Lawrence Bernstein

Not a good email

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Today is the last day of my promo for Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend. My promo ends at midnight tonight.

There was some confusion about the deadline because some people interpret “12 midnight Sunday” to be the first minute of Sunday, rather than the last.

Well, that’s not how I interpret it or have interpreted it, ever. If you want proof, take a look at all my previous promos that end at 12 midnight of day x. I always take that to mean the end of day x, rather than the very beginning.

Still, this is something I will fix going forward, by removing any ambiguity, and ending future promos at 11:59pm.

So far, a healthy number of people have bought this offer, including a reader named Mike, who bought via yesterday’s 4th-of-July, “All experience hath shewn” email.

After buying, Mike wrote me to say:

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Thanks John!

I just bought this. I’m assuming you will need the receipt to get access to your bonuses, so I have attached it.

I also sense that today’s email will go into your bonus of Emails that did well!

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If you have bought Lead Gen Legend during this promo, no need to send me your receipt.

I will get that info from Lawrence. Just bear with me, because I am delivering the bonuses by hand, and over the past 36 hours, a bunch of people have bought. I will batch all the bonus-delivery into one gruesome task, and will do it as soon as the promo ends.

As for Mike’s comment that yesterday’s email is going into “Emails that did well,” that’s in reference to one of the bonuses I am giving away with this offer, an ever-expanding swipe file of my own outstanding emails.

Yesterday’s email will NOT be going into that swipe file.

Yesterday’s email yesterday was thoughtful, clever, and seemingly persuasive, if I do honk my own honker myself. And yes, yesterday’s email did drive in some sales (Mike’s included). But yesterday’s email underperformed relative to other emails I sent during this promo.

It all goes to support my point that, unless you know the behind-the-scenes results, it’s impossible to evaluate copy as good or not, or to know that you are modeling something that actually worked.

Cue Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

Lead Gen Legend is a massive, searchable collection of winning lead gen advertising.

With direct response ads, you can use a proxy for secret and hidden behind-the-scenes results. That proxy is whether an ad was run hundreds of thousands of times over the span of months, years or decades.

This tracking of winning ads is what Lawrence has been doing, patiently, obsessively, over his career.

In addition to which, Lawrence has a long tenure in the DR industry. He has a ton of insider contacts. He has worked with many ultra-successful direct response businesses.

Lawrence knows more behind-the-scenes direct response stuff than both you and me combined, and he shares some of that as commentary and context inside Lead Gen Legend.

In addition to that addition, I am also offering the following free bonuses if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend by the end of day today, Sunday:

FREE BONUS #1. “Emails that did well”

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as former Agora Financial copy chief Joe Schriefer has said, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. “Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call” recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

FREE BONUS #4. “How to get copywriting clients a dozen at a time”

A recording of of the call I did with Dawn Apuan, grilling her on how she has been able to become the resident copywriting guru in multiple business masterminds, and rake in dozens of clients at a time.

FREE BONUS #5. A lazy, ‘mom & pop’ ad template to add 3-4 buyers to your email list every day, at a slight profit”

Nick Bandy’s lazy but effective way of creating ads to get people to buy his low-ticket front-end offer and get on his email list.

This is part of Nick’s $500 training on running a low-ticket funnel, but it’s just as applicable if all you wanna do is run lead gen ads.

It’s yours free as part of this Lead Gen Offer, though you will have to additionally opt in to Nick’s list to get it.

FREE BONUS #6. “The second coming of Gary Bencivenga” ad and landing page

A few months ago, I found a guy who was running an ad on Facebook… telling you he will write an ad to beat your best performing ad… and if he doesn’t succeed in beating it, he’ll give you all your money back.

The offer started at $97 and has been going up each time he sells out the slots he’s got for the month. It currently sells for $247. It was a brilliant, modern application of the classic Gary Bencivenga agency ad.

I’m planning to model this same approach to get advertorial clients. If you’d like the ad and the landing page copy, they are yours as part of this bonus bundle.

