A Fish Called Wanda

10 of my email ideas you are free to use

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I’ve spent the past hour preparing and attempting to write this email. Here are some of the ideas I approached and then discarded:

1. The strange, 100-year-old, menage-a-trois history that inspired Wonder Woman

2. How even classic comic books like Superman had woke politics behind them

3. A demonstration of an idea I heard during a Dan Kennedy seminar, that the opening of your writing should set the emotional tenor even if everything else is discarded

4. An email in which I pretend to promote the Brent Charleton offer that’s currently being promoted by Ian Stanley, Dan Ferrari, and Justin Goff, but then I come clean that I am in fact not promoting it (there was a point there, really)

5. Something like in the movie Fight Club, where they splice in a frame from a porn movie, but where I would do something similar but in an email? (I have no idea how)

6. Running a lottery within the actual email, with money bets and money prizes (I realized this is probably illegal)

7. Kicking off a P.T. Barnum-like hoax

8. Telling a personal story about myself and purposefully holding back key information

9. Writing up an email using the FREE framework I devised during my Age of Insight training (FREE is my alternative to the AIDA framework)

10. Thinking up some way to illustrate the following quote by legendary music producer Rick Rubin, who said, “Never judge an idea based on the description of the idea, show it to me”

I played around with all 10 of these ideas. Somehow, they didn’t come together. Maybe they will in the future. But even if they don’t, that’s fine, because at least I have my email for today.

The point I want to make to you today is something I read in John Cleese’s book Creativity.

​​Cleese, as you might know, was one of the members of comedy sketch troupe Monty Python. Later he had one of the most successful British sitcoms of all time, Fawlty Towers. He also made some very funny movies, including A Fish Called Wanda.

All that’s to say, Cleese is a creative guy. And in his book Creativity, about creativity, Cleese writes:

“You can’t have a new idea until you’ve gotten rid of an old one.”

That might seem obvious, but maybe seeing my discarded ideas above will make it stick in your head better. And the next time you are struggling to come up with one good idea, maybe will remember to quickly discard 10 bad ideas first, so you don’t end up taking an hour+ to write an email like I just did.

Anyways, all this was really just a build up to a little promotional plug I am about to make.

It’s for my Most Valuable Email course. What might not be obvious is that each of those 10 discarded ideas above was my unsuccessful attempt to put the Most Valuable Email trick in action.

It normally doesn’t take that long. But even if it does, it’s almost always worth it, at least in my experience.

In any case, if you would like to find out Most Valuable Email trick, and even start putting it in action (you can use any of my 10 ideas above if they work for you), here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Don’t call me insecure

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“All right, all right, I apologize.”

I want to quickly share with you a scene from my favorite comedy, A Fish Called Wanda. This scene might be instructive if you’re a marketer or copywriter.

In this scene, Kevin Kline, playing an ex-CIA assassin called Otto, forces another man to apologize.

That other man is who we see in the scene, standing stiffly against a brick wall, making the apology.

“You’re really sorry?” asks Otto, somewhere off camera.

“I’m really, really sorry,” says the other man. “I apologize unreservedly. I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice.”

As he says this, the camera rotates right side up.

It turns out the other man — a barrister named Archie Leach, played by John Cleese — is not really standing against a wall. Really, he’s being dangled out of a window, held at his ankles by Otto.

And here’s why this might be relevant if you do marketing or if you write copy:

Otto the CIA assassin fancies himself a bit of an intellectual. He reads philosophy books all the time, and he’s fond of quoting Nietzsche.

But he also thinks the central message of Buddhism is “every man for himself.” And he knows for a fact that the London Underground was a political movement.

In other words, Otto is a bit of an idiot, and somewhere deep down, he knows it. That’s why his tagline throughout the movie is, “Don’t call me stupid.”

So when he secretly overhears Archie… right as Archie is about to say that Otto is stupid… well, that’s how we end up with the scene at the window.

The point is, when someone is insecure about a quality, they take any challenge to that quality very seriously.

But you probably know that already. It’s standard playground psychology.

What you might not know is that there’s another possible reaction to being very insecure about some personal quality. And that’s buying direct response offers.

Because if you are insecure about a thing… you have the belief and maybe life experience that this is a part of your life that you cannot get sorted on your own. God knows you’ve tried. That’s why you’re in the market.

Of course, not everybody who buys direct response offers is insecure. Some small fraction of people are successful already or will soon be. They are just looking for a slight edge.

But those people are the tiny minority.

