Derek Johanson

The best writer on the Internet?

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There musta been something in the water last week.

First, I exchanged a couple 1:1 emails with Derek Johanson of CopyHour, about a potential JV deal. At the end of of our exchange Derek wrote:

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I LOVE your emails.

Literally the only daily emailer I read anymore. I’ve un-subbed from everyone. I don’t know how you do it daily. haha

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Then I sent out one of my regular daily emails and I got a reply from Parker Worth.

In case you don’t know Parker, he is “just a guy with a neck tattoo,” as per his Twitter bio.

In reality, Parker is quite a bit more than that. He’s got an online audience of over 70,000 people spread across Twitter and LinkedIn and his email list, and in just two years, he’s built a 6-figure business on the back of it, teaching people how to write online.

Parker simply replied to my email and said:

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John,

I’m convinced you’re the best writer on the internet.

Happy holidays

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Then I was on a mastermind call with marketer Travis Sago, somebody I have learned more from over the past couple years than anyone else, and somebody I’ve promoted to this list multiple times.

At one point, Travis said to his mastermind folks:

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I’ll brag on Johnny B. [that’s me, by the way].

Johnny B., when he sends affiliate promos, he brings a buncha people in.

He’s a micro influencer. He’s a big fish in a small pond. That’s all I am too.

But you’ve got these very, very rabid people, and they’re very responsive, because they’re not Mr. Beast and they’re not Grant Cardone. They’re very responsive and a lot of their little ponds will drive so much fucking traffic it’ll blow your fucking mind.

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I’m telling you this because well, much like milk, endorsements and social proof are best used fresh.

Also, to show you that, as I’ve been claiming, I have the attention and trust of some influential marketers and business owners in my little corner of the Internet, many of whom read these emails every day.

Also, because tomorrow is the grand and dramatic start of my “I endorse YOU” auction.

This is in fact the last email I will send out before the auction starts.

I’ve been talking about this auction for what seems like an eternity. And yet I’m still getting questions about exactly where and how this auction will happen.

The details are the following:

1. The auction will kick off tomorrow at 6pm CET/12 noon EST/9am PST.

2. It will happen inside my Daily Email House community.

I will create a new post to lay out exactly what’s on offer to be auctioned off.

Bids will go as comments under the post. If you are a Daily Email House member, you will be able to bid, if you so choose, by posting your bid as a comment as well.

3. The auction will go on for as long as it has life.

I have had a few dozen people express interest in bidding in this auction. Let’s see who actually will bid, and for how long.

Since I am offering to transfer my own credibility to you (as for my credibility, see above), and since I am guaranteeing the winning bidder to make all his or her money back, I am hopeful of brisk business. But as I wrote yesterday, success is far from certain, and in fact, the road is treacherous.

4. I’ll have a free bonus for you if you make any kind of a bid, even if it’s just $2. The goal is to make this auction fun and lively for as many of my readers as possible.

5. Oh yeah, there will also be a pool party. Did I mention that? I recently moved to a new apartment. I now have a pool. On my terrace. The dimensions are ridiculous (enough to maybe fit a fridge inside, and not much else) and it’s more trouble than use to me. But I have a pool.

Would you like to join me for the pool party? If so, again, doors open tomorrow at 6pm my time. Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Do I have an affiliate relationship with all these big names?

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A couple days ago, I opened the most recent Exploding Topics newsletter, which tracks topics and brands that are surging online.

The top Exploding Topic was Scandinavian Biolabs, “a hair growth startup” that raised $5M in funding last year.

“Hello,” I said, “this sounds familiar.”

I had a sense that I know the head copywriter at Scandinavian Biolabs. I suspected it might be one Liza Schermann, the original Crazy Email Lady, who also acted as a cohost of the Age of Insight and Influential Emails trainings I ran several years ago.

I forwarded the Exploding Topics email to Liza to confirm this is indeed the place where she works. Liza wrote back:

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Haha look at that, I’m back at work and growth is skyrocketing! That’s the place indeed. I remember the celebration party for that $5M funding vividly.

