Daniel Throssell

Daniel Throssell, Daniel Kahneman, and a robot lawyer walk into a bar…

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A few minutes ago, I got my coffee ready, I set my timer, and I got down to writing this email. As a first step, I checked some news headlines and bingo — I saw it:

“AI-powered ‘robot’ lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court”

Maybe you’ve heard the news already. A startup called DoNotPay is helping people fight speeding tickets.

Before, DoNotPay used AI to write a letter that you could mail in to contest your speeding ticket. But now, DoNotPay will help one lucky defendant in court.

The DoNotPay app will run on the defendant’s phone. It will listen in to the court proceedings. And it will tell the defendant what to say to get out of his speeding ticket in court.

“This courtroom stuff is more advocacy,” said Joshua Browder, the CEO of DoNotPay. “It’s more to encourage the system to change.” Browder says he wants to give access to law to people who can’t afford it.

As you might guess, this noble mission isn’t very popular with lawyers themselves.

When Browder tweeted about his new courtroom “robot”, lawyers jumped on him, and threatened he would go to jail if he followed through with this plan.

And verily, a courtroom robot is not legal in most places. In most places, all parties have to agree to be recorded. But I doubt good will and keeping Browder out of jail is why lawyers jumped all over Browder’s tweet, telling him to stop this project immediately.

Lawyers still have a bit of time.

Right now, courtroom AI robots just handle speeding tickets. And Browder admits even that took a lot of work.

His company had to retrain generic AI for this specialized task. “AI is a high school student,” Browder said, “and we’re sending it to law school.”

Law school… and then what? because Being a good lawyer is not just about knowing the letter of the law.

Specifically, I have in mind a passage I read in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.

Kahneman says there are two fundamental ways lawyers argue.

These two ways are actually illustrated perfectly in the little debate Daniel Throssell and I had last week, in emails talking about newsletters and who wants ’em.

So I will make you an offer right now, which you are free to refuse, in case you’d rather go read Thinking Fast and Slow yourself.

My offer is a disappearing bonus.

It’s good until 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PSST tomorrow, Thursday, Jan 12 2023.

If you’ve already bought my Most Valuable Email course, and would like me to spell out Kahneman’s two lawyer strategies, write me before the deadline and ask.

​​I will write back to you, both with Kahneman’s passage, and the specifics of how Daniel and I each took one of the two approaches.

And if you haven’t bought my Most Valuable Email course, then my offer is the same, except you have to also buy the course before the deadline.

Buy just to get the bonus?
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If you find yourself desirous of the disappearing bonus, but reluctant to buy a course just to get that bonus, then I will argue that desire itself is a reason to get MVE.

​​Because this desire is something you too can create in others. It’s something I talk about in the course itself, specifically inside the 12 Rules of Most Valuable Emails, specifically Rule #10.

For more info on this course, or to get it before the deadline:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Daniel Throssell is right

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“Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scabbard upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded, therefore keep well the scabbard always with you.”

Australia’s best copywriter, Daniel Throssell, wrote an email two days ago in response to my own email from New Year’s Day.

Daniel’s subject line read, “John Bejakovic is wrong.”

In his email, Daniel started off by saying he and I are on good terms and that he has helped me before. And he’s absolutely right.

In 2021, I had been stubbornly writing this newsletter in silence for three years. With one email to his own list, Daniel changed that. In the three days after he first promoted me, I tripled my list size, and made a bunch of money as a result.

Daniel has also promoted me since, and every time, I’ve gotten a big boost in new subscribers. I’ve written before to say how grateful I am for that, and how impressed with the influence that Daniel has over his readers.

But back to Daniel’s email from two days ago. After that “we’re good” intro, Daniel went on to the heart of it:

A five-point argument that paid newsletters are a desirable or even superior info product. That’s opposed to what I wrote in New Year’s Day email, where I said that nobody really wants a newsletter, not without lots of bribes, indoctrination, or shaming.

