Jim Camp

The less you write, the better your copy gets

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“You’re very good at writing in this conversational tone.”

I was getting some copy critiqued by a more experienced copywriter.

“Yeah, this opening story is great,” he said.

Fact is, i didn’t write any of it.

It was a story I found online. I cut it down, rearranged it a bit for emphasis, made it more readable. But most of the words were somebody else’s.

That’s because one of my mantras is that I should write as little copy as possible. The less I write, the better the final result tends to be.

That doesn’t mean to make my sales letters short.

It does mean that most of my copy, particularly the crucial bits like the lead and any stories inside, are not my own invention.

Instead, I dig them up online…

Or, if I have the luxury, I get them straight from the mouth of the guru behind the product, during an interview.

And that’s what I want to share with you today.

Because most people won’t give you the drama and the stories, even if you ask them nicely. They simply don’t understand what you’re after, or what makes for a good story or for exciting copy.

​​That’s why it’s your job to reach down their throat and pull that out.

It took me a while to get decent at doing so. I still mess up often. But I now have a bunch of little techniques I use now that help.

Such as the 3+ technique of negotiation coach Jim Camp. Camp advised covering each main point of a negotiation — or an interview — at least three separate times, using slightly different cues.

“So tell me about the time you first discovered this…”

“Let’s go back to time you first discovered this… where were you when it happened?”

“So wait. When you discovered this… what did you do right after?”

And like I said, I have a bunch of other little tricks. I even wrote them up once in a post on how to be a magnetic listener. If you want to see this post, so you can write write less copy… get better results… and have people like you better (because who doesn’t like a good listener)… then here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/10-steps-to-becoming-a-magnetic-listener/

Beware “win-win-win”

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The hair stands up on the back of my neck whenever I hear the phrase “win-win-win.” And I’ve hearing it more and more often.

“It’s a real win-win-win situation…”​​

I guess that’s how markets evolve. First we had “win-win,” as in, “win-win negotiation.” Once that became old hat, marketers had to crank it up — hence the rise of “win-win-win.”

The reason I am wary of this phrase is because I’ve read Jim Camp’s negotiation book Start with No. And one of Camp’s big enemies is win-win. That’s just a clever name, Camp says, for fear- and compromise-based negotiation.

According to Camp, win-win negotiation is not principled… it’s not in your best interest… and if somebody is pushing it on you, you’re about to get flayed alive.

But maybe you think this is crazy. Maybe you think that “win-win” is great, and that “win-win-win” is even better. So here’s a quote by one very famous and successful copywriter, John Carlton:

Nearly every biz transaction is an inherently hostile situation.

Behind the smiles and back-slapping and promises of “working for the common good” between, say, a freelancer (or consultant) and a client…

… the freelancer actually wants to do as little work as possible for the maximum possible money…

… while the client wants to bleed every ounce of productivity from the writer for the least outlay of cash.

John uses the terms “veiled teeth-baring” and “primal snarling dance” to describe the reality of business interactions.

That’s certainly one way to do it. But I don’t think it’s the only way.

And if you want to know how to handle business situations in a way that’s neither snarling nor based in fear, then Camp’s book is worth a read. Or two. Or three.

Or you can just subscribe to my daily email newsletter. I’m no Jim Camp. But I’ve read his stuff, and it’s near to my heart. And while my newsletter is mainly about marketing and persuasions, sometimes I also write about the business of copy.

Maybe that doesn’t appeal to you. But in the odd case that it does, you can subscribe to get my emails by clicking here.

The “Attractionist” lure for weak negotiators

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My sophomore year in college, I had a girlfriend who loved me so well she ran off to live in Japan.

I bought a plane ticket to visit her during Christmas vacation. But I was careless with my travel arrangements. I booked my flight for the day before the final exam of one of my computer science classes.

The ticket was nonrefundable. And expensive.

My only option was to go talk to the professor. Maybe I could convince him to let me take the exam early.

As I said, this was a computer science class.

The professor teaching it was a beady-eyed automaton who thought in C code and expressed himself with the preciseness of a computer printout. At one point, there was an entire website, created by current and former students, dedicated to the man’s inhuman, Terminator-like nature.

I mustered all my courage and showed up to his office one day.

He was in there, wearing the same short-sleeve button-up shirt he always wore. It had seen so many washes that it had become faded and paper-thin. His nipples regularly poked through during lectures in the cold engineering building.