I was just typing a reply when you forwarded it so I might as well do it here.

Did you have an affiliate or some kind of other partnership with Chris Orzechowski? Or did you just promote his workshop because you found it interesting? I was wondering that every time you promoted a big name.

Anyway, it seems like it’s been an eventful year in Bejako Land business-wise with lots of different offers (at least from what I could keep up with). I’m looking forward to your annual summary email if you’re planning to send one!

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In answer to Liza’s question:

Yes, I promoted Chris Orzechowski’s training (“5 steps to a million-dollar list”) as an affiliate.

I also promoted Derek Johanson’s CopyHour and Email Delivered Courses as an affiliate.

I promoted Thom Benny’s 1-Person Advertorial Agency as an affiliate.

I promoted Justin Blackman’s Different On Purpose as an affiliate.

I promoted Igor Kheifets’s Click Send Earn as an affiliate.

I promoted Kennedy’s “$27k to $544k” training as an affiliate.

And in a couple weeks from now, when I promote Gasper Crepinsek’s ChatGPT Mastery, I will do so as an affiliate.

I have in the past promoted people’s things simply because I thought they were cool and valuable, without getting paid.

I still do that sometimes.

But if I can promote something I think is cool and valuable AND get paid for it at the same time, well, I like to have my cake and lick it too.

The fact is, I have been feeling burned out this year about creating new offers.

I have created a lot of courses, trainings, reports, and even books over the 6+ years of running this newsletter.

Some have stuck around and become evergreen offers (Copy Riddles, Most Valuable Email, my new 10 Commandments book). Others were exotic one-time events (like the Age of Insight and Influential Emails workshops).

One thing’s for sure:

Even when I’m in full offer-creation mode, the appetite of my audience for cool and valuable new solutions to existing problems is much much bigger than what I can personally satisfy.

That’s one reason I’ve been building up a little invite-only group of list and offer owners.

I’ve been quietly pitching this group to people as a place to connect and partner and share ideas.

It’s proven to be that — it’s led to list swaps, podcast appearances, and affiliate promos, and not just involving me, either.

It so happens that Chris, Derek, Thom, Justin, Igor, Kennedy, and Gasper are all in my little invite-only group.

Maybe this group could be a good fit for you too?

If you’re interested, write in and let me know who you are and what you do.

A list is a mandatory requirement, as is the fact that you are writing that list regularly, and that you’ve made money from your list.

If have your own proven offers, that’s definitely a bonus.

Beyond that, I’m curious to hear who you are and what you do. If it’s a fit with the group, I’ll know it when I see it.

If more sales from your list with less work sounds sexy to you, write in and let’s talk.

How I conceived and delivered my first online course

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Four score and six months ago, I brought forth on the Internet a new offer, conceived in Columbia but delivered back in Europe, for what I called my “bullets course.”

I sold this new offer to a group of about 20 “beta-testers” who came via my email list. These beta-testers were willing to pay me for up front for this course, based simply on the info I shared in an email, without a sales page, sight unseen.

That’s just as well, because the course didn’t exist at that point yet. I only had the idea for it.

Since I managed to get the number of beta-testers I was looking for, I delivered the course over the next 8 or so weeks — via an email each workday, which I was writing day-for-day.

This way of creating a course turned out to be very low pressure and yet very productive for me. Meanwhile, it also provided accountability and a cohort feeling for the participants.

During those 8 weeks, I got feedback, corrections, and testimonials from that first group of students. I collected all that, integrated it into the second iteration of the course, which was largely the same, except it now had a higher price tag, and a new name, Copy Riddles.

I have been selling Copy Riddles ever since and have made — well, I won’t say exactly how much, but enough to buy several metric tons of glazed donuts.

That in a nutshell, is how you create value out of thin air.

If the way I told that story makes me sound like some kind of agile and entrepreneurial wizard, that’s not my intent.

