Copy Riddles

Don’t be like me

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For the past two days, I’ve been running a kind of flash offer I’ve called Copy Riddles Lite.

In order to promote that, I have finally done something I should have done months ago, and that’s to go through the emails that Australia’s best & world’s most provocative copywriter, Daniel Throssell, wrote to promote Copy Riddles back in September.

Daniel’s emails are filled with gold I could and should have been using to promote Copy Riddles ever since. Such as, for example, the following quotes:

“There are few other courses I fully and wholeheartedly endorse as strongly as one of my own. Copy Riddles is one of them.”

“I have literally never had so many people write to me after I start promoting something, offering unsolicited & gushing feedback on it!”

“It’s the most brilliant course concept I’ve ever seen … literally a gamified series of sequential puzzles that teaches you copywriting.”
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So don’t be like me — lazy, careless, and self-defeating when it comes to promoting your own good offers.

Instead, when people write nice things about you and what you sell, save those comments… cherish them… casually drop hints about them over tea or coffee… and every Sunday or even more often, stand up on a soapbox, and openly and dramatically read out those flattering endorsements to everyone who might be interested and many of those who are not.

The Copy Riddles Lite offer is closing down tonight, in another 8 hours, specifically at 8:31pm CET.

Copy Riddles Lite is not a gamified series of sequential puzzles. That’s the full Copy Riddles course, which contains 20 such sequential puzzles.

Copy Riddles Lite contains just one such puzzle.

But it’s a puzzle that stands alone, without the rest of the Copy Riddles program. And if you can guess the right answer — or even if you don’t, but you put in the effort — it will teach you something very valuable about copywriting, in a very short period of time.

Copy Riddles Lite is priced lightly, according to its lite nature. And if you buy it and decide you want to upgrade to the full Copy Riddles program, I will credit you the price you paid for Copy Riddles Lite.

So if you’d like to get this piece of a highly endorsed training before I close down the cart, here’s where to go (no sales page, just an order page):

https://bejakovic.com/crl​​

“No-fooling” secret to writing opening lines that get read and copied

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Yeah, I bet you want the secret. I’ll tell you, but it won’t make sense unless you read the following first.

Last Friday, I sent an email about a photo I found on Twitter of a guy hand-copying my emails. To which I got a reply from an online entrepreneur with a 200k-strong audience, Kieran Drew. Kieran wrote me:

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Guilty confession: I handcopied a fair few emails from your bonus doc in SME.

When I write my emails, I always go back to my inbox to see how you started your last few too. I still find the opening lines hard and I’m yet to see anyone do them as well as you do.

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I heard something similar about my opening lines from a friend who runs a successful niche magazine (hi Radu). He told me he keeps my emails for their opening lines, as inspiration for openers when he needs to write something.

I never thought writing an opening line was some special superpower of mine. But like they say, once is an accident, twice is a positioning statement.

So I thought about what I do with the opening line of each of my emails. Really, it’s the millennia-old advice from legendary direct marketer Joe Sugarman:

“The purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence. Nothing more, nothing less.”

You probably knew Joe Sugarman’s advice. You probably even follow it, and think you do it well. And maybe you really do it well. But maybe you don’t, not as well as you could. The trouble is, it’s easy to fool yourself.

I thought a bit more about my opening lines.

The only other secret that came to mind, besides the Joe Sugarman advice, is that I’ve spent a good amount of time learning to write sales bullets.

​​I’ve analyzed how A-list copywriters start with factual and dull source material… give away the relevant parts of it in their bullets… but leave out just the right thing to make you pull your hair out from wanting to know the secret.

It’s transformed how I write. Because it means there’s a way to learn to write copy in a way that you cannot fool yourself:

You start with the same source material A-list copywriters used to write their own bullets… write your own bullet… compare it to theirs… and see just how much tighter, more specific, and more intriguing theirs is.

The good news is, you don’t have to despair for long. Repeat this process, and soon enough, the A-listers tricks and tactics and skills start to seep into your own head, and people start saving what you write as examples of intriguing and specific and tight copy.