Again, these bonuses disappear tonight, Sunday, at end of day, which I tend to call midnight. If you would like to get them before then, and also benefit from the generous $300 discount Lawrence is offering during this promo, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

P.S. To get $300 off the regular $379 price of Lead Gen Legend, put in the coupon code BEJAKO on the cart page. Lawrence has these instructions on the page itself, but it’s a bit hidden, and some people have written me in confusion about it.

All experience hath shewn

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For the past year, I’ve been memorizing, one line a day, various famous poems and speeches and passages.

At some point, I memorized the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

You probably know the “all men are created equal” and the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of hamburgers” bits.

But have you ever noticed the following piece of psychological insight in the nation’s founding document?

“All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

In short, that passage says that people prefer the status quo to just about anything else, regardless of how bad the status quo is.

That might seem like a trivial observation.

It is not. It reminded me of an issue of the Gary Halbert Letter (another founding document of the great American experiment), in which Gary asks what the three following situations, all very different from each other, all have in common:

1. “A guy buys a beer joint that’s doing a good business in a blue collar neighborhood. His first move is to decorate the joint and give it a little class and to lower his prices.” Result: He loses most of his customers.

2. “A guy who has never broken 100 is shooting a round of golf. After the first 9 holes, he notices he’s doing exceptionally well and has only used up 36 strokes. And, if he keeps this up for the next 9 holes, he’ll shoot par for the first time in his life.” He finishes the course with 103 strokes.

3. A wealthy Cuban businessman has all his wealth confiscated by the Castro regime. He moves to Miami with nothing. Within a short time, he’s rich again.

Says Gary, what these situations all have in common is a primary human driver, even more powerful than sex, greed, and curiosity. That primary human driver is the need to stick with the status quo.

I don’t know about you, but I personally cling to the status quo while also fighting against it daily. It’s hard work, but what else is there?

Anyways, my point today was just to share that line from the Declaration of Independence of you, because it is great, and because it’s been playing in my head for the past year.

It speaks to a fundamental human truth, as relevant today as it was then, as prevalent in politics as it is in business.

Speaking of business… business needs to be done now.

I am currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend, a giant swipe file of massively successful lead gen copy, with examples from right now all the way back to revolutionary times (ok, maybe not, but pretty close).

If you need a way to tie Lead Gen Legend into the topic of today’s email, go back to the status quo thing.

We all have our own routine and limited ideas for writing copy and making sales appeals. But status quo inputs beget status quo results.

It takes an outside impetus to push us out of that status quo, and to open up new vistas of conversion and profit. A curated swipe file of winning ads can be just the thing. Gary Halbert would agree.

If you are mildly convinced by that argument, I will warm you up a bit more by including several bonuses with Lead Gen Legend, if you get it before tomorrow, Sunday, July 5 at 12 midnight PST.

The ones I’ve announced so far:

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as former Agora Financial copy chief Joe Schriefer has said, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

Again, my bonuses are good only until tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

Lawrence has also generously agreed to lower the price of Lead Gen Legend during this promo by $300 from its usual $379 price, so it is now a very attractive $79.

If you’d like to get it before it becomes necessary for me to dissolve this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

The 100% Headline Swipe (Raking in Response for 75 Years)

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This week, I’m promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend offer, a giant collection of winning lead gen ads, searchable by category, along with expert commentary and context by Lawrence himself.

I’m also throwing in some exclusive bonuses, one of which is “Emails that did well,” my own private list of emails I’ve written (and will write) that have stood out (and will stand out) in terms of results.

Because all emails are NOT created equal.

And unless you know the behind-the-scenes results, there’s no way for you to know which emails pulled in pulled in 2x-3x the sales of others.

In other words, if you’re swiping, you might be swiping the wrong thing.

Speaking of, when I started to promote Lead Gen Legend, Lawrence sent me one particular email he had used to promote Lead Gen Legend to his own list.

Said Lawrence, “This was a rare, ridiculously successful email multiple times it was sent.”