The fact is, the only reason Copy Riddles was a success was that pretty much nothing I did was my original idea.

As I’ve written many times, the core idea for Copy Riddles content came from direct marketer Gary Halbert, and was drilled into my head via a training I had heard from A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos.

As for the structure of Copy Riddles — the fact I presold it and then delivered it via email, one day at a time — that came from me spying on course creator Derek Johanson, specifically, the way Derek created and delivered his CopyHour course.

I’m telling you this because Derek is currently launching a course, delivered daily by email, that gets you to launch, sell, and deliver a course that people want to pay for, in 30 days, all via email.

Derek’s course is creatively called “Email Delivered Courses” and it gets you to do what Derek did with CopyHour.

You certainly don’t need to buy Email Delivered Courses to launch your own email delivered course. Derek lays out the high-level process on his EDC sales page, which I’ve conveniently linked to below. And like I wrote already, I reverse-engineered and hacked many of the details myself, and that’s how I did Copy Riddles.

I’m still telling you about Email Delivered Courses for two reasons:

1. Maybe you don’t wanna do what I did, and spend weeks stalking Derek and reverse-engineering what he does. Instead, maybe you are happy to pay Derek to simply tell you what to do each day, so you come out 30 days from now with your own completed, desirable, and sales-validated course.

2. The real question is not whether you could figure out what Derek did, but whether you actually will do so, and whether you will then put it into practice in the next 30 days, and have an asset that you can sell ongoing, and buy yourself many metric tons of glazed donuts.

Derek’s launch for Email Delivered Courses closes at the end of this week. If you’d like more info, or to join before the doors close:

https://bejakovic.com/edc

Bitter prediction

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Derek Johanson is apparently running a launch of CopyHour this week. I say “apparently” because there was some mixup with Derek’s emails, and they only arrived to my inbox today. I opened one this morning to read the following bitter prediction:

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Back in the 1960s, researchers were looking at the productivity improvements computers were about to bring – and sounded the alarm because it looked like humans were soon going to only be working 2 hours a day with the same output.

What would we do with all that free time!? What will happen to the economy!?

Obviously that’s not what happened. Instead of working less, we just started outputting a lot more in the same amount of time.

I have a feeling we’re going through a similar cycle now.

AI is about to replace a lot of the work we’re doing now – not just copywriting, but everything. But, instead of not working, we’re likely just all going to start outputting 10x-100x what we used to because of those advances in AI.

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If you wanna lose money, put your chips on “But this time it’s different!” In other words, the Lindy Effect backs up Derek’s bitter prediction.

We’ve had breakthroughs in labor-saving technology for hundreds of years. At each point, the Powers That Be started worrying, “If people aren’t working, what the hell are we gonna do with them?”

The result was that, with each new labor-saving technology, some way was devised to keep people as busy are before, or busier, while simply making their output 100x greater.

But, and I realize I’m most likely going to shoot myself in the foot here, this time it’s different, at least the way I see it.

It’s not so much because the latest crop of AI is such a powerful labor-saving tool, though that’s certainly a requirement.

Rather, I think it’s because other parts of society have changed from the days of mainframe computers and rotary presses and spinning jennies.

Maybe I’m biased, but I see more and more people working for themselves, or with a range of clients or customers or followers, rather than with one single boss. This makes it more likely that people can work from where they want, as much or as little as they want, rather than 40+ hours, take it or leave it, from our office in downtown Baltimore, exclusively on the employer’s terms.

Or if you want to get more dark, I also think the Powers That Be are fine to let us have our leisure today because they now have other ways of controlling the world that they didn’t have before. That could be monetary, technological, or simply via TikTok propaganda.

All that’s to say, my prediction is that this time it really is different.

We genuinely are entering an era where unprecedented numbers of people free up leisure time for themselves, and work only on things they choose to do, in moderation, rather than obsessively running on the hamster wheel because it’s either run or die.

AI is an inevitable part of this transformation. And you can get started with it today. Which brings me to the offer I am promoting nowadays, ChatGPT Mastery.

