Leading With Your Head

Work on your business and not on delegating, systems, or automation

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Two nights ago I finally finished the 40-page pamphlet I’d been reading for three months, titled Leading With Your Head. It’s about the use of misdirection in magic. It ends with this:

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Tape your performances in front of an audience (either audio or video). Sit down and take notes. What works best for the audience? What doesn’t work (that you thought would)? Is there dead time you can eliminate? What needs to be improved? Keep the material that works, and concentrate on improving the weaknesses. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. It’s simply an excuse to avoid addressing more serious problems. Rehearse your improvements, then repeat the whole process again.

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It’s popular advice to say, work on your business, not in it.

The typical meaning of this is to delegate, build systems, automate the work. I’m sure that’s fine.

But there are ways of making a living — like my own — that are not about hiring and managing other people, not about scaling endlessly, and certainly not about automation. After all, what’s the sense in getting a magic-performing robot to go on stage and perform your magic show for you — if performing magic is what you like to do?

“Work on your business, not in it” is good advice. But in my personal case, I like the meaning above, the one from Leading With Your Head.

Plan and reflect, in addition to performing. It makes you better at what you like to do, and is in fact fun and enjoyable in itself, at least in my experience. And in my experience, it can be profitable too.

Last June 9th, I did an instance of this kind of working on my business. I opened up a text file on my computer and made a list, “10 things I’ve learned to do well over the past year.”

Item no. 2 on the list was “2. write [what I later came to call Most Valuable] emails.”

A couple weeks later, because of that small observation, I created a live training about Most Valuable Emails.

A month later, based on the surprising sales of the swipe file of Most Valuable Emails I offered at the end of the live training, I decided to create a standalone Most Valuable Email course.

I was hesitant — I figured anybody interested had already seen my presentation and wouldn’t buy. But again, I was surprised.

​​4.7% of my list bought the Most Valuable Email course during the launch. And interest hasn’t dropped off since, but has in fact gone up.

​​To date, 5.3% of my list has bought Most Valuable Email, though my list has grown by over 41% since last September, when I first launched the MVE course.

Great, right? — when you look at it from the perspective of how a typical info product sells. 2% or 3% of a qualified list is considered good.

But on the other hand, it also means 94.7% of my list has not yet bought Most Valuable Email.

​​Perhaps this includes you too.

There are many legit reasons why you might not want to buy Most Valuable Email. I list some of them right in the deck copy of the sales page.

On the other hand, there are also several legit reasons why you might want to buy Most Valuable Email. I list those in the deck copy as well.

In case you’d like to read that, and see and decide for yourself whether Most Valuable Email could be most valuable for you too, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Trust lessons from a professional fraudster

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Several times in this newsletter, I’ve mentioned a tiny book I’ve been reading, Leading With Your Head, by Gary Kurz. Really, it’s a pamphlet more than book, just 40-odd pages. But I’m still not done with it.

Leading With Your Head talks about the misdirection part of magic, all the other psychological stuff besides the sleight-of-hand. ​​How to focus the attention of your audience. How to direct that attention. How to make people believe and trust you, even though you are known to be a professional fraudster whose job it is to mislead and trick them.

So how do you do it? Lotsa techniques. Here’s one:

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One of John Ramsey’s favorite techniques for creating the moment was to create suspicion and then dispel it. The audience’s surprise that their suspicions were unfounded created the moment he needed to do the move for real.

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I don’t know who John Ramsey is. But I do know something else — and that’s the value of reading widely.

Now at this point, you might expect me to launch into a mentalist-like pitch for my Insights & More Book Club. But no. I would never.

Instead, I just want to give you a real example, right here, for free, of the value of reading widely. Here’s an effective opening and an interesting fact I found by reading a newsletter called Contemplations On The Tree Of Woe:

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The Chinese curse their enemies with the phrase “may you live in interesting times.”

Or, rather, Americans think that Chinese curse their enemies like that; according to Infogalactic, “despite being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no equivalent expression in Chinese.”

Fortunately, there’s an actual Chinese phrase that’s much more interesting. It’s found in a 1627 short story collection…

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And now in this brief moment, let me slide my Insights & More Book Club into view.

This elite club is open to a select, small group of new members right now. But the heavy front doors of the club will be sealed again soon, on Sunday, April 30, at 12 midnight PST.

If you’re curious to find out more about this club, or even to join, then the first step is to get on my email list. That’s the only place I recruit members. To take that first step, click here and fill out the application form that appears.

I’ll start off this email by projecting out some praise and admiration I’ve gotten in the past

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Right about a year ago, I sent out an email with the subject line, “Send me your praise and admiration.” Best thing I ever did.

​​Here are a few of the lavishly praising and admiring responses I got to that email. First, from David Patrick, senior copywriter at Launch Potato:

“If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good. In fact, he may very well be the best thing to happen to America… at least when it comes to persuasion and influence! No, really!”

Second, from “The Eco-Copywriter,” Thomas Crouse, who went absolutely nuts and over the top in his flattery of me and the work I do:

“My inbox is bombarded with emails every day. But when I see one from John, I stop and read it.”

And finally, here’s one from Liza Schermann, the lead copywriter at Scandinavian Biolabs:

“John Bejakovic and persuasion. You can’t beat that. He made me like cats. Even though I used to hate them and they used to hate me. So he’s a great person to find out about a new product that’s about persuading stubborn prospects. Or cats.”

The reason I’m sharing such lavish praise and admiration with you is because I’m still reading a magic book I mentioned two weeks ago.

​​The book is called “Leading With Your Head: Psychological and Directional Keys to the Amplification of the Magic Effect.” It’s basically a guidebook for stage magicians about how to organize their tricks and their shows to maximize the magic, the fun, the show for the audience.

Here’s a relevant bit from Leading With Your Head:

“If we don’t draw attention to the magical occurrences, the effects may be weakened, or lost. The answer lies in analyzing your performance pieces to know when you need to direct attention to the magic. All other times you should be projecting out and relating to your audience, so they remember you.”

I hope that with all the projecting out and relating I’ve done so far, you will remember me tomorrow. Because now the time has come for me to draw your attention, and in fact direct it, to a bit of sales magic. Specifically, to my Most Valuable Postcard #2, which I am offering for the first and only time ever at a 50% launch discount, until 12 midnight PST tonight.

I started this launch two days ago with a message I got from copywriter Kay Hng Quek.

​​Kay went ahead and bought MVP #2 and wrote me about it yesterday. His message is below. Please read it carefully, particularly the parts about how MVP #2 “blew his mind” and how MVP #1 and MVP #2 are “probably the best $100” he has ever spent on marketing training:

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Read it immediately, and how you tied everything together at the end just blew my mind. Obviously this demands a second or third read. Obviously I will learn so much more from that.

Ngl, I would have loved MVP #3, but I’m grateful I got to read at least MVP #1 and #2. Probably the best $100 I’ve ever spent on marketing training…

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Again, the deadline to get Most Valuable Postcard #2 for 50% off the regular price is tonight at 12 midnight PST. But the only way to get this offer is to be on my email list before the deadline strikes. If you’d like to that, click here and fill out the form that appears.