I am reproducing Lawrence’s email below in full in order to:

1. Share a valuable marketing lesson (the promised “100% headline swipe” that’s been working for 75 years)

2. Give you an email to swipe if you wanna swipe something that was “rare” and “ridiculously successful” on the multiple times it was sent

2. Get you a bit warmer to the idea of grabbing Lead Gen Legend yourself, while my bonus offer and Lawrence’s generous discount are still live.

Play it again, Lawrence:

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How’s that for a cheesy subject line?

The cringe factor almost kept me from sending it.

But I’ll tell you something, …

If my head were on the chopping block and I had to come up with a winning lead in 60 seconds or less…

This 1952 vintage headline would be on my shortlist!

Raking in response for almost 75 years

This headline was so good Gene Schwartz reused it himself… the ad below evolved directly from the one above.

It’s been deployed in a dozen markets and it’s a longtime favorite of chiropractors.

Same setup, different market with over one thousand insertions for the 1965 book: “How to Avoid Probate.”

Geographically… demographically… psychographically...

There’s just no limit to how you can use this headline template.

From retirees in Florida… to chiropractors in Kansas… to gold investors in Singapore…

This headline beckons to them like a lighthouse in a sea of clutter.

The “Why hasn’t ‘Group X’ been told these facts?” template…

is a simple yet powerful way to target ideal prospects, suffering from a common problem.

And while Gene Schwartz used it to sell information, today it’s used almost exclusively for lead generation in health and wealth.

If there’s a better problem–agitation–solution setup, I haven’t seen it.

A favorite of chiropractors — this one had multiple full pages in the Chicago Tribune.

12,000+ ad insertions for this reverse mortgage ad (2016–2021)

If you were to read some of these earlier ads today, they might not feel like the most compelling copy on the planet.

And that’s a good thing because it proves just how universal this tested template really is.

It works for copy neophytes and veterans alike. And on that note:

For ​the next two days, you can round up 707 proven ideas ​for lead generation in any market… and take advantage of a $300 credit I’ve reserved for you.

Find it here: ​https://bejakovic.com/leadgen​

Yours for bolder response,

Lawrence (and John)

P.S. While almost nothing is 100%, this offer may be as close as it gets.

On average I write 3.4 good emails a month

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Over the past 8 years of running this daily newsletter, I have had a long line of big-name direct marketers and A-list copywriters come and go as subscribers.

Along the way, many have had good things to say about my abilities as an email copywriter. My favorite is from Joe Schriefer, who at the time was the copy chief at Agora Financial, one of the biggest imprints at one of the biggest direct response publishers. Joe wrote me one time and said:

“Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your emails. I think you’re one of the best email writers out there!”

I’m telling you this to set up the following shocking and quite depressing fact:

Even though I write and send an email every day, I on average write only 3.4 good emails a month.

Here’s how I know:

Earlier this year, I finally did something I shoulda done on day 0 of starting this newsletter. I created a new Google Doc, and I named it “Emails that did well.”

Ever since, when an email stands out in terms of results — usually sales made, but sometimes for other reasons, like getting a lot of qualified leads, or opening an unexpected new door, or simply getting an unusual amount of engagement — I put it in this document, along with a short summary of the results that made me think the email did well.

Over the past 5 months, since the end of January, I have put 17 emails into the “Emails that did well” document. By my math, that works out to 3.4 emails a month. That’s barely over 10%.

What about the remaining ~90% of emails I write?

I reckon they are doing their work still, and are moving some of the people somewhat closer to the hole, as marketer Travis Sago likes to say.

Still, fewer than 10% of my emails appear to be outstanding in terms of their impact. (For the record, none of these “Emails that did well” is a “cart close, last call” email. “Cart close” emails work great, but for reasons other than the copy.)

Would you like to know which of my emails did well this year?

Would you like to have running access to the emails of mine that do well in the future, for as long as I keep writing this newsletter?

If you would, I’ll make you a deal:

I’m currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend. This is a massive swipe file of winning lead gen copy and set of special reports on lead gen, which Lawrence normally sells for $379, but which he is making available for $79 during my promo, because that’s the deal I made with him.