And on that note, I will remind you of my ongoing offer for Copy Riddles Lite.

The full Copy Riddles program teaches you how to write sales bullets, using the no-fooling process I described above.

Copy Riddles Lite is a tiny slice of the full Copy Riddles program, proportionately priced.

Copy Riddles Lite gives you a taste of this process, and gives you an opportunity to try yourself against legendary A-list copywriters like Gene Schwartz, David Deutsch, and Clayton Makepeace. That’s a valuable experience whether or not you choose to upgrade to the full Copy Riddles program.

I’m making Copy Riddles Lite available until tomorrow, Thursday, at 8:31pm CET. If you’d like to get it, it’s available here (no sales page, just an order form):

https://bejakovic.com/crl

The owner smiled when I tried to speak Spanish… but when I switched to English!

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Yesterday, I stepped into the beautiful Librería Nobel — Nobel Bookstore — in Almería, Spain.

“Buenos días,” I said as I entered.

The owner, who stood behind the counter, smiled at me politely and returned my greeting. He didn’t recognize me at first. So I changed tack.

“Hola Rafa,” I said and then switched to English. “How are you?”

A look of surprise spread across his face. “John! Coño! What are you doing here!”

The owner of Librería Nobel is one Rafa Casas, who I’ve written up before in this newsletter as a Spanish A-list copywriter.

Not only is Rafa a skilled copywriter who has helped a bunch of clients make money, but he’s building up his name in true A-list style.

Along with his bookstore and his client work, he now runs two coaching programs, one to help Spanish-speaking business owners get set up online with their digital marketing, and another called Circulo Copy where he mentors a number of Spanish-language copywriters, including some well-known names.

This was the first time I was meeting Rafa in real life. But I have known him online for a while.

Rafa first got on my email list in 2021. He then went through my Copy Riddles course, back when I was still offering live weekly Q&A calls.

At that time, I ran a weekly contest for the best answer to one of the week’s Copy Riddles. Rafa won the first contest ever. (Among the three books I offered him as a possible prize, Rafa wisely chose my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.)

Then some time in 2022, I interviewed Rafa for my Copy Zone guide to the business side of copywriting. His story of getting started writing daily emails about books while his bookstore was locked down — and then turning that into paid client work — was both interesting and impressive.

We also had a short-lived language exchange after I moved to Spain.

He’s even translated my 10 Commandments book to Spanish, and we will be putting that out soon, as soon as the cover designer gets back to me.

Point being:

I started out this email newsletter with the vague aims of having a sandbox in which to practice copywriting and marketing, as a possible source of samples to show clients, and as a way of maybe winning some client work, back when I was still hungry for that.

And my newsletter has delivered on all those fronts.

But it’s also produced a bunch of amazing opportunities and outcomes I never could have imagined when I got started.

It’s resulted in great new relationships both online and in real life… people doing me solid favors without ever being asked… cool free stuff shipped to my front door… speaking opportunities… and even the occasional note from people who tell me that what I’m doing has actually changed the course of their life for the better.

If you want, you too can have something similar. At least that’s my claim, one I will work to pay off on the free training I’m hosting in a few days’ time.

The training will cover how I write and profit from this newsletter that you are reading now.

It will happen on Monday January 22, 2024 at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. But you will have to be signed up to my list first. Click here to do so.

Potentially harmful testimonial

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This morning, my floating guardian angel, Fred Beyer, wrote me a new message.

Over the years, Fred has repeatedly appeared out of the ether and pointed out harmful glitches and technical muckups in my marketing that were costing me thousands of dollars in lost sales.

But this morning, Fred wasn’t pointing out a technical issue. Instead he sent me a warning about my copy, specifically about a potentially harmful testimonial for my Copy Riddles program. He wrote:

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There’s a testimonial on your sales page that mentions the initial $300 you charged for Copy Riddles.

“Probably the best 300 bucks I’ve ever spent”

I’ve come across this before myself and I’ve always felt kind of cheated when I found out the training was now significantly more expensive.