“Professor Terminator?” I said from the door to his office.

He swiveled around in his chair and focused on me with his cold and fishy gaze.

I explained my nonrefundable ticket predicament. Would there be any chance to take the exam early? Or late? Or anything?

Without saying a word, he swiveled back towards his computer and started typing and clicking. He pulled up the course syllabus.

“The syllabus clearly states the final is scheduled for December 6!” He faced me again. Through his expressionless mask, I sensed he was furious that I would approach him with such a disturbing and illogical request.

I explained that in that case, I would have to miss the final and probably fail the class. He threw up his arms — how was this his problem?

So I tucked my tail between my legs, thanked him for his time, and left. My heart was beating at around 200 BPM. I felt defeated and ashamed.

Throughout my life, I’ve had a few wins like this. They made me think this is how negotiations and sales always go. And I wanted no part of it.

I bet there are a bunch of people out there just like me. Because if you look around, you will see a growing number of copywriting and marketing gurus catering exactly to weak and feckless negotiators.

I call these gurus “Attractionists”. They promise that you can create your freelance copywriting business without ever needing to sell. All you need to do is “attract leads by giving value,” “be human,” “know your worth.”

I’m sure people can get to the point where they are so in demand that they never have to negotiate. But my feeling is, you’re unlikely to jump from zero to total success, and completely bypass the phase where you need to do some selling. As Mark Ford wrote in Ready Fire Aim:

“To be a truly effective entrepreneur, you must become your business’s first and foremost expert at selling. There is only one way to do this: Invest most of your time, attention, and energy in the selling process. The ratio of time, creativity, and money spent on selling as opposed to other aspects of business should be something like 80/20, with 80 percent going towards selling and only 20 percent toward everything else.”

Now here are some good news:

As you go through life, you don’t have to be in hopeless negotiation situations like I was above, where your only hope is for the other side to take pity on you.

You don’t have to be powerless.

And you don’t have to be afraid of facing disagreement or having a conflict of interests with the other side.

Negotiation, persuasion, and yes, sales, can all be learned. I’ve done it. And I’m an anti-natural.

If you too are naturally reluctant to negotiate or sell, then I recommend Jim Camp’s book Start with No. For one thing, it’s an effective system, particularly if you are looking for long-term success rather than quick “wins”. For another, being accommodating and non-confrontational by nature can actually be an asset to you if you use this system.

One final point. Once you learn the basics of how to negotiate, you can choose to make it less of a daily concern in your specific business. But in my opinion, it makes sense to do that from a position of power, and not out of fear.

Anyways, if you want to check out Jim Camp’s book, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/start-with-no

A less painful path to sales and success

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“According to family tradition, my great-grandfather used to say about the mules on his farm, ‘To get their attention you have to hit them between the eyes with a two-by-four. When you have their attention, they can see what they ought to do.'”
— Jim Camp, No

Jim Camp was a top-tier negotiation coach. One of the pillars of his negotiation system was to help the other side get a crystal-clear vision of the problem, and of the pain of that problem.

​​But people don’t usually respond to the two-by-four, Camp said. You don’t want the vision of the pain to be so extreme that people become blinded.

Travis Sago is a successful online marketer. One metaphor Travis uses is called “hell island.”

​​In a nutshell, your prospects are currently on hell island. You can help them get to heaven island. You want to make that clear to them, says Travis. But you don’t want to “burn hell island down.”

That can be hard to accept. Our brains love consistency. If a little bit is good… then a lot is even better, right?

Not necessarily. At least that’s what the two shrewd dogs above are saying.

I bring this up because of my post yesterday. I was writing how one way to get motivated is to focus on all the things you will lose if you don’t succeed… and to make that vision bloody and raw.

I’ve tried this with some of my own projects. It didn’t work for me. I created a fearful and bloody vision of failure. I still quit when the going got uncertain.

So let me wrap up with one last quote for today, this one by Mark Ford:

“Human beings are designed to get better through practice. Everything we ever learn to do – from walking to talking to writing concertos – gets better through practice. […] Practice doesn’t make perfect. That’s a foolish idea. Practice makes better. And better is where all the enjoyment is in learning.”

So that’s the final thought I want to leave you with. Perhaps success is not about inhuman levels of motivation. Or about having sufficient passion.

​​Perhaps success is simply about choosing a field where you don’t mind getting better. Where the daily work is something you find enjoyable enough — or at least, not too repulsive — so you can continue to get better at it day after day.