If you haven’t done so yet, I’ll leave you to read Daniel’s email and see if you are convinced by his arguments. I’ve heard from readers on both sides.

Some said Daniel is a magician with words and that he turned it around brilliantly. Others said they found Daniel’s arguments unpersuasive.

As for me, I will only say that, even after reading Daniel’s email, I am still not selling a paid newsletter, or planning to do so.

But Daniel is selling a paid newsletter. In fact, he wrote recently that adding this paid newsletter to his business is one of the best things he’s ever done.

And that’s why he’s absolutely right to publicly fight for his position, to make a black-and-white case of it, and even turn it into an issue of what’s noble or not.

If you want to be seen as a leader, or if you have a kingdom to protect, then Daniel’s example is well-worth studying and following.

Like King Arthur, you have to mount your horse, brandish your sword Excalibur, and lead the charge against any flying serpent that crosses your borders and into your marches, before the ugly beast has a chance to threaten your heartland.

If I were in Daniel’s position, I would have to do the same. But fortunately for me, that’s not the position I am in.

Like I’ve said before, I don’t look at what I’m doing here primarily as a business. Yes, these emails have been making me money, and sometimes good money. But this is not only project I’m working on, and it’s not the main way I’m looking to make money.

That non-dependence is like the scabbard of Excalibur for me. It means I don’t lose no blood, no matter the wounding things anybody may write about me, about the content of my emails, or about the offers I promote.

And if you value your freedom more than ten kingdoms, then this kind of non-dependence is something to keep always with you.

Moving on. I have tribute to collect from various places around the world. Meanwhile, if you would like to read more essays I’ve written, then sign up to my daily email newsletter. Click ye here and fill out the form that magically appears like Merlin out of a cloud of smoke.

Daniel Throssell prompts me to put Gene Schwartz into a bigger context

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In response to my “Age of Insight” email yesterday, Australia’s best and favorite copywriter, Daniel Throssell, writes to ask:

I love how you think about this.

But aren’t your three levels of marketing kinda just expressions of market sophistication — and the different techniques required to make an ad succeed at each level?

You’ve probably heard about market sophistication. It’s an idea from Gene Schwartz’s book Breakthrough Advertising.

Basically, sophistication is a question of how many ads people in your market have seen previously. The more ads, the more sophisticated — and you gotta act accordingly.

At first, a simple promise will do. Then you need a bigger promise. Then you need a mechanism. Then you need a cooler mechanism.

And eventually, people get soooo bored with all your promises and mechanisms. You’re in the last stage of sophistication.

So Daniel is asking whether my “ages of marketing” — the Age of Promise, the Age of Positioning, the Age of Insight — are just a restatement of Gene’s stages of sophistication?

​​​​And is insight just another concept that’s hidden between the densely written lines of Breakthrough Advertising?

As often, my answer is both yes and no.

Yes — because pretty much all of marketing is contained in Breakthrough Advertising. This includes examples of proto-insight and insight-like techniques.

And no — because while pretty much all of marketing is contained in Breakthrough Advertising, there is one thing missing.

As far as I understand, Gene’s sophistication model is about individual markets. The way Gene has it, when a market reaches the ultimate level of sophistication, it eventually dies, and a new market is born out it:

The market for cigarettes dies, but the market for filter cigarettes is born, like a phoenix rising out of the ashtray.

And then the market for filter cigs goes through the same stages of sophistication, from naive to jaded, as the cigarette market went through.

Eventually, the market for filter cigarettes also dies, and yet another new market — the market for flavor in cigarettes — opens up. “Winston tastes like a cigarette should.”

Sounds reasonable, right? Human desires and gullibility are infinite, right?

Well, about that. That’s the one thing that’s missing from Gene’s magnificent Breakthrough Advertising.

Like I said, Gene’s sophistication model is about individual markets.

But it doesn’t account for what happens to both society and to individuals after many such deaths and rebirths.

