Jay Abraham

Unique, slightly gross positioning through “whale fall”

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A whale is denser than water. When a whale dies and stops breathing, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It then forms something called a “whale fall.”

A bunch of shrimps, crabs, and sea cucumbers suddenly appear. Some of these creatures specialize in eating the whale’s soft tissues. Some suck the fat out of whale bones. Others colonize the whale skeleton. In short, a whale fall creates a whole new ecosystem, which can last for many years.

Do you think this could be a way to create a business?

I once read Craigslist was basically an Internet whale that sank to the bottom. When it did, a bunch of creatures crawled out and started feeding off its carcass. So Airbnb scarfed up the vacation rentals. Indeed.com sucked in the job listings. Tinder ate the “casual encounters” section.

Maybe that’s a way for you too to start a business right now. Today’s whales like Facebook and Google are becoming less popular. Many of their services don’t work well. Maybe you can peel one off, and simply do a better job.

Or if you want personal positioning, why not turn your hungry eyes toward a whale influencer?

Guys like Jay Abraham or Frank Kern have been around for a long time. Over the years, they’ve had lots of different angles and ideas. They can’t focus on all of them. So you could pick one that appeals to your appetites, chomp into it, and make it into a steady stream of nourishment.

Maybe this whale fall discussion is getting a little gross. But the basic idea is sound. Few things are new in the world. We mostly take what came before us, and recycle it to new purposes. So go forth and prosper, you ambitious sea cucumber, you.

Are you still here? I don’t have any more whale facts for today. But if you want more marketing and business ideas, click here and subscribe to my daily newsletter.

Stop asking your clients for referrals

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Stop asking your clients for referrals. At least until you’ve read through this article.

You’ve probably heard the Ben Franklin book-borrowing story:

Franklin had a political opponent he wanted to win over. But he didn’t want to butter the opponent up with flattery of tenderize him with gifts. Instead, Franklin used another tactic. He asked his opponent for a favor — the loan of a rare and curious book.

The opponent obliged. Ben Franklin returned the book a week later, with a note expressing his strong “sense of the favour.” After that, Franklin’s opponent opened up. The two eventually became great friends.

What does this have to do with referrals?

Well, as Franklin put it, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another.” it’s a matter of consistency, that fundamental human need. If I do you a favor, I have to justify it to myself somehow, and that will affect how I act in the future.

But it goes in the other direction, too. And that’s the connection to referrals.

If you ask a client for a referral — and he doesn’t oblige, for whatever reason — then he has to justify that decision to himself. And like Franklin says, “He that has once done you an unkindness will be more ready to do you another.”

Of course, not every book you borrow will make you a new friend… and not every referral you fail to get will lose you an old client.

But I want to raise the possibility that asking for a referral in a haphazard way can have its drawbacks.

“Just go ahead and ask, it can’t hurt.” Maybe. Or maybe it can.

So does that mean you should get paralyzed with fear and avoid referral marketing?

No. But it might make sense to have a smart system that works.

Such as the systems you can find in the following video. I’ve linked to it before, but I’ll do it again. It’s a recording from a Jay Abraham seminar where various clients of Jay’s shared 93 referral getting-strategies that actually worked for them.

Some of these methods are simple and obvious. Some are involved and very clever. But they’re all worth knowing about if you want more referrals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_13FI1zE94k

A non-tactic for making friends at marketing conferences

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One of my todos for 2020, along with losing 80 pounds, developing a magnetic personality, and writing my first novel…

Is to go to a marketing conference.

All the big names say you gotta do it. It’s where relationships are made… it’s how you meet the top clients… and if you’re serious about copywriting, it’s supposed to pay for itself.

So I’m putting together a list of such events, and I’m steeling myself to go. I say steeling, because my image of how conferences work isn’t pretty:

A bunch of hungry, pushy, teething pups, all pressing forward to grab a nipple on the tired bitch’s teat.

If that’s how you imagine marketing conferences as well, then I wanna tell you a story.

I heard it today while listening to a podcast episode where Kevin Rogers (of copychief.com) interviewed Dan Ferrari (a top copywriter).

