Teasing

1-Person Advertorial Agency: Sold out after two emails

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I got an email this morning:

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Hey John,

I just want to confirm whether the link failed or if the workshop is full.

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That’s in reference to the 1-Person Advertorial Agency workshop, which I started promoting yesterday and stopped promoting yesterday, because it filled up faster than reservations at Les Grands Buffets, when they open up once a season.

In other words, the workshop registration is now closed. You cannot pay to get into this training any more, though considering the interest, it’s possible that Thom and Sam (the guys behind this workshop) will offer something like it again in the future. Here is some of that interest demonstrated in emails I got from people who signed up:

#1: “Of everything you’ve promoted for other people since I’ve known you, this is the first one that got my attention. Here’s why…”

#2: “This looks sick. Just purchased. Looking forward to it.”

#3: “I’ve known for years advertorials are a gold mine but until now I didn’t have AI to help me crank them out. You gave me the kickstart I needed.”

I’m telling you all this — well, why am I telling you all this?

This email isn’t the place to talk about it, but you can read all about it, if you haven’t yet, in Commandment IV of my new 10 Commandments book.

I wasn’t planning on promoting that book today, but I’m left without an offer to promote, due to the success of my own promotion yesterday.

If you have dreams of managing to sell your own offer to the brim, and quickly, almost as soon as you open up your shopping cart, then Commandment IV will tell you the underlying psychology of how to do so. Here’s where you can find that:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

How to be a charming cad

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Many years ago, back when I had a proper office job, I used to work with a handsome and muscular guy named Roland.

One time at lunch, a woman on our team started reaching across the table and straining to get the salt shaker, which was in front of Roland.

Roland noticed this, and reached for the salt shaker himself, as though to push it closer to the woman and make her job easier. But instead of pushing the salt shaker towards the woman, he pulled it further towards himself, and firmly out of the woman’s reach.

The woman, now fully splayed out across the table, gave out a bit of an shocked gasp and then started laughing.

(I’ve repeated this little trick several times and it’s never failed to produce the same result.)

Example two:

Keith McNally is a New York restaurateur. Back in the 1980s, he opened up a restaurant called the Odeon that became a cultural icon — it was featured on the cover of Jay McInerney’s book “Bright Lights, Big City” and in movies like American Psycho.

When McNally used to walk around the Odeon, a new customer might ask where the bathroom is. To which, McNally would smile and say, “We don’t have one.” And then he would walk away, leaving the confused costumer to wonder for a second whether that could possibly be true.

It was small details like this that made McNally’s restaurant the “in” destination, and kept people coming back over and over.

So those are two examples of how to be a charming cad.

Though it might not look like it at first, they share a common structure. Perhaps you can see the structure, or perhaps you’ve heard me talk about it before. If not, you can find it laid out and explained in chapter, I mean, Commandment IV of my new 10 Commandments book.

But I won’t give you the link to buy that.

No, I wish. Here it is:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

How to push-pull prospects on your list

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A few days ago, long-time reader and personal development coach Miro Skender sent me a message with a highlighted passage from my new 10 Commandments book which says:

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Expose human beings to anything constant — even incontestably good things like compliments, security, or money — and people soon stop responding. Like Macknick and Martinez-Conde say, we need contrast to see, hear, feel, think, and pay attention. Otherwise the world becomes literally invisible.

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Miro then said how he knows this fact of human psychology well. He knows how to apply it in his work with coaching clients. But he doesn’t know how to put it to use with prospects on his list. Do I have any ideas?

It’s a good question.

Prospects get bored and leave if you expose them to a constant stream of the same — even if it’s good, valuable, well-written same. But not only that. You make fewer sales with the prospects who stay, because your emails are simply less persuasive than they could be.

I thought of how best to answer Miro’s question in an email. Should I give an example from my own previous emails? Or from a sales letter written by an A-list copywriter? Or would a metaphor be needed to really get the point across?

There are benefits to doing each, I thought. So why choose among them and risk doing a sub-optimal job?

I soon realized that answering Miro’s question properly would involve a ton of work, way too much for a daily email.

Fortunately, I remembered I had done it all already, and more, inside my now-retired Most Valuable Postcard #2, code name “Ferrari Monster.”

The background on the Most Valuable Postcard is that it was a short-lived, paid, monthly newsletter I ran back in the summer of 2022.

