How to write how-to content in the age of ChatGPT

“They can put a man on the moon, but…”

Jerry Seinfeld did a comedy routine in the 1980s about how Neil Armstrong landing on the moon was the worst thing to ever happen, because it gave ammo to every dissatisfied and griping person on earth.

Well, I feel like we’re in a similar moment today. Just yesterday I read a prediction by four smart and informed people called “AI 2027.” It says we will have superhuman artificial intelligence in the next two years.

“They are gonna put superhuman artificial intelligence on my stupid iPhone, but…”

… people still have problems today, big and small.

That’s a part of the reason why I feel that how-to content, mocked for years by Internet marketing thought leaders, is making a comeback.

(By the way, everything I’ve just told you above is a “problem-solution” lead, which is a good way to “pace” your reader in your how-to content, and set up the actual tips you have to share. As for that:)

#1. Absolute best case: Offer a new solution

How-to content offers solutions to people’s problems. People have problems not because they are incompetent and hapless morons. Instead, they have problems because what they’ve tried before hasn’t worked.

So the absolute best how-to solution you can offer them is something new.

Example:

A few years ago I wrote about a trick I had found made me motivated and eager to get to work.

Basically, before getting to work, I’d set a timer for 7 minutes and just sit, without allowing myself to do anything but sit. When the seven minutes was up, I’d be raring to get to work simply because my mind had been so impatient and was looking for some outlet.

(I’ve since started calling this Boredom Therapy and I still highly recommend it.)

When I wrote an email about this 7-minute pre-work trick, I got a record number of people replying and saying, “This is so cool! I gotta try it!”

People are always looking for ways to be more productive or, rather, less unproductive. They’ve heard about goal setting and Pomodoro technique and eliminating distractions. They have either tried them (“didn’t work”) or they’ve dismissed them (“couldn’t work because I heard it before”).

But offer them something new, and neither of those objections holds.

Offering a genuinely new solution is valuable in the age of ChatGPT, because by design, ChatGPT contains at best yesterday’s solutions that it learned from yesterday’s how-to articles.

The trouble is, there’s only so much new stuff, and even less new stuff that actually works. What then?

#2. Next-best case: Offer a solution that’s worked for you personally

In short, if you can’t write a new “How to” solution, write a “How I” case study.

It’s easy to suggest solutions when people have problems, and it’s even easier to dismiss such solutions. What’s impossible to dismiss is a fact-packed personal case study of how you solved a problem in your own instance.

Example:

Did you see what I did in that point 1 above, about a new solution? The fact is, “offer a new solution” is hardly new advice for in how-to content. So imagine that I’d just written the “how-to” part of that section, without including the personal case study of my boredom therapy email.

I feel, and maybe you will agree with me, that it would have made that section much easier to shrug off, and might even have made it sound preachy and annoying (“Oh yeah Bejako? Where am I supposed to get a new solution you donkey?”)

A how-to solution backed by your own case study is valuable in the age of ChatGPT because, while the solution is not new, the case study is. It therefore makes your content both unique and credible. On the other hand, default ChatGPT how-to advice is, once again by design, generic, anonymous, and therefore at least a bit suspect.

#3. Not-quite-best case: Sell the hell out of an old hat

If you got nothing new AND you don’t have a personal case study to share, then you’re left with familiar, well-trodden, old-hat solutions.

At this point, you’re not really in the information-sharing how-to business any more. Rather, you’re in the inspiration and motivation business.

Example:

In my Simple Money Emails course, I spend about a page’s worth of copy in the introduction to warn people against dismissing ideas in the course they might be familiar with.

That’s because later in the course I will suggest such tame breakthroughs as “make sure the opening of your email supports the offer you are selling.”

My customers might be tempted to shrug this off, and so I sell them on it, in advance — by acknowledging it might sound basic but highlighting how valuable it has been to me and other successful marketers, and how long it took me to actually internalize it, and how many people, including well-paid copywriters, actually don’t follow it.

Inspiring and motivating people will remain valuable in the age of ChatGPT because — well, who knows if it will remain valuable.

I’ve actually found ChatGPT to do a pretty good job inspiring me and motivating me.

But I still think humans have the edge here, simply because of our own pro-human, anti-machine embodimentism (a word I just made up to mirror racism and speciesism). I predict that will continue to hold, at least until 2027.