So what happens? ​​What happens after decades of advertising, after thousands or millions of our personal money spent on cars, cigarettes, detergents, copywriting courses, and book-of-the-month clubs — all of which failed to really deliver on the deepest promises we were hoping they would fulfill?

I’ll tell you.
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What happens is that more and more people become guarded against any kind of advertising — not just bored with the claims in a given market.

What happens is low self-esteem — people start to suspect that there’s something wrong with them, and that even the most credible and amazing new offer can’t help them.

What happens is compulsive aimlessness — as is endemic in the info publishing world — where people still buy on occasion, but they never consume or implement.

That’s when you enter the Age of Insight. And that’s when insight techniques become useful beyond the techniques that Gene talks about in Breakthrough Advertising.

All that’s not to say that promises or mechanisms or positioning are obsolete. You can still sell and influence using just those.

But as Gene says, it’s a matter of statistics. And today, more and more people are becoming jaded, defeatist, or simply indifferent in response to classic advertising and marketing methods.

The good news is that it is possible to reach them — and to open up vast new markets for your offers.

How do you do it? That’s something I talk about on occasion in my daily email newsletter. In case you’d like to read that, and maybe find out how to reach those unreachable people, click here and sign up to get my dailiy emails.

Nobel Prize-winner shows just how right I, John Bejakovic, was

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Trust me for a moment or two while I tell you about the following interesting people:

On October 3, 1918, a man named Grover Bougher sent a letter to his brother George, a Private in the American Expeditionary Force.

Two days later, Grover was killed in a train wreck.

Grover’s letter was returned unopened the following April, with a note from the Command P.O. that George had also been killed, fighting the war in France.

Neither brother ever learned of the other’s death.

But life goes on. Eventually, Grover’s widow, Lulu Belle Lomax, met and married a man named Vernon Smith.

Smith loved children, including Lulu’s two daughters by Grover Bougher. And while Lulu had often said she would never have any more children, Vernon’s love for her two daughters changed her mind.

​​The result was Vernon Lomax Smith, born on January 1, 1927.

Fast forward to 2002:

Vernon Lomax Smith is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Well, actually he shares the prize with Daniel Kahneman. Like Kahneman, Smith did work in behavioral and experimental economics, so the Nobel committee thought it okay to split the prize among the two of them.

Fast forward even more, to 2022:

Vernon Smith, now aged 95, has taken part in an interesting experiment. Except, he is not the investigator. He is part of the experiment itself. The experiment runs as follows.

Smith and a lesser-known coauthor (one without a Nobel Prize) submit a paper for publication.

Will the paper be accepted for publication? How will Smith’s name influence those odds?

Result:

If Smith’s Nobel Prize-winning name is revealed to peer reviewers, they are more likely to accept the paper for publication.

If Smith’s name is hidden to peer reviewers, the reviewers are less likely to the accept for publication.

Common sense, right?

Except, what was not common sense, what was not obvious, and what was in fact shocking to the scientists who conducted this experiment, was the size of the effect of revealing Vernon Smith’s name to peer reviewers.

If Smith’s name was revealed to peer reviewers, they were 6x more likely to accept the paper than otherwise.

Same paper. Same quality of ideas inside. 6x difference in response.

6x!

Yesterday, I, John Bejakovic, wrote an email advising you to give your prospects mental shortcuts to make their decision-making easier.

One of the most valuable of such shortcuts is, as I have long trumpeted, to sell people, and not ideas.

Ideas are vague, hard to grasp, and hard to judge.

People, on the other hand, sell much better. How much better?

Well, thanks to Vernon Smith, we now have the answer:

​​6x better.

Like I said, this is something I have known for a long time. But I still need to remind myself of it often.

For example, I have lately been promoting my Most Valuable Email training.

I’ve given you all sorts of idea-y reasons why you might want to buy this training and learn the “Most Valuable Email trick” inside.

What I haven’t done yet is tell you maybe the most important reason.

While I have used this MVE trick heavily – more heavily than anyone I know of — I did not invent it.