It was short-lived because I found it was way too much work and stress to write up something as in-depth and researched as I wanted to make each of these monthly guides to be.

I pulled the plug on Most Valuable Postcard after the second issue, but not before I got glowing reviews from a group of initial subscribers that I let in.

For example, email marketer Daniel Throssell, who was one of those early subscribers, wrote me to say after the first issue:

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Seriously though, dude, I know it’s issue #1 but this program you’ve created is amazing. You’ve honestly made me pause and reconsider some ideas about how I want to do my own newsletter because this is just so excellently executed. I love pretty much everything about how you’ve done this, from the format to the content to the value you deliver in your insights. Really impressed.

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I don’t make back issues of Most Valuable Postcard available regularly. Most Valuable Postcard #2 wasn’t available yesterday. It won’t be available tomorrow. But it is available today.

If you’d like to find out more about what’s inside, and how you can use it to push-pull the prospects on your list:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp2/

What’s coming up in the next few weeks

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Over the next few weeks, I will be promoting 3 affiliate offers. I’ve never promoted any of them before. But I have personally bought, consumed, or participated in each one. They are:

#1. An actual, legit business opportunity for copywriters. This is for you if you want to get new copywriting clients who pay you a lot of money, a lot more than you are used to getting for the same work.

#2. The best source of info if you are looking to start your own Morning Brew-like newsletter. I’ve endorsed this offer multiple times already. And now, I’ve reached out and gotten the good people behind this offer. I got them to provide a special and sizeable discount while I’m promoting it.

#3. A writing course for entrepreneurs who want to build an audience on social media. I’m going through this course myself right now. And when I promote it, I will aim to make it free for you.

I’m telling you what’s coming up because if one of the above offers can benefit you, I want you know. And if you have an education or business-development budget for yourself, so that you save up. Don’t fritter away your money on other offers, just because.

I’ll promote the three offers above in the next 2-3 weeks, though the exact dates are still not fixed.

Meanwhile, if none of these three offers speaks to you, you might like my Simple Money Emails training. It shows you how to make more money from your list today and keep your readers coming back tomorrow. For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Valuable but quite elitist business practices

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Last week, I got a notification telling me about a new subscriber to this newsletter.

​​A familiar name. A familiar email address. A guy named Ian, who is a good friend of a good friend of mine, named Sam.

I guess Sam and Ian were hanging out in real life. My email newsletter came up somehow. And Ian, who is a social worker and has nothing to do with the shady but fraternal underworld that is the direct marketing industry, decided to sign up.

Then yesterday, Sam, who also reads these emails, forwarded me a text message thread between him and Ian:

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Ian: I don’t have $100. What is the Most Valuable Email Trick?

Sam: If you get it for free will it be as valuable?

Ian: Hmmm that’s right. Most valuable to whom? Maybe to John as he is pocketing the $100.

Sam: Quite elitist to charge for this knowledge

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I agree. And here’s another quite elitist practice:

I recently started, or rather restarted, a valuable daily habit. I call it “between the lines.” It goes like this:

1. Look at all the emails I get from readers and customers over the past 24 hours.

2. Paste them into a Google Doc.

3. Go through and ask myself, “What is really going on here? What’s really behind these words this person wrote me?” Then write down the answer in a comment on the side.

I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now.

Lots of interesting stuff pops up.

Other times, I’m just reminded of what is truly fundamental — simple stuff you can’t do without, and vice versa, simple stuff you can build an entire business around.

For example, one “between the lines” comment that I keep writing over and over in my Google Doc is that people really buy because of 1) curiosity and 2) trust.

I guess you can make sales just by doing one of trust or curiosity, by amping up the other. But if you increase both, results multiply.

And so all your marketing, at least all of your email marketing, should really be oriented to building up trust. Or curiosity. Or ideally, both.

Of course, you still have to sell something that people can somehow justify to themselves.

I doubt I will ever sell my Most Valuable Email to Ian and frankly I wouldn’t want to. I’m not sure how he would profit from it aside from satisfying his curiosity.

But perhaps you are a marketer or copywriter. Perhaps you want to write emails like this one, or LinkedIn posts, or whatever. In that case, perhaps I’ve gotten you a bit curious about my MVE trick, and built up trust via these daily emails to make you want to buy.

