Friends

I was wrong yesterday, and I will do it again

by

Yesterday, I talked to the self-proclaimed dinosaur of direct marketing, Brian Kurtz, about doing a presentation to his Titans XL mastermind.

Brian and I agreed that I’d give a talk to his group some time early next year. The topic will be… email, of course, but more specifically, engagement in email.

(I’ve been told by various people that I should take all the different tricks I use to tease out and engage my readers and put them together into a training. So that’s what I will do in front of Brian’s group.)

This morning, as I was standing in the shower, pretty much the entire presentation came together in my head.

I carefully stepped out of the shower, toweled myself off not very well, and tiptoed to a notebook to write all the ideas down.

I won’t share the whole thing here — you’ll have to be there in Brian’s Titans group when I give it live.

But I will tell you one way I spark and kindle engagement.

It’s something you can do today. It’s something that might not come naturally to you, but that you can force in the interest of creating more interesting content.

And that’s to be wrong.

The more often you are wrong, the more engagement you will get.

For example, yesterday I wrote an email about “The most famous copywriter, real or fictional.”

I did so knowing that, whoever I named, I would be certain to omit others. And I got replies telling me so:

#1: “The world famous rapper Lil Dicky (Dave Burd) was also working as a copywriter before he became a rapper. He even has an episode about it in his HBO show Dave.”

#2: “Elmore Leonard also has copywriting background. His novels are amazing.”

#3: “Salman Rushdie – 8.34 million results :)”

#4: “Did you know that Chandler also becomes a copywriter in season 9 of Friends?”

I did not know. Any of that. But now I know.

You might say these replies aren’t pointing out that I’m wrong. And you might be right.

The replies above are all helpful, playful, looking to complete my incomplete message from yesterday.

But I still say the same underlying psychology of correcting somebody who’s wrong applies.

​​In fact, I insist on it.

And if you don’t agree with me, then you can always hit reply and tell me so.

Meanwhile, you might like my Most Valuable Email course. Why? Because it’s most valuable.

I know a thing or two thousand about writing daily emails. That’s one of the reasons I can go in front of an experienced group like Brian’s Titans mastermind and still tell them something new.

And one thing I know is that my Most Valuable Email tricks produces emails that I personally find most fun to write. And maybe most fun for readers to read.

​​​If that turns you on, here’s how you can start writing your own Most Fun Emails in an hour from now:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

The Joey Tribbiani school of subtle persuasion

by

Over the years, I’ve said a lot of bad things about the TV show Friends. I take it all back. Because a few days ago, a kind and multi-talented reader wrote in to point out the persuasion lesson hiding right in the pilot episode.

The scene is set in a Manhattan apartment of one Ross Geller, circa 1994. Ross’s wife has just left him. Ross is desperate. He fears he will never find love again. What if there’s only one woman for every man?

Joey Tribbiani, Ross’s man-whore friend, is personally offended by this idea. “That’s like saying there’s only one flavor of ice cream for you. Let me tell you something… there’s lots of flavors out there. Rocky Road… cookie dough… cherry vanilla! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! Welcome back to the world. Grab a spoon!”

Perhaps this scene is not terribly convincing, much like all of Friends. But it does illustrate the gist of a powerful way to create insight. And that’s persuading by metaphor or analogy.

“Romantic partners are like ice cream.” When your brain hears this, it starts to look for points of similarity. It maps obvious features of one thing to another. And if those fit well enough, your brain jumps to the conclusion that other, less obvious features map also.

“Ice cream comes in different flavors. So do romantic partners. Just because you like one flavor, that doesn’t mean you cannot like another.” Maybe you’re not convinced. But Ross is.

By the end of the pilot episode, Ross makes a bold move on his old high-school crush, Rachel. “Do you think it would be ok,” Ross asks, “if I asked you out, sometime, maybe?”

Rachel realizes she’s dealing with a child. “Yeah, maybe,” she says.

That’s good enough for Ross. He leaves the apartment, walking on a cloud. “What’s with you?” asks his sister.

A smile spreads across Ross’s face. “I just grabbed a spoon.”

Here’s why this kind of persuasion works — even outside of 90s sitcoms.

We often get entrenched in a way of thinking. Getting out of that rut can be hard. That’s what analogies and metaphors are for. They create a new perspective — a new pattern of thought — around an old and familiar problem.

Imagine a cliffside of sheer rock, jutting straight up. You want to get to the top. “But it’s impossible,” you tell yourself.

An analogy is a wooden arrow sign, stuck into the ground next to that cliff. “Hidden staircase this way,” it says. All you have to do is follow where it’s pointing.

Computer genius Alan Kay once said that a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, if you can make a good analogy to your prospect and raise his IQ by 80 points, he might finally be smart enough to see the value in your offer.

How valuable would that be for you?

Well, after the pilot, Friends ran for another 262 episodes. Today, 25 years later, the franchise is still worth over $1 billion each year, thanks to reruns.

Am I saying that analogies could be worth $1 billion to you? No. But maybe, for a split-second, your brain jumped to that conclusion.

By the way, I’m putting together a book on other strategies for creating insight in your prospect. If you want to know more and get notified when the book is out, one option is to get on my daily email newsletter.