There’s an inner voice that goes: “Sure it was worth 300, but is it worth 1000?”

Obviously You’re the expert.

I just wanted to share, in case this little testimonial drowned in the hubbub of running your biz.

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Fred raises a good point.

That “best 300 bucks ever” is a kind of anti-anchoring. It goes against the smart marketing practice of pegging your price to a drastically higher sum, and then lopping off zeros to your prospect’s relief and joy.

Perhaps the thing to do would be to take that “300 bucks” testimonial down.

But I never miss an opportunity to flirt with sales prevention. So rather than take that testimonial down, I will actually highlight it. Here’s the full version, which came from Robert Smith, who runs his own CRO agency. Robert wrote:

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I’ve spent close to 150k on copy courses and mentors.

John Bejakovic’s Bullet Copy course is probably the best 300 bucks I’ve ever spent.

One word: “source”. He shows you source material — pre twist — and then re-twists it, so you know how the twist works.

Just send him an email and ask him to enroll you in it.

If, after lesson one, you don’t immediately say, “this is the best 300 bucks I’ve ever spent”, then send an email to rob@robertsmithmedia.com and I’ll send you a refund (then, write your name down in my book of “copywriters I’ll never hire.”)

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Robert went through Copy Riddles back in 2021. And yes, the course has gone up in price since.

I first sold Copy Riddles at a low price and I gradually pushed the price up — this made it psychologically easier to sell something of my own.

In the meantime, my own status has grown, the endorsements for Copy Riddles have poured in, and today I can and do sell this course for $1,000.

But that’s about me me me. What about you you you? How is it possibly fair to you that I’m charging $1,000 for Copy Riddles today, when I charged just $300 for it a couple years ago?

First of all, $1,000 is still a fair price and then some.

If you actually go through this course and apply what it teaches in a real marketing endeavor, then the info inside can be worth tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars to you over your career.

You might think that’s exaggeration. But it’s just the nature of copywriting and marketing. Good selling skills, multiplied over a large enough audience, can create a lot of wealth, and quickly.

Second, a high, achievable, but uncomfortable price actually makes it more likely you will profit from the course.

I don’t believe the old chestnut, “If they pay, they pay attention.” I know many people who pay, and still never do anything with what they paid for.

But I do believe that if you pay a lot of money, and that makes nervous, you will push yourself out of your comfort zone and find ways to justify the uncomfortable price to yourself.

If you ask me for proof, I can give you myself as an example.

Some five years ago, I joined the coaching group of A-list copywriter Dan Ferrari. Over the course of about six months, I paid Dan multiple tens of thousands of dollars for this coaching.

This wasn’t money I could easily spare. In fact, I was eating away my savings, because I was paying Dan more than I was making. Each month, when it was time to make a new multi-thousand payment to Dan, I literally had cold sweat on my forehead and electric shocks down my spine.

I’ve written before about my experiences with this coaching:

Dan gave me valuable and practical marketing and copywriting ideas. But the real value was the price I was paying him. It made me so uncomfortable that I worked much harder to apply the ideas Dan gave me, to hustle and make do, simply because I had to.

Result:

In the month after I was done with Dan’s coaching, the floodgates opened. I started making the kind of money I had never made with copywriting before. Within the first two months at this new level, I had fully paid off the tens of thousands of dollars I had paid to Dan.

So to answer the question that was rumbling in Fred’s mind, and that may be rumbling in yours…

“Sure it was worth 300, but is it worth 1000?”

The answer is, it really depends.

Copy Riddles consists of 20 rounds. Each round covers a key copywriting concept.

If you don’t bother to go through all of the rounds, or if you don’t bother to apply them anywhere where they can possibly make you money, then Copy Riddles won’t be worth $1,000 to you, or any fraction of that.

On the other hand, if you go through each of these 20 rounds earnestly… if you do the daily exercises I give you… and if you apply the lessons in your own business or in your clients’ businesses, there’s no doubt in my mind that it will be worth $1,000 to you, and much, much, much more.