I bought Lead Gen Legend myself earlier this because I was sold on it myself, without thinking to ever promote it as an affiliate.

I am promoting it now because I think it’s great, like everything else Lawrence sells, and a sweet deal at just $79.

At the same time, I’ve learned a bit or two during these 8 years of running my own newsletter.

That’s why I’m also including the following three bonuses to Lawrence’s core offer:

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as Joe Schriefer would say, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend for $79.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

If you want it, or at a part of it, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

P.S. To get $300 off the regular $379 price of Lead Gen Legend, put in the coupon code BEJAKO on the cart page. Lawrence has these instructions on the page itself, but it’s a bit hidden, and some people have written me in confusion about it.

Make this your hobby

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Yesterday I started promoting Lead Gen Legend, “the world’s most powerful lead gen library.”

Lead Gen Legend is a giant swipe file plus much other stuff of value, put out by Lawrence Bernstein.

I bought Lead Gen Legend myself when it first came out, with no thought of promoting it as an affiliate, simply because I was sold on the value of it myself.

I am promoting it now because I think it’s great, and because I think you can profit from it.

My email yesterday managed to convey this, and actually made sales from several forward-looking marketers. It also drew some questions, such as the following:

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Love the Lambo garage joke. You mentioned you’d address this in the next couple of days, but quick question now, is this library mostly historical context, or is it easy to swipe and adapt if I’m actively building out a cold email/digital agency list right now?

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Being myself an opportunity seeker, I am sympathetic to the search for things that are “easy to swipe and adapt.”

But the fact is, a swipe file is not a template library, where you just plug in the name of your offer and come out with a ready-made ad or email.

That happens to be the great value of a swipe file, particularly of historical, possibly forgotten ads.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Dan Kennedy, at one point the highest-paid copywriter on planet Earth, and almost certainly the most knowledgeable direct marketer on said planet. Says Dan:

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I am an advocate of spending a lot of time looking backwards in order to go forwards, because the people that did it a decade ago or longer, everybody had to be better than we have to be now to get the results, because they didn’t have tools.

So the guy who managed to sell a $200 “get rich in real estate” course in 1923, what had to happen?

By the way, his process wasn’t much different than our process. Just he didn’t have any tools.

So he ran a lead generation ad and people wrote in or sent in a dollar or sent in four postage stamps in order to get his free report.

He then sent them his sales letter, and then they had to read, and then they had to get a postal money order, and not talk themselves out of it while they were getting a postal money order, and then they had to mail in the postal money order to a stranger they didn’t know from Adam’s house cat, and know they were gonna wait a month before they ever saw anything.

What that guy did was much harder than what we have to do today. He HAD to be better.

So there’s a good chance of discovering something he was doing that has been kind of lost through the years, that nobody feels compelled to do now, but if they added it to what they’re doing it would help their results considerably.

So I’m very big on going backwards in order to go forwards. So dredge up the old stuff. Make that your hobby if you’re serious about this thing.

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All that’s to say, Lead Gen Legend contains old stuff. It also contains new stuff. (I’ll give you an example of both in another email during this promo.)

One way or another though, new or old, you’ll have to play with these ads and ideas a bit, to spot stuff that has been lost on others, to make them pay for you.

Like Dan says, make this your hobby, at least if you’re serious about this marketing thing. And your results will improve considerably.

If you’d like to get Lead Gen Legend now, and profit from the experience and skill of generations of direct marketers who simply HAD to be better than anyone working today, so you can get results that your competition can only look at with envy and frustration, then here’s where to go to start your new hobby:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

Announcing: The world’s most powerful lead gen library

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Today I have a new offer for you.

It’s what in the business is called an “affiliate offer.”

Meaning, I didn’t create this offer. And yet here I am promoting it, and if you buy it, I will get a cut of the money you invest.

With that damaging admission out of the way, here are the key facts about this offer:

1. The offer is called Lead Gen Legend.

It is, according to its maker, “the world’s most powerful lead gen library.”

2. Lead Gen Legend is a Swipe File+.

Meaning, you get a lot of curated, proven ads, but you also get much other stuff of value (hence the ‘+’) that I’ll tell you about in a second.