Yes, if you buy, it will be valuable to me. But it can also be valuable to you, and much more than the $100 you will put into my pocket.

If you want to see what the Most Valuable Trick is all about:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

What never to swallow at the start of your newsletter

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No, I’m not talking about swallowing your pride. Read on because it’s important.

​​Last night I was reviewing a newsletter. The newsletter was full of valuable content, but the author didn’t try to sell me on that content in any way. He meant for it to sell itself.

This brought to mind something I heard marketing wizard Dan Kennedy say:

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We sometimes take the attention of the people with whom we communicate with all the time for granted. That they will give us attention because of who we are and our relationship with them. It’s a bad presumption. It was not a bad presumption a decade ago when there weren’t as many of us showing up every day, asking for their attention. But now there’s a lot more of us showing up every day, asking for their attention. And so we gotta earn it, every single time.

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If you’re anything like me, then your brain will try to feed you excuses, all day long, just because it wants to stop thinking. It will say:

“They opted​​ in to my newsletter. They expressed interest. They want to hear what I have to say.”

“They like my persona. They read my emails in the past. They bought stuff from me!”

“​​I’m sure they will read this too. It’s good enough.”

​Don’t swallow your brain’s excuses. ​Don’t take your readers attention for granted. That’s not good enough.

Not if you want the best chance to influence people, to present yourself as an authority, to get your readers to buy or share or do whatever it is you’re after.
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The more closely people read your stuff, the more of your story and your arguments they swallow, the more you manage to spike their emotions in the minutes they spend with your content, the better it is for you. And in a way, for them.

As a Big Pharma salesman might tell you, the most expensive drug is the one that doesn’t work.

And as I, a Big Copy salesman, will tell you, the most expensive 3 seconds for your reader are clicking on your email and skimming straight through to the end because he’s not properly engaged. That’s 3 seconds wasted for nothing.

On the other hand, 3 or 13 minutes reading every word you wrote because you sold it properly ahead of time — that can be both valuable and enjoyable.

So how do you pre-sell your valuable content?

That knowledge is something I don’t pre-sell. That’s something I sell.

Specifically, that’s what I sell inside my Copy Riddles program. In case you’re interested:

Copy Riddles shows you A-list copywriters sell and pre-sell valuable but dry information. But Copy Riddles does much more. It gets you doing the same.

This doesn’t mean you have to go all John Carlton on your newsletter readers.

You can be subtle or savage in the way you pre-sell your content and your information. It’s your choice.

What is not your choice is how people’s brains work, and what kinds of messages they respond to. And the most condensed and powerful way to create messages that people respond to is inside Copy Riddles.

As I mentioned two days ago, this is the last week I am giving away two free bonuses with Copy Riddles. The first bonus is Storytelling For Sales. The second bonus is Copywriting Portfolio Secrets.

Don’t buy Copy Riddles just for the free bonuses.

But if you decide you want to get Copy Riddles, you have until Saturday Jan 21 at 12 midnight PST to get Storytelling for Sales and Copywriting Portfolio Secrets as free bonuses.

After then, Copy Riddles will remain available, but the free bonuses will disappear.

To get the whole package:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

A peek behind the scenes of a smashingly successful launch

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A while back, copywritress Liza Schermann, whom I’ve promoted in this newsletter as somebody who writes interesting, funny, and — I’m ashamed to say this — even sexy emails, went through my Copy Riddles program.

​​Liza had this to say about it:

“The entire course is an a-ha moment. Because you see these things from other copywriters or you read other copy, but you don’t see what’s behind it or why it’s working. Your course shows what happens behind the scenes.”

As an example of that, consider another revealing thing Liza told me:

This summer, she went through Copy Riddles for a second time as a refresher.

​​She applied the bullet lessons in Copy Riddles to a rewrite of an email launch sequence for a client. The client sent out this rewritten email sequence to an already spent list, promoting the same tired offer, for a second run of this launch, and—

Ended up making NOT just a few extra sales from that spent list and tired offer…

NOT just matching the sales she made the first time around…

But actually making 150% of the money she made during the first launch, when the list was entirely fresh!

As a result, Liza says, the client “was over the moon. So much so that she recommended me to a friend of hers who also has a language course.”

Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!

Well… about that.