I wrote an email about ChatGPT Mastery yesterday that did surprisingly well.

Direct marketing dogma says if something is working, don’t touch it.

So here is my email from yesterday, reprinted word for word, in case you want to automate some of your work and free up some of your time:

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Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

The one ring to rule them all, until it doesn’t

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A few weeks ago, Derek Johanson of CopyHour wrote an email with an inspiring idea:

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Most often all that an online business needs to go from zero to 6 figures is to focus on ONE simple business model and ONE marketing channel for growth.

One Business Model: If you sell courses, only sell courses. That’s your one business model. Don’t add coaching or do freelancing too.
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One Marketing Channel For Traffic: If you’ve picked LinkedIn to drive traffic, don’t think about YouTube or paid ads at all.

That’s it. Going deep into ONE business model and ONE marketing channel is how you double a small business.

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When I read this, I had a double reaction:

1. Whoa this makes sense
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2. Hold on, this can’t be right — it’s just another manifestation of the human desire for “the one thing”

“The one thing,” as you might know, is a popular hook in direct response advertising.

It manifests itself in different guises — “the one thing,” “the ancient secret,” “the real reason” — but ultimately, it taps into to our brains’ desire to melt down the complexity and messiness of the world into just one magic ring of power to rule them all.

Rings like that exist in fantasies, but they don’t exist in real life.

Except, that’s not really what Derek was saying in his email. He was saying something more nuanced, and not-one-thingy.

I wasn’t quite sure how to stickily sum up what Derek was saying. Fortunately, somebody did it for me, in a paid private group (the only paid private group) that I’m a member of. The person in that group summed it up like this:

1. Test until it works
2. Scale until it stops working

Many things can work — for example, as sources of traffic.

The thing is, most things won’t work right out the gate. It will take some time and tweaking for them to produce results.

That’s step 1. Most people quit before they complete this step, and instead they jump to back to the beginning, to another supposed ring of power, hoping that it will work right away.

Derek’s email was about step 2. Going deep into one thing and scaling until it stops working. Which is a worthwhile idea, and like I said, quite not-one-thingy.

I thought about how to apply this to my own business. And I’m not really sure.

In terms of marketing channels to get people reading these emails, my number one source has been referrals and word-of-mouth, which I did absolutely nothing to encourage beyond writing daily and sharing novel ideas and illustrations. Maybe I should just keep writing.

As for the one business model, I still haven’t quite figured out one that I’m happy with. Which is why, over the past few months, I’ve sent out so many emails that ultimately link to $4.99 books on Amazon, or interesting articles you might find valuable, or—

Well, let me get to it now.

You remember I mentioned the paid private community I’m a member of? The only one?

I personally find it very valuable — and interesting.

Maybe you will too. But you will have to decide for yourself. I’m not promoting this community as an affiliate, and I’m not pushing you to join it. But if you’re curious to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

High-ranking Tinder profiles

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I met a friend for dinner last night. As we sat over tacos gobernador, he told me about an acquaintance of his, who has cracked the Tinder code.

My friend explained:

Apparently, Tinder puts its users into castes of a sort. Based on how attractive you are, you get a score. And your profile is only ever shown to other people who are at your score or lower.

In other words, the caste of 6’s are allowed to gaze up and admire the caste of 9’s. On the other hand, the 9’s don’t even know the 6’s exist. Let them eat cake.

But!

My friend’s acquaintance has supposedly figured out a way to game the system. He can now create profiles that get a Brad Pitt score at will. And he’s selling these profiles.

Of course, once you update your Brad Pitt profile with your Ed Norton photos, the profile won’t stay inside the top caste forever.

But it will stay there for some time. And who knows, maybe that’s enough time to find true love? With somebody high-caste?

“Interesting,” I said out of the side of my taco-filled mouth. “So how is he selling these?”