By the way, it’s good to keep your how-to articles to no more and no less than three points. I have more tips to share on writing how-to content in the age of ChatGPT, but I won’t.

Instead, let me tie this all into my promotion of Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, which I’m bringing to an end tomorrow.

If you think back to my point 1 above, about how there’s not a lot of new stuff out there, and even less new stuff that works… well, that’s because most of the new stuff that works is inside Travis’s Royalty Ronin membership, and the bonus courses he gives away to members.

Over the past five years, I’ve seen dozens of people build 6- and 7-figure coaching businesses by reselling and repackaging ideas that Travis was sharing back in 2018 and 2019.

But Travis hasn’t been sittin’ pretty in the meantime. He keeps creating and innovating new ideas, ones that actually make money for him and for others who know of them and put them to use.

You can know of these if you look inside Royalty Ronin. And maybe you can be inspired and motivated by the other people inside the community to actually put some of these ideas to use.

I’ve been promoting Royalty Ronin for 2 weeks now. I will end my promotion tomorrow, Sunday, April 6, at 12 midnight PST.

I will certainly promote Royalty Ronin again in the future, maybe even every month. So you might wonder what exactly this Sunday deadline means.

I have been giving a bonus bundle to people who signed up for a week’s free trial of Ronin. After Sunday, this bonus bundle will go away, or rather, it will go behind the paywall. I will no longer give it to people who do the free trial, but who end up signing up and paying for Ronin.

If you’d like to kick off a week’s free trial to Ronin before the trial bonuses disappear, you can do that at the following link:

​​https://bejakovic.com/

P.S. My bonus bundle, which I have decided to call the “Lone Wolf and Cub” bonus bundle, to go with the “Ronin” theme, currently includes the following:

1. My Heart of Hearts training, about how to discover what people in your audience really want, so you can better know what to offer them + how to present it.

2. A short-term fix if your offer has low perceived value right now. Don’t discount. Sell for full price, by using the strategy I’ve described here.

3. Inspiration & Engagement. A recording of my presentation for Brian Kurtz’s $2k/year Titans XL mastermind.

I say “currently includes” because I will probably add more bonuses to this bundle, once I remove it as a bonus for the Ronin free trial and make it a bonus for actual Ronin subscription.

But if you sign up for trial now and decide to stick with Ronin (or you’ve already joined based on my recommendation), I’ll get you the extra bonuses automatically in the course area.

“Do you know who I am???”

Today I have another valuable story for you about personal positioning.

So let me take you back to 2007, when Jerry Seinfeld went on Larry King Live, and when green-colored sparks started flying.

For reference:

Larry King hosted a massively popular live interview show on CNN, which ran from 1985 to 2010. Over a million people tuned in each night.

King had a habit of friendly and conversational interviews. He did over 50,000 of them — fifty thousand. He never did any research or prep.

For more reference:

Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian. He was the biggest television star of 1990s, thanks to his hit sitcom Seinfeld, which wrapped up in 1998.

Larry: You gave it up [the show]. They didn’t cancel you, you canceled them?

Seinfeld: [pauses, then shakes his head for a split second] You’re not aware of this?

​Larry: I’m asking you.

​Seinfeld: You think I got cancelled? You’re under the impression I got cancelled?

​Larry: Have I hurt you Jerry?

​Seinfeld: I thought this was pretty well documented. [Looking around] Is this still CNN?

​Larry: Don’t most shows go down a little?

​Seinfeld: Most people do also. When I went off the air, it was the number one show in television. Larry, do you know who I am???

​Larry: Jewish guy, Brooklyn.

​Seinfeld: 75 million viewers!

Theories online say this exchange was all a joke, a good gag between pals.

I don’t think so. I think if you look, you can tell Jerry is first stunned and then annoyed at Larry King’s uninformed questions.

​​”Do you know who I am???” was a genuine, irritated, ego-led outburst.

​​And yet, it didn’t sound arrogant or repulsive in the actual live interview.

That’s because it was delivered with a smile, and with a bit of exasperation in Seinfeld’s voice. This was the stage persona Seinfeld had practiced over thousands of standup appearances and thousands of hours of shooting Seinfeld episodes.