So Robert’s possibly harmful testimonial stays up. In case you’d like to see it in its native environment, or get started with Copy Riddles right now, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Can you identify this persuasion strategy?

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Yesterday afternoon, in a breakdown of all discipline and order, I decided to skip the gym, eat whatever sweets I could find around the house, and instead of working, download a movie to watch.

After all, Daniel Throssell was sending out emails to sell my Copy Riddles course. Money was coming in without me doing anything. So why not take a rare day off to loaf about?

The movie I downloaded was one of my favorites — The Sting.

​​I’d seen it 3-4 times already. But yesterday, I saw something new in it, something I want to share with you because it’s very relevant to persuasion and influence.

What I want to tell you requires a spoiler.

​​So if you’ve never seen The Sting before, it might be worth stopping this email right now, and coming back to it only when you’ve watched the movie yourself.

It’s worth it.

Not only does The Sting have Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the lead roles… not only did it win an Oscar for best film and best director… but it also has a sparkling script (which also won an Oscar) by a guy named David Ward, who was well-read in the techniques of conmen, and who also seems to have had an intuitive understanding of human psychology.

Are you still reading? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here goes:

The relevant scene is when Johnny Hooker, a lonely conman on the run played by Robert Redford, tries to pick up Loretta, a gruff waitress at the local diner.

Hooker has already talked to Loretta before. He knows she is as alone as he is, and that she’s only passing through town, another tramp like him.

He’s tried asking her out before. She shot him down cold. But Hooker gives it one more try.

He knows where Loretta lives. And one night, at 2am, when Loretta finishes her shift at the diner and goes home and turns on the light in her room, Hooker takes a deep breath, walks up to her building, climbs up the stairs to her door, and knocks.

Loretta cracks open the door. The following dialogue follows:

HOOKER: I was wondering if you might wanna come out for a while, have a drink or something.

LORETTA [indignant]: You move right along, don’t you?

HOOKER: Hey I don’t mean nothin’ by it. I just don’t know many regular girls is all.

LORETTA [still angry]: You expect me to come out, just like that…

HOOKER: If I expected something, I wouldn’t still be standing here in the hall.

LORETTA: I don’t even know you!

HOOKER: You know me. I’m just like you. It’s two in the morning and I don’t know nobody.

Loretta pauses at this. She gives Hooker a sad smile. She opens the door a bit wider, and moves aside to let him in.

So that’s the scene. Now here’s the spoiler:

Loretta is not actually a waitress at a diner. She’s actually a top level hitman, or hitwoman, working for a mob boss that Hooker fleeced by accident. She’s been hired to take Hooker out. She’s playacting her indignation, just trying to reel Hooker in so she can kill him.

In many ways, this is the essence of a confidence game. And sure enough, the pattern above repeats in different situations in the movie, with different characters, as they try to influence and con each other.

Now, since Daniel’s Copy Riddles promo is over, I have to get back to work. And I do have something to sell today. But it’s not something I want to sell to just anyone.

​​F​​or one thing, this thing I have to sell is too valuable to make available to anyone who wants it. For another, it requires more than money to profit from.

This thing I have for sale is probably not for you. But I’ll make you a deal:

Hit reply right now. Tell me the name of the persuasion pattern or strategy that the scene above illustrates. If you don’t know the name for it, then tell me in a sentence what you think is going on, on the level of persuasion.

​​I’ll give you a hint:

This pattern is also used regularly by pick up artists, salesmen, even by legendary copywriters.

So write in and tell me what you think it is.

If you get it right, it will tell me you might have it. In other words, you might actually profit from this thing I have for sale, so I’ll tell you more about that.

And if you don’t get it right, well, at least I’ll tell you what’s really going on throughout The Sting, and how it works in the real, non-con world as well. And maybe you can profit from that in some way.

Why I’m happy to give up more than half my profit by promoting Daniel Throssell’s sale

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Yesterday, I gave a little breakdown of the structure of my Copy Riddles sales letter, and then advised people to get on Daniel Throssell’s list, and buy Copy Riddles via Daniel’s affiliate link.