“That’s the problem,” my friend said. “Facebook won’t let him run ads. So I suggested he could pay for an agency Facebook ad account. He could then cloak it. And who knows, after a while, he might figure out how to run these cloaked ads to sell his Tinder profiles.”

One way or another, this is the route many people take when they have something new to sell.

“I have the product. It’s great, or at least I think so. Now how in the hell do I build an audience, or create a marketing system, so that I can sell my great product?”

It can be done. But it’s a difficult and expensive path to go.

A much easier and cheaper route is to find people who have already built an audience or a working marketing system.

Example:

When I had the idea to create my Copy Riddles program, before I built it out, I reached out to Derek Johanson of CopyHour.

​​I explained my idea, and asked Derek if he would like to be my first affiliate.

​​Derek said yes, even though he had never met me before, and even though I had zero credentials as a course creator.

Example two:

I told my friend last night to tell the Tinder code-cracker to find people who are already running Facebook ads for Tinder offers.

You know, $37 ebooks with the magic 3-word Tinder opening line etc.

Reach out to these people, and see if they would be interested in selling their buyers on the opportunity to get seen on Tinder, so they can actually use their magic opening lines.

And that’s my suggestion to you too.

It’s not just if you have a new offer. It’s not just if you’re a newbie.

You can go at anything alone. You might make it. Or you might falter and collapse by the side of the road.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who have already bought or built various bicycles, buses, or helicopters. Many of them might be willing to give you a ride. You just have to ask.

But back to my Copy Riddles program.

After Derek Johanson said he would be my first affiliate, I did end up creating the actual program. And Derek did end up promoting it as an affiliate. As did Daniel Throssell. Daniel had this to say about it (spliced together from a few of his emails):

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

It’s the most brilliant course concept I’ve ever seen… literally a gamified series of sequential puzzles that teaches you copywriting.

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

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Maybe Copy Riddles can help you sell your own $37 ebook? Or maybe it can help you craft a sexy pitch that gets others interested in selling it?

If you’d like to find out more about Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

10 lessons from my CopyHour promo

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I finished my CopyHour promo last night. I can say it was a success.

I made a healthy number of sales and made good money. No, it’s not “buy a chateau in France” kind of money. But if I could do this every week, honestly I would.

I made a list for myself of 10 lessons learned from this promo. Maybe these lessons won’t speak to you at all. Or maybe you’ll find one interesting or valuable point inside. Here goes:

1. I was worried that there would be nobody left to buy. I mean it’s CopyHour. The program has been around for 12 years and 3,000+ people have bought so far. Plus, there’s a lot of overlap between Derek’s list and mine… plus, Justin Goff promoted CopyHour a couple months ago.

“Surely everybody knows CopyHour and has either bought or has decided not to buy…”

But I was wrong. There were people for whom CopyHour was genuinely new. And there were others who were swayed by my bonuses (more on those below).

2. As has happened before when I’ve promoted affiliate offers, people wrote in thanking me for turning them on to a good product or service they hadn’t heard of before. This is a strange phenomenon known as “people are happy to be sold as long as you sell them stuff with their best interest in mind, and you communicate that.”

3. I officially ended the promo with more subscribers on my list than I started with, in spite of sending 10 emails over 3 1/2 days. I’m ascribing that to the following…

4. The event felt lively. In fact it always feels lively when I’m promoting something I haven’t promoted before… when sales are coming in… when sales are coming in from people I had never heard from before, but who turn out to have been reading my emails for a year or more… when I’m pushing out lots of emails quickly… and when even people who are not interested in buying are writing in to comment on the event and the emails.

5. It feels great to promote a solid proven offer that really helps people. And when it feels great, I’m much more ready to work.

6. It feels really nice to promote an offer where I don’t have to do any delivery after the fact. I’m planning to take most of the day off today after I finish this email.

7. Bonuses: The fact that they added up to what CopyHour cost, and even a bit more, made it feel like buy-one-get-one-free to people. Some bought because of that, and wrote in to say so.