I did a bit of research on how the mass mind reacted to this video. Some of the top comments read like this:

“i feel like seinfelds a real cunt irl.”

“He’s a classic narcissist. He is undoubtedly profoundly insecure about himself.”

“i loved Seinfeld. but i find Jerry very uncharismatic. he comes off as a douche sometimes.”

I don’t know whether Jerry Seinfeld is a narcissist or a cunt in real life. I do find it very possible.

Still, I love watching Seinfeld. And I personally like Jerry — at least the Jerry on the TV show.

So that’s my point for you for today.

If you want personal positioning that can win you an audience of millions, then you won’t do better than what I call “perfect neighbor positioning.”

Think Jerry Seinfeld. A smile, a bit of self-deprecating exasperation. But that’s just the start.

It’s worth studying Jerry Seinfeld, and fellow 90s sitcom stars like Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Allen, Jennifer Aniston, to see how they got to appear so likable, even if they’re not likable in real life.

I’ll write more about this. As I mentioned in earlier emails, I am working, slowly but shakily, on a little book about personal positioning.

In the meantime, I’d like to remind you of my Most Valuable Email training. It’s not about personal positioning, but—

If you write about persuasion or marketing, it can show you how to make your emails fun and even likable — without you investing your personality in the email at all. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Jerry Seinfeld’s serious joke about the news

Today I watched a clip of Jerry Seinfeld on the Johnny Carson Show. Jerry smiles his precocious-boy smile and says:

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To me the most amazing thing about the news is that whatever goes on in the world, it exactly fits the number of pages that they’re using in the paper that day. [Johnny Carson chuckles off screen. Jerry continues:]

They must stand around after each edition going, “I don’t believe we just made it again! If one more thing happens, we’re screwed. There’s no more room in this paper!”

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This is a joke if you hear Jerry Seinfeld tell it, or imagine him with his mannerisms, or if you include that exaggeration at the end.

It’s not a joke if you just read the first sentence of that quote. It really is amazing that the day’s news always just fit the newspaper.

Of course, who reads newspapers any more — but the underlying point still stands:

The news was and is just a constant drip of telling you what to think, how to feel, how to react.

The news is not what’s worth knowing. At least that’s the way I look at it.

If you’re still reading, you might wonder what I think is worth knowing. I call it anti-news.

I’ve written before of my policy of not reading books that were published in just the last year.

I’ve been informed this has a clever name, “the Lindy effect,” after some long-surviving deli in New York.

The idea is, if something is worthwhile, it will still be worthwhile in a year from now. More generally, the longer something has been around, the more likely it is to keep being around.

This simple but powerful idea impacts everything I do, from the books I read to the emails I write to the offers I create. And since it’s time to start promoting:

It also lies behind my Copy Riddles program.

Copy Riddles is built on examples of winning copywriting that have been around for three, four, five, six decades or more.

But I’d take it still further back:

I believe Copy Riddles is really about the principles of effective communication, going back thousands of years. That might sound high-heeled, but it’s really what direct response marketing is — a merciless distillation that purifies and concentrates the evergreen principles of effective communication.

These principles were relevant yesterday, last year, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago.

And if you are looking to influence or manipulate people, these principles are your best bet for what will continue to be relevant tomorrow.

As marketing consultant Khaled Maziad wrote me to say after going through Copy Riddles:

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Man, this’s the best course on bullets I have ever seen. And believe me, I have seen a lot. I loved that you didn’t include bullet templates but went deep into the psychology behind each bullet. This course is not just about the “how-to” of writing bullets but understanding the artistry and the deep psychology behind them… Plus, when and where to use them.

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As you might know already:

This is the last week I am giving away two free bonuses with Copy Riddles. The first bonus is Storytelling For Sales. The second bonus is Copywriting Portfolio Secrets.

Don’t buy Copy Riddles just for the free bonuses.

But if you decide you want to get Copy Riddles, you have until tomorrow, Saturday Jan 21, at 12 midnight PST to get Storytelling for Sales and Copywriting Portfolio Secrets as free bonuses.

After then, Copy Riddles will remain available, but the free bonuses will disappear.

To get the whole package:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Hot takes are dead… here’s why

About six months ago, I wrote an email that for some reason I never sent. In that email, I wondered what had happened to James Altucher’s writing.