3. A swipe file though? Who needs a swipe file??? Isn’t that so 2021?

Well, I need a swipe file. I actually bought Lead Gen Legend when it was first offered earlier this year, without any thought of promoting it as an affiliate.

I bought it because 1) I am a hoarder of direct response materials, 2) because the promise of “the world’s most powerful lead gen library” sounded too good to pass up, and 3) because this offer is put out by the world’s most obsessed ad archivist, Lawrence Bernstein, and after already buying a bunch of stuff from Lawrence, I am predisposed to buying whatever he puts out, because everything I’ve bought so far has been frankly great.

4. The “other stuff of value” I mentioned above comes in the form of Lawrence’s experience, obsessiveness, and knowledge.

Lead Gen Legend isn’t just a bunch of lead gen ads.

First off, these are ads that worked, often to the tune of millions of dollars, across dozens of industries like “Agency & Copywriting”… “Anti-Aging & Beauty”… “Real Estate Investing”… (and of course) Dental Implants.

Second, these are ads that are commentated upon by Lawrence, who fills in the historical context, highlights what’s most important.

5. Also included in the (+) are several custom reports Lawrence has prepared, including but not limited to:

• “The Affluent Buyer Model”

• “The Inertia Breaker”

• “Free Plus Shipping”

• “Catalogue of Killer Lead Gen from a $386 Billion Firm”

6. The price, the huge price that I get a huge cut of.

When I bought Lead Gen Legend myself, not thinking to ever promote it, it was selling for $79. Lawrence has since Martin Skhreli’ed the price up to $379. And why not?

Lawrence’s list is full of big-time direct response operators, people who are spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars A DAY on lead gen. One good idea that they peel out of Lead Gen Legend could make them a 100x return on Lead Gen Legend by tomorrow.

Maybe you are at that level yourself, or maybe you are not there yet.

In any case, I’ve struck a deal with Lawrence so that, during this promo, the price if Lead Gen Legend drops a healthy $300 from its current $379, to a modest and quite manageable $79.

That’s my argument for Lead Gen Legend today.

I realized I probably haven’t convinced you yet.

After all, you might still legitimately be wondering how I am using this lead gen library myself, or if it’s simply sitting in my imaginary garage, along with my imaginary collection of hundreds of books, right behind my imaginary Lambo.

You might be wondering how you could possibly use Lead Gen Legend, given that you are a new in the business/too experienced/tall/short/a wine drinker/a beer drinker/a teetotaler, or are unique in your own magical way.

You might also be wondering why you should possibly act now, since I haven’t announced a deadline.

For all that and more, stay tuned. I’ll attempt to address it in my emails across the next day or two.

If, on the other hand, you happen to be a big-time direct response operator, or are angling to become one soon, and you want to take advantage of the world’s most powerful lead gen library today, before others get their greasy mitts on it, and profit before they can, while saving yourself $300 before the offer disappears, then here’s where to act now:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

I’m jealous of this lead gen funnel

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Last August, I promoted Igor Kheifets’s $3.99 book, Click Send Earn, as an affiliate.

$3.99? As an affiliate?

Yes. Because Igor pays out a $30 affiliate commission for each $3.99 sale.

The result was I sent two emails, and made Igor 69 sales, while making a little short of $2100 in commissions for myself.

Igor has got a super smart lead gen funnel here, and the offer he makes — $3.99 sale, $30 CPA — has gotten a buncha other list owners besides me interested in promoting.

Maliha Mannan of the Side Blogger promoted, as did Csaba Borzasi, as did Lawrence Bernstein of Ad Money Machine, with a promo that did so well last October that he is reprising it right now, just three months later.

The reason Igor can offer to pay all these folks $30 for each $3.99 sale is that he has a half dozen order form bumps and a long list of upsells once people buy the book.

Igor knows what a new customer in this funnel is worth to him, and I suspect it’s over $30. Of course, each new customer becomes worth much more when they get on Igor’s email list and are getting exposed to Igor’s back-end offers, many of them high-ticket, which Igor knows to convert.