I hope this idea will be useful to you as you navigate your career or business. But don’t worry, I won’t go on with this froufrou self-actualization stuff. Tomorrow, we will get back on track with hardcore, practical, direct response sleight-of-hand.

In case you want to get tomorrow’s email as it comes out, here’s where to subscribe to my newsletter.

An easy guiding principle to creating vision in your prospects

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Once upon a time, somewhere in America, there lived a very successful life insurance salesman.

He couldn’t speak, and he was bound to a wheelchair.

And yet, when it came to selling life insurance, the man was tremendous.

He used a marker and a little dry-erase board to communicate. Patiently, he would write his questions on the board, and then he’d hand it over to his prospects. His most effective question, the one that flipped the switch and lit up his prospects’ brains, was:

“If we lose you, where will your family live?”

I read this story in Jim Camp’s Start with No. Camp used it to illustrate the power of painting a vision of the prospect’s pain. “No vision,” Camp used to say, “no decision.”

Of course, in written copy, it’s not always the best choice to start asking questions. The dynamic is different than when you have a real person sitting across from you. But the same principle applies.

Create vision in your prospects.

There are lots of tricks and techniques for doing it. But there’s one easy guiding principle that lords above them all:

Create a vision in yourself first.

Your prospects will pick up on it, however you choose to communicate, and they will make the decision — the one you’d like for them to make.

Who wins: aggressive or submissive copy voice

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Across the street from where I live, there’s an apartment with a nice terrace where they often shoot TV commercials for things like mayonnaise and general purpose loans.

Whenever they are getting ready to shoot one of these commercials, they send an advance man. He’s in charge of blocking off the parking up and down the street, so the TV crew trucks will have a place to park.

This pisses off the residents, who get nothing but frustration from these frequent shoots.

And so today, as I was coming out of my building, a heated argument erupted over this.

A guy with an SUV drove over the little orange cones and police tape and parked in one of the cordoned-off spots.

The TV crew guy in charge of the parking ran over yelling, “Stop! Get out of there! We’re a TV crew! I’ll call the police!”

“Call the police,” the owner of the SUV told him, “and go fuck yourself.”

They kept at it, repeating these same two lines over and over as I walked away and out of earshot.

Now, I’ve been writing about negotiation lately and this made me think of the okay/unokay advice from famed negotiation coach Jim Camp.

“Only one person can feel okay in a negotiation,” says Camp, “and it’s not you.”

That would have been good advice for the unfortunate TV crew guy. When I came home three hours later, he was still there, sitting dejectedly on the opposite corner of the street. As far away as possible from the still-parked SUV.

He had no hand. Yelling and threatening with calling the police was only counterproductive. It might have been better to try to be unokay and say something like:

“I know, man. I hate this job. I know you got no place to park and I’m sorry for putting these stupid cones to try to keep you out. The company makes me do this and it makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve got no right telling you not to park here. I’m just so stressed. When the TV crew comes later and sees your car parked here, they’re gonna nail me to the cross cuz they won’t be able to put the truck anywhere. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

I’m not sure the SUV driver would have bought it, but it would have been worth a shot.

But what about the SUV guy though?

Whole different story.

​​Being aggressive and inconsiderate worked for him. He got everything he wanted from this negotiation without making his adversary feel okay. Quite the opposite, in fact.

And that’s the application to copywriting.

Some copywriting gurus will advise a very aggressive and commanding tone of voice. “You’ve got my money,” they effectively say to the prospect, “now hand it over.”

Others advise being more skeptical and subtle — or even submissive. They basically offer the reader the chance to buy, rather than bullying him into buying.

So which one is better?

Well, just like in the parking situation above, it depends. Mainly on who you’re talking to, and what you’re offering them. A $27 bizopp offer, targeting frustrated retail workers, will use one level of aggressiveness. A $5400 business service targeting successful entrepreneurs will use another.

In other words, there’s no single answer. And if anybody tells you differently, it’s because they’re selling something — to only one type of market.

10 additional services copywriters can sell to their clients

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I just got my hair cut. Unfortunately, hair-cutting is all the hairdresser offered to do.

It makes me yearn for the good old days when a respectable barber would cut your hair, trim your mustache, and even pull your rotten tooth out for you.

Oh well. Too bad for hairdressers.