It turns out the reality is a tad more murky. Liza told me that for this second launch:

– The price tag for the offer increased, and
– The list was significantly larger than the first time around, and yet,
– The client actually made fewer sales than first time, though the total money was more.

So was that second launch actually a success or no? And if it was, did Liza’s new copy, and her time inside Copy Riddles, have anything to do with that 150% of money made?

If you ask me, money made is more important than number of sales made. And fewer customers at a higher price are better than more customers at lower price.

Also, having seen Liza’s rewritten emails before and after, I personally believe that the “after” was stronger and contributed to that extra 50% in money made.

Whatever the case, here’s the behind-the-scenes point:

Imagine if I had cut off this email at “Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!”

​​Imagine I had dropped all that murky stuff about price increases and a larger list.

​​Imagine if I had simply kept the picture sharp and clear and said, “… and that kind of smashing success, ladies and gentlemen, shows the power of Copy Riddles, which you can invest in today for the low, low price of…”

The fact is, that’s exactly what happens in copy all the time.

You don’t see all the facts behind the copy. You don’t see what the copywriter chose to omit, and you don’t see how he patiently twisted, polished, and positioned what he allowed you to see.

You might say that’s despicable or dishonest to hold back the whole, naked truth.

​​But to me it’s the essence of what copywriting is — creating a calculated perception, a gloss, a heart-pumping response. And yes, that’s true even in cases like my email today, where I’m making a seemingly transparent reveal and “taking you behind the scenes.”

Anyways, if you want interesting, funny, and — there’s that word again — even sexy emails for your business, you can try to hunt down and hire Liza. She has my full endorsement. And she might be taking on new clients, though I can’t say for sure.

On the other hand, if you write your own copy, or if you want to work with clients who pay you to write copy for them, then you might want to get on my daily email list, and experience more copywriting a-ha moments than you would ever believe possible. If you’re interested, click here and fill out the form that pops up.

The mysterious, two-pronged power of teasing

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A few weeks ago, I found myself at a restaurant staring at a fat kid.

He was sitting in the corner, picking his nose, and playing a racing game on his tablet. It was uncanny. He was as close to Nelson from The Simpsons as I’ve ever seen a kid in real life, including the two-tone ha-ha laugh he kept repeating.

My dinner partner, a healthier and more rooted person than I am, thought the kid was great. “Look at how much energy he has! So full of life!” All evening long, he kept calling Nelson to our table, pinching him, tickling him, teasing him. Of course, Nelson loved it.

Ha-ha!

I’ve long wondered why teasing works so well.

Playfully accuse somebody. Push them away. Even jokingly insult them. And odds are, they will love you for it.

I don’t have a good mental model for why that is. It remains mysterious to me, even when I end up teasing people or getting teased myself.

The curious thing is, in English at least, we use same word for a completely other kind of behavior, one I understand better.

I’m talking about stringing somebody along for a while, leading them by the nose, revealing bits and pieces but not giving the whole thing away.

This second kind of teasing is equally as powerful as the first kind. As copywriter Dan Ferrari wrote:

19) One of the most powerful tools in marketing is the tease. It could be as “small” as 2-3 lines of copy that build up a reveal. It could be as “large” as dangling a new product release in front of existing customers FOR MONTHS (<—do this often and you’ll be able fly private to Hawaii to thank me personally).

This was part of an email Dan sent out a few days ago.

Dan doesn’t email a lot. But he’s sure to do so at least once a year.

Each year, on his birthday, Dan sends out X direct marketing lessons to match his X years on the earth. He just turned 37 and so he shared 37 lessons.

Maybe you knew that already. Maybe you missed out.

If you did miss out, then let me tell you Dan’s birthday emails generally include no illustrations. Only valuable insights.

I’ve found they merit reading and rereading. I sometimes come to a smart conclusion, and only then realize that it’s something Dan had written years earlier in one of these emails. It finally make sense.

The thing is, Dan doesn’t post his emails anywhere publicly. And if you want to sign up for his email list, so you get any future emails he sends, whether for his next birthday or sooner, well, even that’s a problem. His optin page wasn’t working when I last checked it.

It might be worth checking again now. Or tomorrow. Or in a few months’ time. How’s that for a tease? Here’s the link in case you’re intrigued:

http://www.ferrarimedia.com/new/