9. A few people wrote in to say they were persuaded to buy by a specific bonus among the five I offered. Lesson learned: Keep creating content, keep putting out offers, and even if those offers don’t become evergreen sellers like my Simple Money Emails program, they can still have value.

10. It’s often easier to write 10 emails than to write 1.

I had been really struggling writing emails the past couple days/weeks before promoting CopyHour.

I’ve been looking to make some significant changes in the way I run this newsletter and the kinds of offers I promote.

The result has been a lot of baggage in my head and feeling inhibited when I write and second-guessing myself. Promoting a solid affiliate offer and simply being able to write fun emails cleared that from my head, at least for this week.

All that’s to say:

If you bought CopyHour, thanks again for buying. I hope you will do the work and get the promised results.

And whether or not you bought, I hope my emails over the past few days were still entertaining and maybe even valuable.

I’ll be back tomorrow with something new. I have no idea what yet. But now, it’s time to go have coffee and go for a walk.

Announcing: Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets

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I’m excited to announce my new offer, Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets.

​​I’ll tell you about this new offer in a moment, but first I want to share a valuable marketing tip with you. Here goes:

Back in the 1990s, Gary Bencivenga, widely believed by marketing experts to be the greatest living copywriter, sold a little offer of his own.

Gary’s offer was a book of tips for winning jobs. He sold it via ads in USA Today, like this:

Headline — “Do you make these mistakes in job interviews?”

Offer — The core book, “Interviews that Win Jobs,” for $49.95. There was also a free bonus, which Gary said was “selling nationally for $49.95,” called “How to Answer the 64 Toughest Interview Questions.”

So far, so standard.

Except, I am a bit of an amateur advertising sleuth.

And so I happen to know that Gary also ran a second ad for a second book about job and interview tips.

He sold this second offer via ads USA Today, like this:

Headline — “Job hunting? How well can YOU answer these 64 toughest interview questions?”

Offer — The core book, “How to Answer the 64 Toughest Interview Questions,” for $49.95. There was also a free bonus, which Gary said was “selling nationally for $49.95,” called “Interviews that Win Jobs.”

So that’s my little tip for you today:

Do what Gary did, and double your front-end offers by selling both your bonus and your core offer.

This will force you to make both offer and bonus sexy and appealing.

​​And it will add legitimacy and authority when you say that the bonus sells for $49.95, as opposed to the mealy-mouthed alternative of so many marketers, valued at $49.95.

I don’t bring up this Gary Bencivenga tip by accident.

I bring it up because I discovered this tip back in the decade of the 2010s, when I spent 100+ hours copying old and successful ads by hand, including both of Gary’s jobs ads.

I doubt that I would have spotted Gary’s doubled-up offer had I simply “read” Gary’s first ad, skimmed past that “selling nationally for $49.95” at the very end, and tossed the ad aside.

That to me is the value of hand-copying ads and sales letters.

Other people ascribe magic to the actual neurology of copying stuff out by hand.

I’ve personally never experienced that. But I have found the process of copying ads immensely valuable because it forced me to sit and really examine ads carefully, and spot many of the valuable details that make them work, which I would have missed otherwise.

Which brings me to my new offer. It’s a special, one-time bundle called Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets. Inside this unique bundle, you can find the following:

#1. Copy Zone (selling nationally for $100). My 175-page, A-Z guide on the business side of copywriting, from getting started with no experience or portfolio, all the way to becoming an A-list copywriter.

#2. Most Valuable Postcard #2: Ferrari Monster (selling nationally for $100). A deep dive into a single fascinating topic — code named Ferrari Monster — which I claim is the essence of all copywriting and marketing. Get the Ferrari Monster right, and almost everything else falls into place.

#3. Copy Riddles Lite (selling nationally for $99). A slice of my Copy Riddles program, proportionately priced. Try yourself against legendary A-list copywriters like Gene Schwartz, David Deutsch, and Clayton Makepeace — and in the process, implant new copywriting skills into your brain.