The background is this:

James Altucher is an online personality, a podcaster and also writer who used to write daily.

James is one of few people whose daily writing I enjoyed reading. Plus I’ve gotten multiple really valuable ideas from James that have transformed how I work.

James used to write regularly on his own site.

But his last post there came on June 15 2021. Since then he’s published a few pieces on other sites including LinkedIn, but his writing has largely disappeared.

There aren’t many people online that I would miss if they got swallowed by a sinkhole.

But James Altucher is one, largely because I’ve found his writing both insightful and valuable.

So I was wondering what happened to his writing and wishing somebody could tell me.

Well, I found out. James revealed it himself on a recent podcast.

Back in August 2020, he wrote an article titled, “New York City is dead forever… here’s why.”

James lived most of his life in NYC, but in that article, he predicted the death of the city based on the effects of the corona pandemic.

That article went very viral. It got a huge amount of readership, and also a huge amount of blowback.

And maybe most painful to James, who used to own a comedy club, “The New York is dead” piece got Jerry Seinfeld to write a trolling response in the lying New York Times in which he only referred to James as “some putz on LinkedIn.”

With all that blowback, and the personal attack by Jerry Seinfeld, James gradually retreated from writing. Maybe he will get his courage back to write daily. Or maybe he won’t.

I’m not sure what my point is. I guess there are many.

Such as, it’s harder to not care what people think that most of us would like.

Such as, don’t pick on people who are known to be combative (New Yorkers as a group, who knew about Jerry Seinfeld).

Such as, writing hot takes can burn you as well. And putting your own attitudes into your writing makes you vulnerable to personal attacks.

If you agree with me on these points, then what can you do?

Well, develop a tougher skin… only pick on people who will take it… or find some other way to get readership and attention than by writing hot takes and sharing your own personal attitudes.

I can’t help you with the skin part or with finding meek targets to pick on.

As for that last part, about other ways to get readership and attention, I can remind you of my Most Valuable Email trick.

A few of the emails I’ve written using my Most Valuable Email trick have gone semi-viral — they got unexpected forwards and shares in the small direct marketing community.

And using the Most Valuable Email trick allows me to write in a way that’s separate from what I believe personally. And yet my readers don’t mind this lack of “authenticity” — in fact, they even seem to enjoy it.

Maybe it’s not too clear how this can possibly be true.

If you’re curious, try out my email newsletter and witness it for yourself. Click here to sign up.

Jerry Seinfeld’s harsh words of encouragement

Today I read an interesting article by a guy named Sam Sussman, who might be Bob Dylan’s son.

Sussman’s article starts out by describing how Sussman’s mom and Bob Dylan got together, back in 1974.

Dylan asked the mom, then 20 years old, to host a party in her tiny New York apartment.

He then showed up in red cowboy boots, along with a bunch of other people.

The other people left around 2am.

Dylan stayed. And with a flick of his red cowboy boots, he closed the front door behind the last guest, and then turned to face Sussman’s mom. And so their relationship started.

I thought Sussman’s article was worth reading for that boot-flicking seduction move alone.

Of course, Sussman has more serious soul-searching to do, including this bit:

But perhaps more than seeking a literal father, I looked to Dylan for evidence that I could make it as a writer. Besides my mother and my tenth-grade literature teacher, nobody had ever given me a reason to believe I could.

I guess Sussman turned out ok as a writer, in spite of a lack of early encouragement. His article appeared in Harper’s, and I think he’s got a novel out.

Still, that quote above made me think of a bit of advice Jerry Seinfeld gave in the 1980s to would-be comedians who had signed up for a stand-up comedy class. Jerry’s advice might sound harsh. In any case, it’s all I want to say for today, so I’ll leave you with his words, and you decide:

The fact that you have even signed up for this class is a very bad sign for what you’re trying to do.

The fact that you think anyone can help you or there’s anything that you need to learn…you have gone off on a bad track.

Because nobody knows anything about any of this.

And if you want to do it, what I really should do is I should have a giant flag behind me that I would pull a string and it would roll down, and on it the flag would just say two words:

Just work.

“That’s fine for today,” you might say, “but what about tomorrow?”

Tomorrow I’ll have something new for you. And if you’d like to read it, you can sign up for my email newsletter here.