Copywriters can do better, though. Here are 10 additional services that I’ve used (or tried to use) to up-sell and down-sell and cross-sell clients:

#1. The Oliver Twist

This is when the client comes to you, soup bowl in hand, and says, “Please sir, I want some more.” In other words, you simply sell them the same service again. For example, last summer, I wrote one sales email for a guy with a big Clickbank product in the men’s health niche. He liked it, so he hired me to write a new such email every day.

#2. The top of the slide

This is writing copy for one part of the sales funnel, and then for an earlier part. Example: a couple of years ago I was hired to rewrite a VSL. When that was done, I kept in touch with the same client. Eventually, we agreed that I would also rewrite the emails he was using to drive traffic to the VSL.

#3. The after-party

This is just the opposite of no. 2. Example: I once had a job to write headlines for native ads. That job ended. But after a bit of back-and-forth, I was hired to also write the actual advertorials that the native ads led to.

#4. A second tunnel through the mountain

If you’ve done a good job for a client on one project, odds are good they have another very similar opportunity — another product, another funnel — which needs almost the exact treatment.

So just recently I was asked to rewrite a product page for a new supplement company. I did. the client was satisfied with the work, and I immediately got the chance to do another product page for another product in the exact same style.

#5. Oranges instead of apples

Sometimes it pays to stand up to clients. Last autumn, I was contacted by a client who wanted me to write a VSL. After a bit of talking, I told him he needs to pick a segment of the market he plans to target. And so we agreed that, instead of the VSL, I would write emails to his existing list to figure out which segment might sell the best.

#6. Outsourced kaizen

This is when you handle the optimization of the copy or of the funnel. Right now, I’m talking to a client who got in touch regarding an advertorial. So I asked him a question straight out of Jim Camp’s playbook: “Who do you have in your corner who can help you optimize this thing to ensure it performs well?” We’ll see if he has someone, or if he’s interested in having me handle this.

#7. Mouth flapping

Parris Lampropoulos, who is famous as an A-list copywriter, once said he actually makes most his money from consulting with his clients rather than the actual copywriting — in spite of the massive royalties he’s typically paid.

But you don’t need to be a marketer of Parris’s stature to get paid for consulting (aka flapping your mouth). Back in my dark and early Upwork days, I had a difficult client. However, one good thing was he would pay me simply to get on the call and brainstorm, or more often, to shoot his ideas down.

#8. The dreaded touchup

When asked to “simply fix up” existing copy, I usually run like I’m being chased by a bunch of angry bees. But I have done it in the past, and sometimes it proved to be good money for little work. For example, I once rewrote the lead (the first page and a half) of a pretty messy sales letter for a live event about investing, and I got paid what was a princely sum for me at the time.

#9. Money for nothing

This is an idea I got from Travis Sago: you take a client’s “trashcan asset,” turn it into risk-free money, and split the profits. I haven’t done this yet, but not for want of trying — I keep talking to all of my current and past clients about it.

#10. Trousers and britches

Sometimes clients need different formats and they are willing to pay you for it. Example: I once wrote a 2,000 word script for a Facebook lead-gen video. But is 2,000 words the right length? The client wasn’t sure. So I took that same script, pared it down to 600 words, gave him that as a second piece of copy, and earned a bit of extra money.

If you make a bit of an effort to suss out what your client might need, and then pick and choose from the above list, you won’t just make yourself more money.

Instead, you will also solidify your relationship with a client, help them be more successful, and profit doubly down the line. And if you want more advice on how to succeed in the business of copywriting, you might like the following:

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

The power of negative thinking

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“Just go talk to her!”

I was walking on the street a few days ago. The sun was shining, there was a cool breeze, and lots of good-looking women were out and about.

Each time one of these monsters passed by, wrapped up in her headphones, masked with her sunglasses, I would tell myself to go talk to her.

Of course, all that happened is that I tensed up.

These women on parade were too intimidating.

​​Or too busy.

​​Or too something.

In the past, I’d tried hyping myself up.

“What’s the big deal?” I would say. “She’d probably be super happy to get a compliment. And maybe you will hit it off. It could be a win-win!”

That would always get me excited. And that was all.

Because more good-looking women would pass by…

And I still wouldn’t go talk to any of them.

So a few days ago, I did the opposite. I told myself the ugly truth:

“Why not just go home? You probably won’t talk to any of these women. It’s too hard. Or maybe you’re just too weak. Or not good enough at problem solving. Whatever the reason, odds are you’re wasting your time. You should probably just head home.”