#4. Horror Advertorial Swipe File (selling nationally for $100). A zip file with 25 PDFs, featuring the original copy for 25 of my horror advertorials. These advertorials pulled in millions of dollars on cold Facebook and YouTube traffic, and sold everything from fake diamonds and dog seat belts, to stick-on bras and kids’ vitamins.

#5. 9 Deadly Email Sins (selling nationally for $100). 9 lessons distilled from my expensive and exclusive one-on-one coaching sessions with successful business owners and marketers.

The trainings inside Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets sell nationally for a total of $499.

But you can get this bundle at a discounted price of just $497 — if you act by this Thursday at 8:31pm CET, using the link below.

Plus, if you get Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets before the deadline, I’ll also add in a free bonus, membership in Derek Johanson’s CopyHour program.

​​CopyHour sells nationally, and internationally, for $497. But it’s yours free when you get Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets.

​​To get both before the doors close:

https://bejakovic.com/copyhour

P.S. If you do get Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets, write me and say so. Due to the quirks of the above sales cart, I can only see the first name of who’s bought, and not the email. So write me and say you bought, and I’ll make sure you get both Red-Hot Copywriting Secrets and access to CopyHour.

How CopyHour changed my life (no joke)

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This week, until Thursday at 8:31pm CET, I am promoting Derek Johanson’s CopyHour program. I’ve never gone through CopyHour myself. And yet it changed my life.

By the time I found out about CopyHour, around 2017, I had already been handcopying successful ads and sales letters on my own.

That’s what CopyHour is about, and it’s a worthwhile exercise.

Maybe I can say more about hand copying ads in a future email. But not now, because that’s not how CopyHour changed my life.

Back in 2017, there was not the the glut of copywriting courses and education that there is now. So I eagerly joined the CopyHour group Facebook group to see if I could maybe learn something on the sly.

Back then, the Facebook group was where Derek delivered the trainings that go with the handcopying work. I could see Derek was legit, had experience and expertise, and had put in time and effort to make CopyHour a really great program.

For example, this group was where I first got exposed to the book Great Leads. It’s a valuable book. But more importantly, it turned on some light in my dim brain and turned me on to the idea that maybe I should find some classic books about copywriting and read those.

This led me down a deep rabbit hole of reading and research which helped make me a drastically better copywriter in time.

But that still not how CopyHour changed my life.

How CopyHour changed my life is that I got on Derek’s email list.

During the next launch of CopyHour, Derek sent a bunch of emails to promote the program. One of those emails was actually not written by him but by a copywriter named Dan Ferrari.

At the time, Dan was a star copywriter at financial publisher Motley Fool. Dan’s story is classic bizopp rags to riches — from subsisting on four teaspoon of olive oil for breakfast because that’s all he could afford, to writing a control with his second sales letter at Motley Fool and soon pulling in millions of dollars in copywriting royalties.

“Hm,” I said, “maybe I should see if this dude has his own email list.”

I found Dan’s site. I signed up to his list. And what followed was… nothing. No emails. Not for almost two years.

Long story even longer, one day in 2019, Dan finally sent out an email asking his list if anyone was in the Baltimore-Washington area at the moment. As luck would have it, I was there at the time.

That email led to me joining Dan’s small coaching group a few months later… learning directly from Dan… hitching my wagon in part to Dan’s rising star… and making, as a direct consequence of a few words of Dan’s advice inside that coaching program, some hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But let’s wrap this story up:

The program that Dan credits for taking him from the olive oil subsistence breakfast to being a control-beating star copywriter at Motely Fool is — CopyHour.

The reason I found Dan and ended up learning copywriting from him is — CopyHour.

That’s my story.

Yours, I don’t know? Maybe it can start today.

Derek has opened the doors to CopyHour today. He will close them on Sunday because CopyHour is a real-time program.