At the time of this interview, Dan had only been copywriting for 3 years. And yet, he already had a string of controls for the Motley Fool, and he had made connections with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Such as for example, at Brian Kurtz’s Titans of Direct Response in 2014. This event featured a bunch of copywriting and marketing legends, including Gary Bencivenga, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham… the list goes on.

On the first day, Dan (Ferrari) found himself seated all the way in the back of the room, one table away from all the speakers.

When the break came, the whole room erupted as everybody pushed to the back to try and get a word in with one of the celebrities.

As the smoke cleared, Dan spotted a woman sitting meekly by herself. And rather than trying to join the feeding frenzy, he started talking to her.

She wasn’t a marketer.

She wasn’t a copywriter.

In fact, she was only there because her husband had to come.

So Dan and she had a nice conversation. At the end of it, her husband came over. She introduced him to Dan.

And that’s how Dan met and started a friendship with Gary Bencivenga.

Now, I’m definitely not telling you this as a manipulative tactic for worming your way into the inner circle of big players you cannot reach otherwise.

I just want to suggest (to you as well as to myself) that going to a conference and having normal, human-sized conversations, can be productive and useful, even in such a seemingly competitive environment.

By the way, if you too are thinking of going to a marketing or copywriting (or other) conference in 2020, let me know. Maybe we’ll be at one together, and I’d love to meet you in person.

How to make money with an empty movie theater

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There were six of us altogether.

My mom and I were in the last row.

In the row in front of us, there was a middle-aged couple.

One row further down, there was another child/parent pair.

Six people altogether, in a movie theater that seats about 100.

It didn’t help that we were here to see a melodramatic German-language reworking of A Few Good Men, without Jack Nicholson, and with immigrants and Nazis instead of U.S. Marines.

But in spite of the lack of interest, this movie theater seems to be making money.

Of course, not from ticket sales.

Probably not even from the popcorn.

But from other uses of their good space.

For example, before the movie started, and ad told me that I could rent out the movie theater during the day for a business conference. Nobody wants to go see a movie at 11am, it seems, but plenty of people want to hear a boring PowerPoint presentation (hey, it’s better than sitting at the office).

And that’s not all.

This movie theater is also selling its own take-home popcorn. You can buy a box of movie-theater-style popcorn, at a premium I suppose, to take home and pop in your own microwave.

All of this reminded me of marketing magus Jay Abraham.

One of Jay’s big things is figuring out what assets a business might have that it’s not cashing in on.

Such as unused capacity (the movie theater business conferences)…

Or patentable processes (the movie theater popcorn).

But it’s not just movie theaters that can do this. Almost all businesses have such assets. So maybe start looking around and seeing things that you take for granted, or that even have zero value for you, but that somebody else might be willing to pay for.

So much for that topic. Onto something else.

If you need help with a different kind of marketing, specifically advertorials to promote ecommerce products, then maybe you will be interested in my upcoming book on the topic:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

7 low-key marketers who are worth your attention

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Below you will find a list of 7 un-famous men.

Odds are, you won’t know all of them, or maybe even most of them.

At least that’s how it was for me, for a good number of years into my copywriting and marketing career.

Which is odd, because all of these guys are very successful, either as copywriters or marketers or both.

The thing is, most of them don’t do a lot of self-promotion. But I believe they are worth your attention. And that’s why I advise you to track down everything they may have put out into the public sphere, whether paid or not.

​​Anyways, here goes:

#1. Travis Sago

I’ve mentioned this guy multiple times in my emails. He started out as an affiliate marketer 15 years ago, then became one of the leading Clickbank sellers in the “Get him back” space, and today earns millions of dollars by teaching other marketers his clever and very simple techniques.

#2. Dan Ferrari

I’d first heard of Dan as a success story for the Copy Hour course. Since then, Dan went on to be one of the top copywriters at the Motley Fool, and when that wasn’t enough, he started his own marketing agency providing marketing and copywriting to some of the biggest names in the health and financial spaces.

#3. Michael Senoff

Michael doesn’t fit 100% in this list, because he still does a reasonable amount of self-promotion. But as a marketer from a pre-Facebook generation, he might not have crossed your radar yet. My main reason for putting him in this list is that his site is an incredible rabbit hole into other very successful copywriters and marketers you have probably never heard about (it’s through Michael that I first heard of Travis Sago).