In fact, I have seen some very smart and successful marketers, including Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, and Mark Ford reach for this trick it in non-email content.

It’s much rarer to see this trick being used in emails — outside my own — though I have spotted Daniel Throssell using this trick on occasion.

So many names.

So many people.

So many reasons to buy my Most Valuable Email training.

In case you are interested:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Announcing: Membrane Theory

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Frankly, I’m a little filled with dread as I sit down to write this email. I mean, just a moment ago, I realized it was time, but I had nothing. No ideas to write about. In a last-ditch attempt to put off work, I decided to check my own inbox.

​​And whaddya know?

There was something interesting in there:

My monthly report from Google Search Console, telling me which pages on my site have gotten the most visits.

So what are my most visited pages? And how are people finding me? Here are my top 3 Google queries:

1. Dan Ferrari copywriter
2. Evaldo Albuquerque
3. Daniel Throssell

Is this fair?

​​I mean, I’ve written way more emails/posts in the categories of motivation, positioning, and insight marketing than about any of those three guys.

But as the numbers show, that doesn’t matter.

​​What does matter is a really fundamental and very valuable idea — valuable if you are ever trying to influence people and get them to change their minds. I’ve previously summed this up as:

Sell people, not ideas.

Ideas are smoke.

But people have meat to them.

It’s just something about the human brain. In any pile of random data points, we are pre-progammed to search for human actors, for faces, for names.

This is just one example of something I call “membrane theory.”

Rather than dealing with a bunch of loose stuff, people want to put a membrane around it, and deal with it as a unit.

That’s why we love clearly defined scenes and events, with a ritualized beginning and an end.

That’s why we love to get a medical diagnosis, as bad as it may be, rather than keep living with a bunch of vague, threatening, on-and-off symptoms.

That’s why we love to categorize ourselves and others. We want to stop the world from being fluid and flexible, and instead we want to see ourselves as an INTQ while the other guy is an EFBJ and so of course we cannot work well together.

But you know what?

I’m not applying my own lesson here.

Because “Membrane Theory” is a horrible-sounding and abstract idea.

So let me stop talking about that. And let me talk about myself instead.

As I finish up writing this email, I’m a lot less filled with dread than I was just 20 minutes ago.

I’m looking out my large balcony doors, to yet another sunny and hot day in Barcelona. A scooter just drove up my street. Man those things make a lot of noise.

As soon as I finish up here, I’ll get back to work on my Most Valuable Email project. I’m turning that into its own complete course, and it should be ready soon.

Also, a bit later in the month, I will convert my Copy Riddles program from being delivered by email, only a few times a month, to a standalone, web-based, evergreen course.

In the meantime, if you want to help me get the word out about 1) myself and 2) Copy Riddles, I created an optin page/too-valuable post for that.

And if you share that optin page publicly, I’ve got a little bribe for you. It might be of interest in case you are a freelancer — it can help you get clients.

For the full details on that offer, which I have membranized under the name Niche Expert Cold Emails, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

Ben Settle or Daniel Throssell? My #1 recommended resource to learn email copywriting

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In my email yesterday, I wrote that I’m traveling for a few days and that my subconscious let me down.

That’s because I wanted to write a quick and easy email. But even though I channeled my inner Gary Bencivenga and summoned the giant within to help me out with my copywriting duties, I got nothing.

​​Absolutely nothing…

​​Or so it seemed.

In reality, maybe the giant within did do some work on my behalf.

Because there was something about the email I did end up writing yesterday.

For some reason that’s not clear to me, it provoked a bunch of earnest, curious, and even strange responses from people on my list. These responses will provide me with good email fodder for the next few days and maybe beyond.

​​To start with, here’s a question I got from a reader named Paul:

I am a relatively new copywriter but one thing that fascinates me is email copywriting. People like you, Ben Settle and Daniel Throssell make their email interesting to read, persuasive, even addicting.

If you could recommend some/one resource for learning email copywriting, which would you recommend? (besides your 10 commandments book, which I already bought and read, btw it’s a really great book)!