​​Reader Jakub Červenka, who runs an info publishing business in the men’s sexual health niche (something I used to write for in my freelance days), asks a logical question:

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John,

since you are sharing so much about the structure and the thought process behind your pages (thank you!) could you, perhaps in one of your next emails, explain why are you pushing people so much to buy through Mr Boycotted (😉) efforts?

I understand that you value your readers and relationships you so carefully build, but the second part is – this is still business, no?

And in my opinion, making more money is better than making less money…

So, telling your list about the sale once, twice… great, they have been told, if they didn’t buy, their mistake, you told them. And reminded them.

But why are you giving up half of your profit (I am guessing) by constantly promoting Daniel’s sale?

I know even with commission you pay him you take home more than from your original price, but still…

The obvious answer to me would be some kind of promo of his offers in the future, but it doesn’t seem to be the case from what I think of Daniel’s business model so I am curious and probably many more of your readers are too.

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The numbers are actually less favorable than Jakub says.

I’m actually making slightly less for each sale of Copy Riddles via Daniel’s promo than I did the last time I sold this course myself. That’s due to the $200 discount I am offering Daniel’s readers… plus the affiliate commission I’m paying to Daniel.

That said, I continue to happily send my own readers to buy through Daniel’s list for following three reasons:

Reason #1. I agreed with Daniel to make this $200 discount exclusive to his list. At the same time, I want to make sure that anyone on my list who might actually want Copy Riddles buys at this same discount.

​​If that means nagging on and on about getting on Daniel’s list, and possibly losing money over a full-price sale that might come in the future, so be it.

The ultimate goal, like Jakub says, is valuing my readers. I want to make it an absolute certainty in my readers’ minds that I’m playing square with them and treating them right.

It’s only business, but the way I choose to play it, which is for the long term.

Reason #2. Daniel has been good to me over the years, He promoted me to his 5k-person list back when I had a list of fewer than 300 readers, and on several subsequent occasions. He has spoken well of me, driven subscribers my way, and helped me make sales.

And now, he’s hyping me up to his own list, which he values equally as much as I value mine, and he’s sending new buyers my way for a very expensive course. It’s simple gratitude to pay that back in an earnest way.

But if you need a more mercenary explanation, then consider…

Reason #3. Top copywriter Chris Haddad, who also runs an 8-figure Clickbank business, once said, “Your job is to make your affiliates money.”

Why make your affiliates money? Because it’s your job. Because it’s how you get paid this month, and next month, and the month after that.

I don’t know whether Daniel and I will ever do another JV promo in the future. Maybe we never will. But maybe we will collaborate in some less formal, more indirect way.

Or maybe I will have other JV partners and affiliates. Whatever the case, it can’t hurt to let it be known that, just like with my readers, I treat my partners squarely and work to help them make money.

So that’s my thought process on continuing to send people to Daniel’s list, even after I could squint and say, I’ve done enough.

That said, I won’t send you to Daniel’s list now. It’s simply too late.

The special discount I promised Daniel ends at noon PST today, less than an hour from now. As far as I know, Daniel won’t send more emails before now and then.

If you’re not on Daniel’s list, then I assume you weren’t interested in Copy Riddles right now. That’s okay. I’ll work to get you interested in the future.

But if you are on Daniel’s list, and you would like to get Copy Riddles before the $200 discount disappears, then rummage through your inbox right now… find Daniel’s most recent email… and follow the instructions at the end of it. If you’re serious about owning copywriting skills at a high level, it will be well worth it.

A peek behind the curtain of my “mesmerizing” Copy Riddles sales letter

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It’s strange times around the Bejako household. There’s a Copy Riddles promotion going on, but I’m not the one furiously typing it up.

Instead, I’m looking on as Daniel Throssell sends out email after email to sell Copy Riddles. I’m watching the resulting sales coming in. And I’m feeling a little guilty that I’m not somehow supporting the effort.

So let me share a third-party opinion on Copy Riddles that might help change some minds.