#4. Ted Nicholas

Ted Nicholas is supposed to be the most successful direct marketer in history, responsible for $6 billion in sales — more than even Jay Abraham. But he did all of this a generation or two ago, and while he has written several books about his strategies, they don’t get the same adulation that other copywriting classics (eg. Joe Sugarman’s books) get today. Still, do you think he might teach you a thing or two?

#5. Parris Lampropoulos

One of the most successful copywriters of the past several decades and somebody I’ve written about frequently, Parris mostly focuses on his work and doesn’t do almost any self-promotion. But if you search around, you can find a few podcast interviews he’s done — and each is packed with really A-list copywriting secrets.

#6. Million Dollar Mike Morgan

Mike is another very successful copywriter, who has a public online footprint that might even be smaller than Parris has. But if you search around, you might find an offer Million Dollar Mike is running right now (I think it’s still up), where he’s sharing some of his biggest insights and secrets in exchange for a donation to a good cause.

#7. Mark Ford

Mark Ford has written a dozen books about copywriting and marketing, plus he started and ran one of the biggest business and self-improvement blogs on the Internet (Early To Rise). Oh, and he helped Agora become a billion-dollar company. So why is he on this list? Well, because in my experience, in spite of all that Mark Ford has done and all the great info he has shared, many people still don’t know who he is.

That’s all I got for today.

But if you have more questions on how to become a successful copywriter or marketer, you might look here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Why you should ignore your competition

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True story:

Two entrepreneurs started two similar businesses, selling cubic zirconia (aka synthetic diamonds) by mail.

The first guy ran a well-written ad in the LA Times and sold a bunch of one-karat fake diamonds.

After all expenses were covered, he made a profit of around $3,000.

Disgusted with this small payout, guy number one folded shop and moved on to a new opportunity.

Guy two also ran an ad in the LA Times.

His ad was not as well written, and though it pulled some sales, the end result was about a $10,000 loss once all the expenses were counted.

However, guy two did not exit the market.

Instead, he mailed out his fake diamonds in a fancy wooden box with a letter that said (I’m paraphrasing),

“Look at your beautiful one-karat diamond in its beautiful box. Doesn’t it have a fiery brilliance? Oh and by the way, in case it’s smaller than you expected, we do also offer five- and ten-karat stones. And if you like, just return this beautiful but tiny diamond and we will credit its value to your purchase of a bigger rock.”

Guy two rode this fancy-wooden-box-plus-upsell-letter approach to a $25 million business — in the first year alone.

I heard this story in a talk given by Jay Abraham. And I was reminded of it today, when I read an article written by marketer Sean D’Souza.

I think Sean’s article is valuable reading for anybody who’s interested in building a successful and lasting building online — rather than just looking for a one-time opportunity with a quick payout. It might also be valuable reading for copywriters who put a lot of stock in swipe files.

In case either of these sounds like you, then here’s the link to read the full story:

https://www.psychotactics.com/ignore-your-competition/

7 hot systems to get you more referrals than Bernie Madoff

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Here’s something you may not think about:

Bernie Madoff, author of the largest financial fraud in history, started from scratch. Back in the 1960’s, he had just $5,000, which he earned working as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer.

So how did he go from this modest beginning to a $65 billion investment Ponzi scheme?

Through referrals, of course.

His father-in-law, an accountant, referred friends and their relatives to Madoff, and this got the snowball rolling.

Unfortunately, you and I don’t have Bernie Madoff’s father-in-law to press-gang clients for us. But we have the next best thing.

And that’s Jay Abraham, whose stuff I’ve been listening to non-stop the past few weeks.

One of Jay’s products is “93 Referral Systems” — basically a bunch of people at a Jay Abraham seminar, coming up to the microphone and sharing what their business is and how they get referrals.

I haven’t yet finished all 93, but here are 7 that have stuck with me so far:

#1. The “ultimatum” referral system

In a nutshell: Refuse to do business with people unless they make referrals

A dentist in Australia decided to make his entire practice more upscale and based on referrals. So after interviewing a potential new patient to his exclusive practice, he would simply tell them that referring two equally qualified leads was a requirement for getting in. Result? Patients would ask him, “Can I refer only two people?”