I am frankly jealous of Igor for this funnel. I would love to have affiliates jostling and clamoring to promote either of my two books, or the new book I’m planning to publish this year.

But who’s got time and energy enough to create and dial in all these order bumps… and upsells… and copy… and funnels… and back-end offers?

Igor does, apparently.

And he does it while working 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, and having a family, and two kids, and writing and publishing comic books, and playing video games, and watching Netflix.

It wasn’t always like this.

Igor used to work 70+ hour weeks on his biz. He was grinding and hustling and making $130k a year. That might sound like a dream to you except it really wasn’t, considering how much he was working, and how little he was able to enjoy it. Plus he was making literally 3% of the $4.3 million he makes a year now.

Today, Igor works much less, gets much more done, makes much more money, and enjoys his free time without thinking about working or feeling guilty for not working.

I’m telling you this because this past November, Igor did a masterclass covering his system for getting more done in less time. He documented the exact productivity system that took him from A to B, from overworked and underpaid to having lots of free time and making a lot of money and publishing comic books.

I’ve been through Igor’s masterclass. I’m taking ideas from it. I’m applying them to what I do.

And starting tomorrow, since it’s the fresh start of a New Year, I will be promoting this system to you as well.

Of course, there will be a special deal.

Of course, there will be bonuses.

Of course, there will be a bit of a party theme, it being only a few days after New Year’s Eve. But party theme or not, the promise here is serious:

Work less, get more done, and feel zero guilt when you’re not working.

If that’s something that makes your subtle body tingle, then read my email tomorrow.

Millionaire math used by the wealthiest people, but not me

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Yesterday morning, my time, I concluded the “Unannounced Bonus” promo I had been running all past week.

As usual, the final day of the promo was an exhausting barrage of emails.

The last thing I wanted to do yesterday was to think or write more about that promo or how it went.

But today, I did what I usually do and looked at my “Unannounced Bonus” promo — how it went, how it compared to previous promos, what I can learn.

Let me shoo the elephant out of the closet right away, and make the gray beast dance:

This “Unannounced Bonus” promo made fewer sales of Copy Riddles, across 7 days, than I made last year during the last promo I ran for CR, which I called the “White Tuesday” promo, and which lasted just 2 days.

Before you either feel too bad for me or start to maliciously gloat, let me say that the “White Tuesday” promo surprised even me by how well it did.

And though the “Unannounced Bonus” promo did less than that, it still made more in a week than I would likely be making in a month if I had a proper job. It also paid me an effective per-email rate that’s many hundreds of dollars higher than I was making back at the peak of my freelance copywriting career.

But, with all that self-reassuring done, the fact remains I made fewer sales now, over 7 days, than last year, over 2 days.

What’s going on?

I made a list of 10 possible explanations for myself. All of them are legit, and all possibly contributed. But there’s one big one that stands out to me, and that I want to highlight to you too:

During the “White Tuesday” promo last year, part of the offer was a payment plan for Copy Riddles.

95% of people who bought during that promo took the payment plan.

During the “Unannounced Bonus” promo that just ended, part of the offer was once again a payment plan for Copy Riddles.

But just 33% of people who bought during this promo took the payment plan.

The difference is that this time, I was partnering with Lawrence Bernstein, and offering a lifetime subscription to his Ad Money Machine as a bonus for Copy Riddles. (And vice versa — Lawrence was also promoting the offer to his list.)

Due to the uniqueness of this arrangement, I agreed with Lawrence we’d offer the same payment plan as he offered the last time he made the offer of a lifetime subscription for Ad Money Machine…

… which, as I said, 33% of buyers ended up finding enticing.

On the other hand, last year, I followed a very specific payment plan philosophy. 95% of people found that payment plan enticing, and much more importantly, a greater total number of sales came out of it.

Maybe you remember what the payment plan was that I offered for White Tuesday. If not, my emails are all archived on my site, and you can find the campaign there. You can look it up, and see what the exact payment plan was.