This opinion comes from Carlo Gargiulo, an Italian-language copywriter. Carlo is a star copywriter at Metodo Merenda, a Switzerland-based info publishing business. He also has his own list where he writes to entrepreneurial dentists and doctors and marketers, and he is a bit of an LinkedIn influencer in the Italian copy space.

Carlo had the following to say about Copy Riddles:

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Copy Riddles is the best copy course of all time.

I have spent a lot of money studying and learning so much useful information from copywriter courses such as Stefan Georgi, John Carlton, David Deutsch, etc. (all great courses that I have enjoyed), but I feel that Copy Riddles was the COURSE that allowed me to become a good copywriter.

I hope you will create courses similar to Copy Riddles in the future.

My dream is a course of yours on writing sales letter-landing pages (Your writing style is completely different from that of most copywriters I see around.). Indeed, Copy Riddles’ landing page is the only one I have read in its entirety over and over again. You literally mesmerized me with that landing page.

Anyway, congratulations and thanks again for creating and making Copy Riddles available.

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Here’s a quick copywriting lesson, specifically about how I structured the multi-page Copy Riddles sales letter, which Carlo says he found mesmerizing.

Each of the three pages of that sales letter is designed to get you to believe one and only one thing, specifically:

Page 1’s belief is that bullets are one of the most valuable copywriting skills you can ever own.

To do that, I refer to authorities such as John Carlton, Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, David Deutsch, Stefan Georgi, and Ben Settle, all of whom have gone on record to say that — yes, bullets are one of the most valuable copywriting skills you can ever own, and maybe the most valuable.

Page 2’s belief is that the best way to own bullets is to follow what Gary Halbert once recommended in his newsletter — and what people like Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, and Ben Settle have put in practice — namely, to look in parallel at both the source material and the finished bullet.

Page 3’s belief is that Copy Riddles is a fun and effective way to implement that Gary Halbert process…

… without spending months of your time and hundreds of hours of your mental effort to do what I’ve already done for you, which is to track down a bunch of winning sales letters… buy or borrow or steal the books or courses they were selling… and go bullet by bullet, comparing the source to the finished product, figuring out how exactly the A-list copywriters turned lead into gold.

And that’s pretty much the entire sales letter.

If I manage to convince the reader of all three of those points, then making the sale is easy, which is why I don’t have a big and dramatic scarcity-based close for the Copy Riddles sales page.

Of course, it does help that I have a bunch of great testimonials, like Carlo’s, right before the final “Buy now” button.

Maybe you would like to see how this mesmerizing sales letter looks in reality.

I won’t link to it directly in this email. Instead, I will remind you that Daniel Throssell is promoting Copy Riddles right now.

Daniel has gotten me to offer a one-time, sizable discount from the current Copy Riddles price, exclusively to people who come via his list.

So if you’re curious what my mesmerizing Copy Riddles sales page looks like, check out Daniel’s next email, because it will have a link to that page at the end.

And if you’re at all interested in buying, then act before tomorrow, Wednesday at 12 noon PST, because that’s when Daniel and I agreed to end this special offer, which will never be repeated again.

In case you’re not yet on Daniel’s list, here’s where to go:

https://persuasivepage.com/

201 good reasons to get on Daniel Throssell’s list today

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Back in April, I sent an email to announce the last day ever to buy Copy Riddles.

One of the people who replied to that email was Daniel “I just got an entire city boycotted” Throssell. Daniel wrote me to say:

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This is gutsy, I imagine it’s a cash cow for you!

You know, I have been meaning to ask you for a while if I could promote this one as an affiliate. I have always found it an excellent idea for a course.

But this might be a great opportunity now:

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Daniel went on to propose a plan. I’d leave Copy Riddles open for one final promo, to his list only. It was clear we’d both make a lot of money this way.

We went back and forth for a while. But ultimately, I said thanks, but no. It would be a cash grab, and people would feel it.

Daniel and I agreed to leave it at that.

But now, I’ve decided to bring back Copy Riddles.

Yes, like Daniel says, Copy Riddles was previously a steady money-maker for me. And yes, I’ve now increased the price dramatically from what I last sold it for.