But while Derek’s doors will stay open until Sunday, I will give you a reason to act now. If you join CopyHour before this Thursday at 8:31pm CET, and you do so using my affiliate link below, I will give you the following five free bonuses:

#1. Copy Zone (price last sold at: $100). My 175-page, A-Z guide on the business side of copywriting, from getting started with no experience or portfolio, all the way to becoming an A-list copywriter. Only ever sold once before, during a flash 24-hour offer in March 2023.

#2. Most Valuable Postcard #2: Ferrari Monster (price last sold at: $100). A deep dive into a single fascinating topic — code named Ferrari Monster — which I claim is the essence of all copywriting and marketing. Get the Ferrari Monster right, and almost everything else falls into place.

#3. Copy Riddles Lite (price last sold at $99). A slice of my Copy Riddles program, proportionately priced. Try yourself against legendary A-list copywriters like Gene Schwartz, David Deutsch, and Clayton Makepeace — and in the process, implant new copywriting skills into your brain.

#4. Horror Advertorial Swipe File (price last sold at: $100). A zip file with 25 PDFs, featuring the original copy for 25 of my horror advertorials. These advertorials pulled in millions of dollars on cold Facebook and YouTube traffic, and sold everything from fake diamonds and dog seat belts, to stick-on bras and kids’ vitamins.

#5. 9 Deadly Email Sins (price last sold at: $100). 9 lessons distilled from my expensive and exclusive one-on-one coaching sessions with successful business owners and marketers.

In the past, I’ve sold each of these trainings at the prices listed. When you add all those prices up, you get a total of $499 in free bonuses. This happens to be more than CopyHour currently sells for.

That said, don’t join CopyHour just to get my free bonuses. Join because you decide that you will do the work involved in CopyHour, and that you will benefit from it.

For more info on that, take a look at Derek’s writeup of how CopyHour works:

https://bejakovic.com/copyhour

The “2-sentence persuasion secret” that A-list copywriters know and you don’t

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I’ve got a “2-sentence persuasion” secret I’d like to tell you, which I extracted straight from the head of John Carlton, and which will help you write killer sales copy, for more sales in less time.

Interested?

If you say yes, then I say… I’m not surprised. Hear me out.

I took my own advice from a few days ago. And I looked at the top three guys in the “copywriting course” space. I wanted to see how they sell their stuff.

And by the top three, I mean Stefan Georgi with his RMBC course… Ben Settle with his Copy Slacker course… and Derek Johanson with his Copy Hour course.

(If your blood pressure just shot up because you believe these three are NOT the top guys in the “copywriting course” market… fine. You’re probably right. I just feel that, for people who might be potential customers for my bullets course — name still TBD — the above three are my top competitors.)

Anyways:

I looked at their sales pages. And I told my brain to search for commonalities. Here’s what it came back with:

1. Mechanism. All three sales letters prominently feature a mechanism — it’s actually the name of all three courses.

2. Authority. Beyond mechanism, all three rely on authority to wow you. Stefan’s page is all about his own authority and the massive sales he’s made… while Ben and Derek defer to A-list copywriters for their implied or direct endorsement of the mechanism.

3. The promise. Both Stefan and Ben basically say, “More sales in less time.” Derek’s promise is more vague — killer sales copy, and ultimate success. Perhaps he’s just targeting a slightly different audience than Ben and Stefan.

So my point for you is:

This kind of research is something you too can do… and it might prove valuable in helping you define your promise and your positioning.

Or it might not.

I’m not sure if I will really go with “2-sentence persuasion” and all that other stuff when promoting my bullets course. Because even though Ben, Stefan, and Derek are all successful in selling their courses… I bet the copy is not a major part of why those courses sell.

Instead, I think it’s about the relationships those guys have with their lists… their reputation in the market… their word-of-mouth endorsements.

That’s why you can’t really trust most online copy. Sure, it can give you good ideas. But it’s worth testing anything you find, and making sure it actually works for you.

By the way, if you are interested in killer copy and more sales and less time, and you’re curious about my 2-sentence persuasion approach… then sign up for my newsletter. That’s where I will send out announcements once this offer becomes available.