Well, if you have $100, you can give it to either Ben Settle (for his Email Players Skhema that comes with his Email Players monthly subscription) or to Daniel Throssell (for his Email Copywriting Compendium).

​​I have both, and I cheerfully endorse both.

Also, some time soon, I will re-release my Most Valuable Email training in a formal, course-like format. That will also sell for $100.

​​I’m biased to the tactic I discuss in that training, because it’s been responsible for many good results for me personally. So maybe you can just wait a bit and give me your $100 when the Most Valuable Email is available again.

Of course, there’s also an entirely different route if you want to spend you $100 in the best way.

Most people won’t want to hear this. But if you want to learn email marketing, I mean really learn it, then the best resource I can recommend is…

Active Campaign. Or MailChimp. Or Constant Contact. Or whatever.

The email software you use isn’t important.

What is important is that you start your own list.

Do it today.

And then later today, write a short email and send it to your list, even if you’ve got zero subscribers.

​​In that email, give a little occasion of what happened to you earlier in the day — “this Bejako character suggested I start my own newsletter.” Then tie it up with something you learned about email marketing by reading the newsletters of people who are a few years ahead of you.

Such as, for example, the fact that there’s a lot of value in free daily email newsletters, if you will only read carefully and then apply the advice.

So write that email today.

And then tomorrow, do it all over again, with a new occasion, and a new bit of something you learned.

Keep this up for a week. Then 30 days. Then for 90 days.

By that time, I bet you will be well on your way to making your own emails interesting, persuasive, and even addicting.

All right, so much for the free but valuable advice that almost nobody will take.

Again, if you’ve got a $100 burning a hole in your pocket, you can buy solid courses from both Ben, Daniel, and eventually from me.

But $100 will also get you 11 months of the lowest plan of Active Campaign. That’s the software I personally use. It’s fine, and I’m fine endorsing it to you.

If by some small chance you want to take my advice and want to get started now, you can use my affiliate link for Active Campaign below.

And if you do sign up for Active Campaign using my affiliate link, send me an email and let me know.

Once you set up your optin form, I’ll get on your list.

I don’t promise to read your emails all the time. I certainly don’t promise to give you feedback or coaching or public endorsements.

But I do promise to stay subscribed for at least 90 days. And maybe knowing that at least one person is on your list will be enough accountability to allow you to go from being fascinated by email copywriting… to being fascinating.

In case you are ready to get going:

https://bejakovic.com/activecampaign

I just remembered Cialdini’s best way to teach anybody anything

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I’ve just awakened from a hypnotic trance.

I spent the last 16 minutes watching a video of a fridge repairman from Alabama disassembling a failed fridge compressor.

As my hypnotic trance cleared, I began to marvel at this mystery.

After all, I don’t have a fridge compressor to fix. And I’m not looking for DIY advice.

In fact, I have zero interest in fridges or handymanism. I wasn’t familiar with 95% of the technical terms the fridge guy was using. I really could gain nothing practical or pleasurable from his 16-minute video.

So why did I watch it, with rapt attention, from beginning to end?

Perhaps, you say, I was just looking to waste time instead of writing this email.

I certainly do like to waste time instead of working. But why not waste time doing something I like, like reading the New Yorker, or watching some Bill Burr on YouTube?

No, it wasn’t that.

But perhaps, you say again, I just enjoy feeling smug and right.

After all, the dead fridge compressor was from 2009. And the fridge repair guy specializes in maintaining long-running, old fridges that go back to the 1940s. So maybe I was just looking for confirmation of my belief that old is good and new is worthless.

Maybe. But if that’s the case, why did I have to watch the video, and all 16 minutes of it? I mean, the video’s title gave me all I really needed to feel smug:

“Declining quality of consumer-grade products – 2009 fridge compressor autopsy…”

So no, it can’t be that.

But perhaps I just wanted to share something cool with a friend.