But I’ll tell you one thing:

Even if you know the specifics of what I did publicly, you’re unlikely to glean the underlying payment plan philosophy, or the most exciting and valuable marketing trick resulting from that philosophy, which is applied behind the scenes.

I’ll tell you a second thing:

The payment plan philosophy I followed last year came from a 13-minute video by Travis Sago, titled “Millionaire Math Used by the Wealthiest People.”

If you’ve already taken me up on my recommendation to sign up for Travis’s Royalty Ronin community (I myself am a paying member), then you can find this 13-minute video as a bonus inside the Phoneless Sales Machine course, which normally sells for $2,000, and which Travis gives away as a free bonus for those who are in Royalty Ronin.

If you haven’t taken me up on my recommendation to sign up for Travis’s Royalty Ronin community, then I can only tell you Royalty Ronin is expensive. Very expensive. Particularly if you sign up and do nothing with the information.

On the other hand, if you are selling offers online — specifically, info products like courses or ebooks — and if you apply just this one idea from Travis about payment plans, it could well be worth thousands of dollars to you by the end of this week alone, and much, much more in the coming weeks, months, and years.

If you want to invest in a month of Ronin, and see how quickly and thoroughly you can make your money back:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

Still on the fence? Discover Daniel Throssell’s arguments for saying “YES” to Copy Riddles

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I’m wrapping up my “Unannounced Bonus” promo for Copy Riddles. Right now, I am partnered with Lawrence Bernstein on Copy Riddles and nobody else. In the past, though, I have had a few other affiliate partners.

One of these was Australia’s best copywriter Daniel Throssell, who had the following to say about Copy Riddles, and his experience promoting it to his list:

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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!

===

(Incidentally, that’s an illustration of round 11 of Copy Riddles, “A-list copywriter trick for amping up desire and belief at the same time.” The only difference is that I’ve taken the idea described in that lesson, and applied it not to a sales bullet but to a sales email. But emails are really just expanded bullets in my view.)

Maybe if you don’t take my word for how good and valuable Copy Riddles is, you will take Daniel’s word. Or maybe you’ll take the word of one of the two dozen or so sparkling and winking testimonials I’ve got up on the Copy Riddles sales page.

If you are still on the fence about Copy Riddles, it makes sense to take a moment or three right now, and decide whether you want to firmly come off the fence to the NO side.

If you do decide to say NO, that’s ok.

If, on the other hand, you decide to say YES to Copy Riddles before 12 midnight tonight, here’s what you are saying yes to:

#1. Copy Riddles, of course, which allows you to own A-list copywriting skills more quickly than you would ever believe

How?

By drilling into you mechanical do-or-die skill of writing sales bullets, and giving you feedback from A-list copywriters, who wrote their own sales bullets starting with the same source material as you did.

(This feedback process is why past customers have called Copy Riddles “the best course I’ve taken, bar none” and “worth every dollar/minute/page.”)

#2. A lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine

… which sells for $997 on the rare occasions when Lawrence makes it available at all. $997 is what I paid Lawrence last year for it. (A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga: “I would gladly have paid him ten times, even 100 times its price.”)

#3. The unique and never-to-be-repeated “Bullets With Bejako” live cohort

Many years ago, I used to run Copy Riddles as a live cohort to provide members with greater motivation, feedback, and results that an “asynchronous” content-only course frankly cannot match.

I stopped doing live cohorts for Copy Riddles because they are too much work.

I won’t ever do a live cohort in the future. But I’m doing as part of this “Unannounced Bonus” promo, so you can own those million-dollar copywriting skills in just the next few weeks, instead of never.

#4. 3-Month Copy Riddles Payment Plan

As part of this promo, until tonight only, you can break up payments for Copy Riddles over the course of three months.

Again, this “Unannounced Bonus” event ends tonight at 12 midnight PST.

If you’d like to say YES to this offer before it disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

The DR world’s secret referral network

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Here’s a little story of secret networks making referrals around the world:

Back in 2023, I met a copywriter at a conference in Poland. We hit it off, and stayed in touch.