For the vast majority in any direct response market, you can count on a wounded ego… at least in relation to the problem you’re offering to solve or the promise you’re making.

So if you’re smart, you’ll be aware of this self-esteem thing in your marketing and copy.

On the positive side, it can be very valuable if you just soothe and calm that insecurity.

On the negative side, it can be even more valuable if you poke and prod that very spot.

That’s why one of the most successful direct response ads of all time had the headline, “Do you make these mistakes in English?”

And it’s why Gary Bencivenga… the most celebrated copywriter of the past 50 years… used the same “Do you make these mistakes” formula when selling his own book on job interviews.

In fact, If I had anything to sell you right now, I might subtly prod some secret insecurities I know about.

But I won’t do that. I’ve got no direct response offer for you today. Well, nothing for sale. Just the free offer to sign up to my newsletter, in case you’re looking for a slight edge.

Shock and delight at a celebrity funeral

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On December 3 1989, a memorial service was held at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at the University of Cambridge. The deceased was one Graham Chapman, aged 48, who had died two months earlier from tonsil cancer.

At various times during his life, Chapman was a homosexual, an alcoholic, a member of the Dangerous Sports Club, and one of the six members of the sketch comedy troupe Monty Python.

All the other members of Monty Python were there at the service. Several of them got up to give eulogies. One of eulogizers was John Cleese, the guy behind my favorite comedy of all time, A Fish Called Wanda.

“I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is,” Cleese started, “that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence should now be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he had achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun.”

The camera zoomed around the large hall. It settled on the other Pythons — Michael Palin, Eric Idle — looking serious and proper.

“Well I feel that I should say… nonsense,” Cleese said. “Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard. I hope he fries.”

Yep, this really happened. During a eulogy, John Cleese said about the deceased, “I hope he fries.”

Last night, I had the second call of the Influential Emails training. Throughout this training, I’ve been talking about the similarities between comedy and email copy.

Not because you want to make your emails funny necessarily.

But because you want to surprise, shock, and even outrage people at the start. And then, pay it off in a credible and pleasing way, where the only people who leave are the ones who are either slaves to mindless good taste… or who genuinely disagree with you.

In my life, I’ve never seen a better illustration of this “surprise and delight” combination than John Cleese’s eulogy.

I won’t tell you how Cleese got out of the shocking hole he had dug for himself. But he did it, and he did it in a sweet, credible, thoughtful way.

You can see it all in the short two-minute clip below. It might prove very instructive if you want to write emails that people will 1) read day after day… 2) look forward to… 3) feel a bond with… and 4) allow themselves to be influenced by.

But be warned. This clip contains two profanities, one of which had never been spoken on television before. If that doesn’t shock you too badly, then prepare to be delighted here:

Still here? Maybe you’d like to be surprised and delighted tomorrow as well. In that case, sign up for my email newsletter.

Monty Python’s Emailing Circus

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On October 5, 1969, exactly 50 years ago, stuffy middle-class families across the UK saw a strange sight on TV:

A man, choking and gurgling in the sea, was struggling to swim to shore. Once he made it to the beach, he stumbled a few steps, fell on his face, and said,

“It’s?”

The shot immediately cut away to the now-famous cartoon intro:

MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS

That was the first scene of the very first episode of Monty Python, which ran from 1969 to 1974.

The immensely influential show contained lots of random comedic ideas, splotched together. First minute of the first episode: Mozart announcing a Top 10 countdown of famous deaths, which are voted on by a jury.

Each of the disjointed sketches was mildly funny.

Over time, they got better.

Still, for me at least, Monty Python was never hilarious.

But it was a potent training grounds.

One of my favorite comedies of all time is A Fish Called Wanda, written by and starring John Cleese and Michael Palin, two of the big stars to emerge from Monty Python.

This film is funny from beginning to end, with every joke a perfect 10. ​​I don’t think this would have been possible had it not been for the extensive practice on the Monty Python show.

And the same thing happens when you write daily emails to your prospects or customers.

Each email is low commitment.

It needs to be done quickly.

You can test out ideas and see what people respond to.

It’s a training ground and a sandbox, with lots of collateral benefits.

One being that, when it’s time to produce a more involved, serious promotion, such as a sales letter or a new offer you want to create…

All that email practice allows you to hit a home run.

So if you haven’t started yet, consider launching your own Monty Python’s Emailing Circus. However, if the thought intimidates you, or you want some help getting started, then you can find some ideas here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/