Even though I have no interest in handymanism, I do have a friend who is into it. I wanted to forward him this video, and maybe, you say, I just wanted to make sure it was worthwhile.

But that doesn’t hold water either. After all, this video popped up on a news aggregator I frequent, where it got 2-3x the usual number of upvotes. That’s a lot of tacit endorsement of quality. And I could tell within just the first minute or two that my friend might find this video interesting, and that I should send him the link.

So why did I myself watch the entire thing?

In trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle, I jumped back to a critical point in the video at minute 5:54.

The fridge guy has just tested whether the compressor failed because of electrical failure. No, it turns out, it wasn’t electrical.

So he decides to cut open the locked-up compressor and see what’s going on inside. As soon as he cuts the compressor open, the motor moves freely, and is no longer locked up.

The fridge guy is in wonder.

“I don’t understand at all,” he says. He decides to try to power the compressor up again. “My guess is it still won’t start.”

“Aha!” I said. “I get it now!”

Because I realized what was going on. I realized why I had been sucked into this video so hypnotically.

It was the structure of the way the fridge guy was doing his compressor autopsy.

He was using the exact same structure I read about once. A very smart and influential professor of persuasion spelled out this structure in a book, and he said it’s the best way to present any new information and teach anyone anything.

I don’t know if the fridge repair guy had been secretly reading the work of this professor of persuasion.

But I do know that if you’re trying to teach anybody anything, whether in person, in your courses, or just in your marketing, then this structure is super valuable.

It makes it so people actually want to consume your material. They will even want to consume it all the way to the end (just look at me and that 16-minute fridge video).

This structure also makes it so the info you are teaching sticks in people’s heads. That way, they are more likely to use it, profit from it, and become grateful students and customers for life.

And this structure even makes it so people experience an “Aha moment,” just like I did. When that happens, people feel compelled to share their enthusiasm with others, just like I am doing now with you right now.

You might be curious about this structure and who this professor of persuasion is.

Well, I will tell you the guy’s name is Robert Cialdini. He is famous for writing the book Influence. But the structure I’m talking about is not described in Influence.

Instead, it’s described in another of Cialdini’s books, Pre-Suasion.

Now, if you read Daniel Throssell’s emails, you might know that Daniel advises people to skip Pre-Suasion. He even calls it the worst copywriting book he has ever read.

I don’t agree.

Because in Chapter 6 of Pre-Suasion, Cialdini spells out the exact structure I’ve been telling you about. Plus he gives you an example from his own teaching.

This is some hard-core how-to. ​And if you ever want to get information into people’s heads, and make it stick there, for their benefit as well as your own, you might find this how-to information very valuable.

In case you want it:

https://bejakovic.com/presuasion

The Email Player Haters’ Ball

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A few years ago, Ben Settle revealed that he now makes over a million dollars a year from his emails and info products.

Bob Bly has long said how his own, twice-a-week email newsletter, plus collection of $39 ebooks, earns him a healthy 6-figure income to complement his client work.

And last December, it leaked out that Daniel Throssell’s 2021 email income was “significantly higher” than $250k.

So where does that leave me?

I’ll tell you where.

It leaves me on the stage of the Email Player Haters’ Ball, receiving the award for best Email Player Hater. Like Dave Chappelle in his Playa Haters’ Ball skit, I’ll start off my acceptance speech by saying:

“First off, I’d like to thank God Almighty for giving everyone else so much… and me so little. [boos from the crowd] I hate you… I hate you… I don’t even know you, but I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you, and nobody else but you. [more boos]”

I won’t tell you exactly what I made over the past year from this newsletter. Let’s just say it’s equivalent to a modest salary. It’s certainly much lower than Daniel, Bob, or Ben make from their newsletters.

But in spite of my joke Email Player Hater status, I’m not stressing about my newsletter earnings.

In part, that’s because I tell myself that every blockheaded and self-defeating thing I do with this newsletter serves a deeper purpose. It allows me to stick with it for the long term.