If you’ve ever read Jim Camp’s Start With No, you might recognize this as a “negative stripline.”

That’s when you’re in a negotiation, and your adversary is having doubts, concerns, or vague bad feelings.

At this point, according to Camp, the worst thing you can do is to paint a sunny and bright picture.

Instead, you want to be honest. Brutally honest.

“You’re probably right,” Camp would say to such an adversary. “This probably won’t work out. It’s probably best if we just cut off this negotiation right now and stop wasting your time.”

What happens when you do this?

Well, all I can say is what happened to me. I finally got to talking to some beautiful, intimidating women. Because the negative stripline works even when your negotiating adversary is yourself.

So if you’re not seeing real results from the power of positive thinking, whether in social situations, or in business…

Then try negative thinking.

And whatever you do, don’t let me know how it works out for you.

The Bugsy Siegel “take my gun” way to build vision

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I started watching Bugsy last night.

It’s a Barry Levinson movie starring Warren Beatty as Ben Siegel (don’t call him “Bugsy” unless you want a sock in the jaw).

Bugsy (all right, he’s dead) is a big-time mobster from New York who comes to Hollywood to expand his business.

And so he goes to meet a local crime boss (right across the street) and gives him two options. “Option one,” says Bugsy, “is you come to work for me. We take 75%, you get 25%, which has got to be worth at least three times what your 100% is worth now.”

“And option two?” asks the local crime boss.

Here Bugsy pulls out his gun. The whole room stands up on alert (Bugsy is alone, the local crooks are a dozen). “No, no, don’t worry,” Bugsy says amiably. “Here, take it.” And he shoves his gun into the local crime boss’s hands and points it at himself.

The local crime boss looks confused for a second. Finally, he says, “What, I gotta kill you?”

Bugsy again smiles and nods his head.

The negotiation concludes, and the Hollywood crime boss is now part of the Bugsy Siegel organization.

I thought this scene was a great illustration of how to build vision (a cornerstone of the Jim Camp school of sales and negotiation). The vision in this case is not that the local crime boss would have to commit a murder. The vision instead is that Bugsy (and his associates) are fearless, crazy, and will stop at nothing to get what they want.

I’ve found that the most effective ways to build vision are often this simple and surprising.

It’s something to keep in mind if you’re negotiating or trying to sell. And as I’ve written before (“The sink-or-swim sales close”), this kind of “take my gun” approach can work in building vision in copy as well. If you want to read about that, here’s the link to that ancient post:

https://bejakovic.com/sink-swim-sales-letter-close/

Ask a silly question, you get a dopey look

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A few weeks back, in a moment of weakness, I answered a question in an online copywriting forum.

In my answer, I mentioned negotiation coach Jim Camp, the guy who (among his other accomplishments) revamped the FBI’s negotiation strategy.

Now here’s the thing. Even though full access to Jim Camp’s methods and coaching (while he was alive) cost thousands of dollars in fees, the man also wrote a book called Start With No, which covers about 95% of his negotiation system and costs around $15.

Anyhow, all of this is just setup for what I want to talk about today. Because when I wrote up my response and when I mentioned Jim Camp, another commenter slid in with a new question:

“Where to study Jim Camp? Looking for his education pieces but everything is paid (and expensive). I’m aware of Start With No.”

If this guy were sitting in front of me when he asked this question, I think I’d have to scrunch up my eyebrows, smile a dopey smile, and shrug my shoulders.“I know, buddy. It’s tough.” After all, what else could I tell him?

I bring this up because top direct-response copywriter Roy Furr just shared a very simple, very effective method of getting work with premier copywriting clients.

This method is something I’ve done in the past. It has been responsible for some of the longest-running and most profitable client relationships I’ve had to date.

It’s also something I’m going to start doing again, beginning this week. That’s because I want to pad out my schedule for the coming few months, and increase my rates once again.

And here’s how this ties into studying Jim Camp:

Roy says wannabe copywriters often ask how they can get clients…

And then when they get a valuable, proven suggestion, they do nothing with the information.

Instead, they spin on their heels, face forward once again, and ask, “But how can I land a copywriting client?”

To which the only response can be a dopey look.

Anyways, I’m sure that’s not how you operate.

So in case you want to read Roy’s advice so you can apply it in your copywriting business, here’s where to start:

https://www.breakthroughmarketingsecrets.com/blog/i-was-right-did-you-listen/