But like I wrote a couple days ago, I’m bringing back Copy Riddles for reasons other than a cash grab.

I’m proud of this course. It’s felt bad seeing it collect dust on the shelf.

Plus, ​​I got a dozen or more unsolicited messages about how great a product it is, and some about how not making it available is a crime against people who want to get copywriting skills.

​​I even tried to sell it off wholesale to a new forever home, but that didn’t work out.

So I’ve brought Copy Riddles back.

​​And since Daniel asked to promote it earlier, I thought would be only fair to write him now to see whether he’s still interested. He said yes, under one condition:

That I offer a special price, only for people on his list.

We agreed on a $200 discount from the new Copy Riddles price.

At the same time, I want to give a fair chance to anyone from my own list to get that same discount, since I won’t be offering it again in the future.

So I’m telling you right now:

If you want to get Copy Riddles, and you want to get it for $200 off what it now sells for, then get on Daniel’s list today. Because his email about Copy Riddles, along with the special discount code, will go out tomorrow.

So that’s 200 good reasons right there to get on Daniel’s list today. And if you need one more:

As I’ve written before, Daniel gets results from his email list that nobody I know can match. The stock explanations for Daniel’s success are his storytelling chops, mixed in with his willingness to embrace conflict and self-promotion.

Fine.

But here’s another reason for Daniel’s success you may or may not have thought of:

His offers.

​​Daniel’s offers are how he beat out a dozen other top email marketers during the infamous 2021 Black Friday campaign. It’s how he made the classified ads he ran this spring (mine among them) a big success for everyone involved. It’s why I ended up providing a unique and sizeable discount on Copy Riddles only to people on Daniel’s list.

Not only are Daniel’s offers unique and creative, not only are they pretty much irresistible to his audience, but they end up making his positioning and authority and relationship with his audience only stronger after each promotion.

There’s lots to be learned there. And you can do so for free — even if you don’t vibe with Daniel’s style otherwise — by getting on Daniel’s list and paying attention just to the offers he makes.

So there you go. 201 good reasons to get on Daniel’s list. Here’s the link, in case you’d like to do so right now:

https://persuasivepage.com/

Would you like to take Copy Riddles off my hands?

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A couple months ago, I stopped selling my flagship course, Copy Riddles.

​​Copy Riddles was based on a Gary Halbert’s advice for how to learn to write bullets — look at the bullets written by the best copywriters, look at the book or course those bullets were selling, and see how the copywriter did his alchemy to transmute lead into gold.

I had various reasons for retiring Copy Riddles. I wrote about one of them in an earlier email. But even if I had no good reasons initially, the fact that I’ve publicly announced that I’m retiring the course means I won’t bring it back.

Frank Sinatra retired in 1971. “I have sung my last song for the public,” he said with a sigh. Fans were shocked. But then, 2 years later, Frank came back with a TV special, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, and he started touring again.

Ol’ Blue Eyes could get away with that, but you won’t see Ol’ Bejako doing it, in spite of several people writing to tell me that not selling Copy Riddles is a crime. I’ve simply found it easier to keep my word as a general life policy.

At the same time, I’m genuinely proud of Copy Riddles as a course, and there are people who say there is significant tonnage to what they’ve learned about copywriting from it.

So a few days ago, while I should have been washing myself but was instead just standing in the shower and thinking, I had an idea.

Could I sell the rights to Copy Riddles to somebody else?

Like I said, I don’t want to be the one selling it to the public any more.

But there’s clearly demand for the course, even with my absolute lack of promotion of the thing. Maybe somebody else would like to own the rights to Copy Riddles and sell it himself or herself.

With the tiniest bit of work, you could get affiliates lined up — for example, I’ve had Derek Johanson of CopyHour promote Copy Riddles in the past. I’ve had Bob Bly agree to promote it right before I decided to retire it. And Daniel Throssell asked to promote it right after I retired it.

If you’ve already got a list of people interested in copywriting, you could sell Copy Riddles to your list directly — the thing regularly brought in 5-figure paydays for me when I re-launched it every few months, and that’s with my small list that had seen the offer a lot.

Plus, maybe you could even run cold traffic straight to the sales page. I can’t say with any certainty it would be a winner, but I did talk to A-list copywriter Lorrie Morgan recently, and she was telling me what a good sales letter I’d written for Copy Riddles. Plus, I wrote it in an impersonal way, to be convincing to somebody who doesn’t know anything about me personally and who hasn’t read any of my emails.

All these are just ideas.

​​I don’t know if anybody is interested in taking Copy Riddles off my hands, or really how this would work. But I am intrigued by the potential.

​​If you are intrigued as well, and if you are serious about the idea of buying the rights for Copy Riddles from me, write me to say so, and we can start a conversation around it.

The opportunity to become an insight specialist

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Reader Carlo Gargiulo, who joined my Copy Riddles program a few weeks back, writes in to ask (the bold below was in his original message):

First of all, I want to tell you something.

The Copy Riddles exercises are helping me so much.

Just yesterday the head of the copy team I’m on right now read my latest sales letter and said: “It sounds like you didn’t write this sales letter. The sentences are short, concise, and specific. You did a great job.”

I’m now on round 18 and can confirm that this is a really, really important course for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills and become a copywriter who can write ads that convert.

Also, the structure of the course is wonderful.

You study the theory part, then you do the exercises, and then you check if your bullets are in line with the master copywriters… and repeat this round after round until you improve.

Having reached this point, I am undecided whether to buy Age of Insight.

I’ve been asking myself this question for days: will the information within it allow me to expand on the concepts expressed in Copy Riddles? Are the two courses related? Or are they part of two different planets?

Fact:

​​All the people who have signed up so far for my Age of Insight training have bought something from me before.

On the one hand, that means I’m doing something right with the trainings and courses I’m selling. Like Carlo above, the people who have been through my courses get real practical value from them, and want to come back for more.

On the other hand, it also means been I’ve doing a bad job selling the opportunity that is insight marketing, and Carlo’s question shows it.

So let’s see if I can make this opportunity a little clearer and more tempting:

The Age of Insight not a replacement for Copy Riddles, just as insight techniques are not a replacement for clear promises, sexy offers, or unique positioning.

But using insight in your marketing is an opportunity to do something that most marketers not aware of yet, but that a few smart marketers are getting great benefits from. For example:

Rich Schefren – who sold $960,000 worth of coaching services in 2 hours and 15 minutes thanks to a 40-page report built on insight techniques

Travis Sago – who manages to convert 20%-25% of his entire list over time, and who says insight the best way to move people towards a sale

Stefan Georgi – who makes a very small but very important insight technique an integral part of the trillions or perhaps quadrillions of dollars he has made with his copy

And what’s more:

All these guys have taught aspects of insight marketing somewhere, usually in one-off trainings behind closed doors.

I know, because I’ve gotten my hands on those trainings. But while Rich and Travis and Stefan realized that they were on to something powerful, their how-to on insight was partial and limited to their own experiences.

I’ve done a lot more thinking and research on this topic, and collected more examples, and experimented on my own.

​​And I will aim to give you the white-hot core of that inside the Age of Insight live training, so you too can start to consciously use insight techniques in your marketing, and start to get the rewards that come with it.

A while back, I looked up the etymology of the word opportunity.

It comes from the Latin phrase ob portum veniens — coming towards a port, and in reference to wind. In other words, an opportunity is a chance to get into safe harbor, with the wind to your back.

Right now, the wind is blowing favorably. But it will shift soon, because registration for the Age of Insight closes in two days.

When the wind does become favorable again — some day, no guarantees when — the price to dock inside the Age of Insight port will be much higher, perhaps double what it is now.

Meanwhile, the waves, pirates, and sharks behind you will only get bigger and more threatening.

Because while insight techniques are nice to have now — see results above — they will become more and more mandatory as the market inevitably rolls on and matures and more people start using these same techniques consciously.

I am only making the Age of Insight open to people who are signed up to my email newsletter. So if you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity while it’s still early days, here’s the first step to getting into harbor.