But also, I don’t stress because of something I do instinctively, or rather something I don’t do:

​​I don’t compare myself to others, at least when it comes to business and money.

Over the past six days, I’ve been telling you about the six characteristics of a positive mental attitude. Today it’s time for the last one:

​Self-to-self comparisons.

The idea is that if you want a positive mental attitude… then don’t be a player hater or a player admirer.

​​Don’t look at all the people ahead of you on the great treadmill of life, and don’t stress how they are all the way up there… and you’re all the way back here.

Instead, simply compare where you are right now to where you were yesterday, yestermonth, and yesteryear.
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And that’s it. The end of my 6-part, positive-attitude, let-me-put-you-to-sleep series.

Maybe you feel that was a little abrupt. Maybe you’re even left feeling a little unsatisfied.

After all, self-to-self comparisons might be good. But isn’t there value in looking to others for inspiration?

And didn’t I even say in my email yesterday that it’s good to be inspired by a vision that’s tinted by envy and bitterness?

True.

And that’s not the only confusing and conflicted part of this positive attitude stuff.

The fact is, if keeping a positive mental attitude were easy and simple and direct, then everybody would be doing it, all the time. And everybody would be happy, healthy, and on their way to being successful, all the time.

Of course, that’s not what you see at your local Bed Bath & Beyond.

Having a positive attitude consistently, or at least when it matters, isn’t particularly natural to most people.

The good news is, being aware of what it takes is step one. That’s what you have now.

But it will still take some repetition, practice, and maybe even juggling for this to have any chance to sink into your subconscious. For it to be useful the next time you might be recovering from a bad injury… or learning how to play the tuba… or building out an email-based business.

To help you get that repetition and practice, you can always reread these emails. Or just sign up for my email newsletter, and let me do all the work for you.

About my semi-confessional love note to the wrong girl (and my lifelong history of sending such notes to the wrong people)

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When I was in 10th grade, I had a light-to-moderate crush on this girl in my English class, Sarah K.

One day, while we were in class, I wrote Sarah some kind of a note. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote. It was not a full-on confession of love. More like a semi-confession, veiled in some kind of inside joke.

The class was seated in an L-shaped arrangement of desks. Sarah’s desk was in front of and perpendicular to mine.

I folded up the note.

I waited for the opportune moment.
​​
And I tossed the note from where I sat to Sarah’s desk.

But Sarah didn’t notice. She was busy writing something. In fact, everyone was busy writing something. Well, except me.

“Psst, Sarah!” I tried to get her attention.

But in my characteristically careless way, I forgot that Sarah K. shared the desk with Sara L.

Sara L. looked up from her writing. She saw my hopeful-then-terrified face. And then she spotted the note on the desk.

Sara L. picked up the note. Unfolded it. Tried to parse the meaning of whatever I had written for Sarah K.

Sara L. then frowned, shook her head a little, and gave me a disapproving look. It said, “You are SO weird.” She crumpled up the note and threw it over her shoulder.

Well, that was a long time ago. It doesn’t sting much any more.

​​But really, how little things change.

Yesterday, you may have been surprised to get an email from me with the subject line “Death of a postcard.”

I meant to send that email just to the 20 people who are the first subscribers to my Most Valuable Postcard.

But instead, I ended up sending the email to my entire list. Years of daily ritual clicking is a hard habit to break.

I realized my mistake only a few moments after I sent out the email.

I literally groaned. Because here’s something you might or might not know about me:

In spite of the frequent typos, missing articles, and ungrammatical sentences in my emails (a consequence of how I write, a topic for another time), I actually hate making mistakes.

The memory of even a tiny mistake can keep me up at night, or startle me awake in the morning.

And sending out a semi-confessional note to a mass of people who were not supposed to get it — well, that’s a less tiny mistake than just a typo.

Like I said, I groaned.

And then, in the very next moment, I took a deep breath.

I reached into my mental library. I pulled out my copy of Daniel Throssell’s Email Copywriting Compendium. ​​And I flipped the mental pages until I got to rule #101.