This guy is French, but he was working in Switzerland as copy chief at a supplement company. He wanted to quit this 9-5 job and go freelance — but living in Switzerland ain’t cheap. In order to have the confidence to quit his 9-5, he would need at least one really good copywriting client.

He asked if I knew anybody.

I did not.

But I did know an international man of mystery, connections, and influence, Lawrence Bernstein.

I had gotten connected with Lawrence earlier that year after writing him an email to enthuse about his “ad a day” subscription, Ad Money Machine.

Lawrence and I had gotten on a Zoom call to get acquainted after that email. Lawrence had asked if he could introduce me to anybody in the direct response space. There wasn’t anyone at that time. But I now wrote him (from Spain) on behalf of this French copywriter. Was there anybody Lawrence could think of as a client for him?

Lawrence lives in Arizona. But he wrote an email to one of his many international DR contacts, a supplement marketer in France. That guy wrote an email to somebody back in Switzerland. And the end result, in the words of the copywriter I had met in Poland:

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Lawrence connected me to someone in France, who knew somebody in Switzerland. That’s funny because it traveled all around the world just to get back to Switzerland. So I met with the guy in October and it was a great match. I quit my job in December and I had the whole month of January without a job just trying to see what I was going to do. Then he sent me an offer for February.

[…]

It was funny to meet people that were so close. I didn’t know about the company. I didn’t know about the guy. It was so close to home but actually I had no idea what they were doing that or that they existed.

===

As far as I know, the copywriter is still working happily with this client that Lawrence had helped connect him to.

I’m telling you this to make the point that direct response outfits tend to fly under the radar.

Yes, there are a few noticeable behemoths like Agora and Guthy-Renker.

But there are thousands of other small operators, maybe a team of 10 people of fewer, pulling in tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year in sales.

You won’t ever know about these people, not unless you are well-connected already, or obsessive in your research, or willing to spend a lot of your own money to buy DR offers and to get on DR mailing lists.

Lawrence happens to be all three.

That’s another reason I keep enthusing about Lawrence’s Ad Money Machine. Lawrence’s “ad a day” service features winning ads you won’t find anywhere else, often with copywriting techniques and marketing strategies that are pulling in millions of dollars, but flying under the radar.

As A-list copywriter John Forde wrote about Ad Money Machine:

“Brilliant examples, great commentary. This one just gave me an idea for a newsletter we’re about to launch that I think will hit large. I don’t know where you find this stuff, but I’m glad you do.”

And now, it’s time. Because my current “Unannounced Bonus” offer disappears tonight at 12 midnight PST, never be repeated.

If you need a reminder, here’s what the “Unannounced Bonus” offer is made up of:

#1. Copy Riddles, of course, which allows you to own A-list copywriting skills more quickly than you would ever believe

How?

By drilling into you mechanical do-or-die skill of writing sales bullets, and giving you feedback from A-list copywriters, who wrote their own sales bullets starting with the same source material as you did.

(This feedback process is why past customers have called Copy Riddles “the best course I’ve taken, bar none” and “worth every dollar/minute/page.”)

#2. A lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine

… which sells for $997 on the rare occasions when Lawrence makes it available at all. $997 is what I paid Lawrence last year for it. (A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga: “I would gladly have paid him ten times, even 100 times its price.”)

#3. The unique and never-to-be-repeated “Bullets With Bejako” live cohort

Many years ago, I used to run Copy Riddles as a live cohort to provide members with greater motivation, feedback, and results that an “asynchronous” content-only course frankly cannot match.

I stopped doing live cohorts for Copy Riddles because they are too much work.

I won’t ever do a live cohort in the future. But I’m doing as part of this “Unannounced Bonus” promo, so you can own those million-dollar copywriting skills in just the next few weeks, instead of never.

#4. 3-Month Copy Riddles Payment Plan

As part of this promo, until tonight only, you can break up payments for Copy Riddles over the course of three months.

Again, this “Unannounced Bonus” event ends tonight at 12 midnight PST.

If you’d like to invest in this before it disappears in a few short hours:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/