Symbols

If you want people to remember you

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My grandma is 92 years old. Yesterday I was talking to her. She got to saying how she is “counting down the days.”

​​Everybody of her generation who lived in her building — a 17-story brutalist skyscraper built in the 1960s — has already died.

“The last two died just recently,” she said. ​​”There was Marija, who was 94, and then there was that guy—” here she turned to my mother “—what was that guy’s name, the guy who liked fried chicken?”

I found this both cruel and hilarious. You live your whole life, even a very long life, and this is how people remember you — “the guy who liked fried chicken.”

It’s not because my grandmother’s memory is failing. At 92, the woman is still razor-sharp and has a much better memory than I ever had.

It’s simply how how mental imprint happens.

Unless there’s something notable, sound bite-worthy, legendary about you, and unless you repeat it often enough to make it stick in people’s heads, then people will pick something random to remember you by — if they remember you at all.

Maybe you don’t want to be remembered. Nothing wrong with that.

But if you are driven to have people remember you, and if you want to make it good, then take matters into your own hands.

A/B test different sound bites about yourself. When you hit upon one seems to resonate, that people feed back to you, then repeat it from here to eternity. Either that, or risk becoming “the guy who liked fried chicken.”

And on that note, let me remind you what I already said yesterday:

I’m now launching my Most Valuable Postcard #2. I’m selling it until tomorrow night at a 50% discount.

Most Valuable Postcard #2 covers a fundamental marketing topic. In fact, it’s a topic that I claim is the essence of marketing and copywriting.

Last night, Jeffrey Thomas from Goldmine.Marketing wrote me to say (some parts redacted):

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Finished reading #2 tonight.

And it was great.

I’ll read it again tomorrow.

Earlier today, before seeing this offer, I thought about [here Jeffrey named “the best copywriting guide ever written” according to a reclusive, bizarre, and yet highly successful financial copywriter]—wild to see it appear in this Postcard!

#2 reminds me that [here Jeffrey spelled out the counterintuitive idea at the end of Most Valuable Postcard #2, which a lot of marketers and copywriters struggle with, but which is true nonetheless].

Definitely some new tools to use. Much appreciated John.

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I redacted some parts of Jeffrey’s message above. For one thing, I want to keep those specifics behind the paywall. For another thing, I don’t think you really mind. Do you?

Anyways, Most Valuable Postcard #2 is available now, but only to people who are signed up to my email list. Maybe you don’t want to get on my email list. Nothing wrong with that. But if you do, here’s where to go.

It’s the thought that counts

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I’ve been living in Barcelona for the past six months, and it’s been more or less normal until a few weeks ago.

That’s when Christmas prep started, and things got bizarre.

I’ll tell you just one bizarre thing, and that’s the appearance of the poop log.

The poop log – aka caga tió — is literally that:

An actual wooden log, propped up on two wooden sticks for arms, with painted-on googly white eyes and a big smile, wearing a traditional red hat, covered with a little blanket for warmth — and for privacy.

Yes, for privacy. Read on.

The poop log goes in homes. It’s a Catalan tradition, the equivalent of the Christmas stocking that goes above the mantel in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic traditions.

Every night, kids are supposed to “feed” the poop log with sweets and dried fruit to fatten it up.

Then, on Christmas Eve, kids hit the poop log with a stick — gently and lovingly — and sing it a threatening little song, which apparently translates to:

“Shit, log, shit nougats, hazelnuts and mató cheese, if you don’t shit well, I’ll hit you with a stick, shit, log!”

No, I poop you not, this is all for real.

The beating and singing complete, the poop log relieves itself, and children lift up the bulging red blanket in the back to find the usual mess — candies, small toys, and other things I prefer not to write about.

Catalans laugh and wave their arms to try to explain away the poop log. But really, there is no explaining.

There’s just the fact that, when it comes to most things humans do, it’s really the thought that counts.

I mean, without being too vulgar about it, here they’ve managed to take a log, and one that shits, and turn it into a kind of cute and heartwarming winter tradition that brings the family together.

If they can sell that, imagine what you can do.

And with that thought, let me wish you a merry Christmas.

And now let me lift up the bulging blanket in the back.

​​Because if you thought you could get to the tail end of this email, and avoid the usual mess — well, Christmas is no time to stop selling. But it’s the thought behind the selling that counts.

​​So in case you want your nougats, hazelnuts and copy riddles, dig in here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

🧿

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Yesterday I was sitting at a restaurant on the side of the Barcelona cathedral, trying to learn to enjoy a vermouth, a popular drink here.

In front of me, a steady procession of tourists walked alongside the cathedral, some 40 yards away.

I was staring at them idly between the bittersweet sips of vermouth, when I saw him:

A pasty white man, somewhere between ages 30 and 50, with red hair, wearing Teva sandals, cargo shorts, and… a Wu-Tang t-shirt.

The fact is, the Wu-Tang symbol was what drew my eye first, even though I was sitting far away, and though the man was walking in a crowd.

​​The symbol made me instantly predisposed to like the guy and feel an affinity towards him. All the other unpromising details I noticed only later.

Just in case you don’t know the Wu-Tang Clan:

They are a hip hop group from the 90s that borrowed ideas and imagery from old kung fu movies. Their symbol is a large irregular W, split in two, with the words Wu-Tang in the middle of it.

Even if you’ve never seen the Wu-Tang symbol until now, now that I’ve told you about it, you’re likely to see it, on t-shirts and sweatshirts, as graffiti, or even as a tattoo.

Last week, I sent out an email about How To Speak by Patrick Winston. Winston was an MIT who for 40 years gave a talk on the essence of good communication, taken from his own methodical study of what works.

At one point, Winston presents the Winston star, a rather satanic symbol that encapsulates five characteristics of the most successful communication. All the five characteristics start with an “s”. And one of them, as you can probably guess, you clever sausage, is “symbol.”

And if Winston and his MIT credentials aren’t enough to convince you of the value and influential ability of symbols, then just think of every world religion, every influential brand, or hell, think of my Wu-Tang guy at the Barcelona cathedral.

And then, start thinking about how you could integrate a symbol into what you do.

I can’t give you much more advice than that. I’m not sure what makes for an effective symbol vs. an ineffective one, except the obvious things which apply to all good communication:

Your symbol should be simple. It should be distinct. ​​It should be recognizable, even from a distance of 40 yards away.

As an example, I picked a nazar, a design for an amulet to ward off the evil eye, for the symbol in my subject line today.

Oh and one more thing:

Your symbol should be repeated, over and over, everywhere, until it gets conditioned into people’s heads as the image that somehow represents your thing.

So for example, if I decided to use the nazar symbol above to represent my email audit offer (“ward off the evil lurking around your lukewarm daily emails and underperforming autoresponders…”), then I should also put the nazar on the consulting form I use to get new people to sign up.

Which is just what I’ve done.

​​In case you want to see it, or in case you have an email list and want my help warding off evil from it, you can do so here:

https://bejakovic.com/consulting