“Aha,” I said, “here we go. Here’s the fix for this mess.”

I won’t tell you what Daniel’s rule #101 is. If you’ve bought the Email Copywriting Compendium already, you can reach for it now in your mental bookshelf, or at least pull it up on your computer, and look up rule #101 yourself.

And if you haven’t bought the Email Copywriting Compendium yet, well…

Daniel certainly doesn’t need my help in selling it. And since so many people on my list are also on Daniel’s list, I’m not sure what help I can give.

Still, I have been in a giving mood lately. And I have been sharing resources that I personally find valuable. So I will link to Daniel’s Compendium below.

If you write daily emails, I encourage you to get it and read it. Maybe even twice. That’s how many times I’ve read it so far, and I might read it again.

And in case you’re wondering:

This is not an affiliate link. It’s also not part of any kind of JV, cross-promo, list-swap deal with Daniel.

I’m just linking to Daniel’s Compendium because a) you might get value out of it and b) in gratitude over that rule #101. Plus a few other of Daniel’s rules, which I’ve peppered into this email.

​​Maybe you can spot these rules in action. If not, here’s where to go:

https://persuasivepage.com/compendium/

My big takeaway from yesterday’s Daniel Throssell presentation

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I’m at the airport as I write this, sitting in a dangerously comfortable armchair, staring out the big windows onto the tarmac, and waiting to fly from Sofia, Bulgaria to Barcelona, Spain.

This is the latest leg of a crisscrossing world journey I started almost two years ago. During that time, I have moved some two dozen times, staying mainly in Airbnbs though occasionally also with friends and family.

If you’re wondering why I’m gushing all this atypical and overly personal information at you, it’s because yesterday I held my “Analysis of Daniel Throssell” presentation.

In the aftermath of this presentation, I noticed I got as much positive feedback about the actual content I shared as about random personal things people spotted about me. The Firefox extensions I use… the labels in my Gmail account… my own charming face (apparently I look like actor Mike Connors).

The presentation seems to have been a success. Exactly 430 people registered for it, and by my very precise estimate, somewhere between 0 to 430 people attended live (I was too focused on what I had to say to actually check how many people were on the Zoom call).

The three techniques I was so focused on sharing during this presentation, the three techniques I identified in Daniel’s copy, are what you might consider “secrets.”

In other words, they are stuff you probably hadn’t heard or thought about before. They are meant to make you say, “Ohh, that’s clever” when you hear them.

These three techniques made certain of Daniel’s emails stand out to me. In that way, they are undoubtedly valuable.

But marketing “secrets” like this are rarely as valuable as the fundamental stuff you probably hear all the time, and have probably been hearing for years, but for one reason or another you refuse to accept, or refuse to do.

Such as the idea that personal reveals create trust, build a sense of liking, and set the foundations for a long-running relationship.

That’s probably plenty obvious to you if you are a regular reader of Daniel’s emails.

Perhaps you have incorporated revealing personal stuff in your own marketing, and you’ve reaped the benefits thereof.

Or perhaps like me, you dislike the idea of talking about yourself in any way.

In which case, all I can say is, it’s worth pushing yourself, and experimenting with how to make personal reveals in your marketing while still keeping your sense of integrity.

Because personal reveals definitely have benefits. Like I said above, they seem to be as impactful, and probably more so, as the info you actually share and the benefits you provide your audience.

That’s my big takeaway from yesterday’s presentation.

Does it resonate with you in any way?

No? You want more secrets?

In that case, you definitely won’t like the offer I will make in my email tomorrow.

To be honest with you, I actually hoped to put this offer it into today’s email. But I’m very sleep deprived, and it took me shamefully long to write the preceding 507 words. And in just a few minutes, boarding is starting.

So the only offer I have for you today is my workhorse, The 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters. It might have slipped by you if you joined my list only recently.

It doesn’t really have any secrets, but it does have a lot of really fundamental advice, some of which might be trasnformative for you. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments