re interested in this coaching, the first step is to get onto my email list. Click here to do that.