#2. The “steak and eggs” referral system

In a nutshell: Approach complementary businesses and give them a cut for referrals

A heating-and-cooling company started a new duct cleaning side business. They went to their competition (in heating and cooling), and asked for referrals for duct cleaning in exchange for a cut.

#3. The “golf buddy” referral system

In a nutshell: Join an affinity-based association

Some kind of unidentified consultant joined the National Speakers Association, and got many referrals from within the organization itself.

#4. The “welcome to our cult” referral system

In a nutshell: Whip people up into a frenzy and ask them to refer your business

This one is from Jay’s own seminars. Once somebody signed up, the salesperson would ask them, “How serious are you about this?” The salesman would then point them to phones in the back of the room, and ask them to call three people and tell these three people about the decision to enroll in the seminar.

#5. The “lobbyist” referral system

In a nutshell: Hire lobbyists to reach the unreachable

An investing company was looking for institutional investors. So they found retired executives, got them to sign a contract saying they’d get 10% for referring people they knew.

#6. The “fog of war” referral system

In a nutshell: When somebody buys, contact people near them

This one’s from a Lexus dealership. When they delivered the car, they’d ask if it’s ok to mail all the neighbors. They would then send direct mail to the neighbors, telling them how Mr. Jones down the street just got a brand new Lexus in a “neighborhood beautification program” and how they can too.

#7. The “Frank Bettger” referral system

In a nutshell: Get your clients talking about themselves so they like you

A life insurance salesman would take his clients out to lunch. He’d kick things off by using a Frank Bettger classic: “How did you get started in this business, Mr. Bejako?” He’d then transition to asking for advice. “What could I do to be more successful?” And then he’d go for the kill. “I’d love to expand my business and get more referrals. Who are some high-quality prospects you’d call on if you were in my shoes?”

And there you go. 7 proven systems to get you more leads, more business, and more, more, more munny.

And in case you’re wondering…

Yes, I too will start implementing some of these referral systems right away.

So if you need sales copy written, get in touch with me and we can talk. Just know that I only take on new clients if they can refer two equally qualified prospects for my copywriting services.

Why Whitesnake was wrong about customer acquisition

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I’m on a short weekend trip to Belgrade, and to get here I took an eventful car-sharing ride with a truck driver.

One of the surprises was him putting in a CD to play — which had bands like Joy Division and the Pretenders and Television.

And among other things, Whitesnake. You know:

Here I go again on my own
Going down the only road I’ve ever known
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone…

And as with everything these days, this made me think of a marketing lesson I’ve learned lately.

This is from Jay Abraham, the 21 billion dollar man (that’s the increase in profits Jay claims to have made his clients).

Anyways, the lesson Jay is teaching is exactly the opposite of what Whitesnake’s drifter is saying.

You don’t want to go at it alone, says Jay, at least when it comes to marketing yourself and acquiring clients.

That’s because there are plenty of people who benefit when you are successful.

And if you can identify these people, they will gladly bankroll some or all of your customer acquisition.

Now this might sound too good to be true, so let me give you a real-life example of how this could work.

I’ve been doing a lot of ecommerce sales funnels lately.

My clients have basically been specialized operations that source trendy physical products from suppliers in Asia, run ads on Facebook or other platforms to sell these products, and then rinse and repeat.

I write the copy for them.

And if I do a good job writing this copy, it’s not just my clients who benefit.

The suppliers benefit.

The video production company that makes the VSL’s benefits.

Any other freelancers they might be hiring — media buyers, designers, translators — all benefit.

Even the platforms that run the ads benefit. ​

So if I wanted to go out and find more ecommerce businesses that want to run the same kinds of marketing funnel for their products…

Then it would be smart of me to start approaching all these 3rd parties and trying to get their help, referrals, and even sponsorship for my own marketing efforts.

After all, if I’m successful, so are they.

Anyways, this a very powerful idea.

And whatever your business, it’s almost certainly applicable to you in some form.

As for me, I am not really looking for more ecommerce clients.

I’ve got enough right now.

But I am always interested in talking to potential new clients.

Especially if you’ve got a unique product, and you need long-term help with your marketing.

So make up your mind…

Don’t go wasting no more time…

And get in contact with me, again.