Liza Schermann

What’s the problem with retainers?

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I woke up this morning to a bang.

I’ve been staying at my friend’s Adams-family-like mansion in the Bolton Hill area of Baltimore.

I have an entire floor of the house to myself.

It’s been great. Except each morning I’ve been here, I’ve been woken up in the same way.

Bang. Against my window. Then a few seconds later, another bang. On and on and on.

A robin – a strange, possibly idiot bird — keeps flying against the window all morning long. After it hits its head against the window, it flies to a nearby branch. It resets. And then it flies at the window again.

And like that until I wake up, get up, and leave the room so I don’t have to listen to him any more.

This week, in fact ever since I got to Baltimore, I’ve been promoting Shiv Shetti’s Performance Copywriter Method.

I’ve been getting a lot of comments from readers who have good things to say about Shiv, and who are happy to hear I’m working with him.

I’ve also gotten a few questions, including the following from Dr. Liza Schermann, formerly the Crazy Email Lady, now a full-time copywriter with an ecommerce brand. Liza wrote:

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So cool you are now one of the coaches in Shiv’s programme!

I was actually considering his retainer coaching a few years ago because I figured that if I was going to quit my job at the time, it would have to be for a retainer or retainers. Which is pretty much what I ended up doing without him, only a couple of years (and a lot of sweat and blood) later.

Out of curiosity: what’s the problem with retainers? (If it’s public info.)

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The answer to Liza’s question is really Shiv’s territory, and he goes into it in detail in his video in which he makes the case for the Performance Copywriter Method.

That said, here’s a few possible issues with retainers:

From the copywriter’s side, it’s typically a lot of work, for not all that much money…

​​It’s a lot of stress because the client could decide at any moment to sack you…

​It’s not too scalable because you can only have so many of these retainers before you run out of hours in the day…

​​Plus it’s hard to sell clients on the retainer agreement to start with.

On the other hand, from the client’s view, it feels like an ongoing expense and a need to find stuff for the copywriter to do to make it worth while. And that means they keep wondering whether they should keep it going or sack you before the next retainer payment.

I’m sure not all retainer deals end up like that. Liza has a retainer-like gig. And it’s going well for her.

At the same time, I’ve had a couple retainer-like deals myself. I could never make them work, so I can believe retainers do go bad often.

And yet, for many copywriters, retainers remain some kind of enchanted castle, a magical destination they keep hoping to reach.

Perhaps i could tie that up to that robin beating his head against my window each morning.

Or perhaps I can just tell you there is a legitimate new opportunity for copywriters, a way to make great money, in a scalable way, without the storm and stress of retainers.

It’s called the Performance Copywriter Method. If you’d like to find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/pcm

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.

An “eery dejà vu feeling” from my Fight Club email last night

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Last night, I sent out an email about going to see Fight Club at a local movie theater. To which I got the following reply from copywritress Liza Schermann, who has been living the “barefoot writer” life in sunny Edinburgh, Scotland. Liza wrote:

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Seeing this email in my inbox provoked an eery dejà vu feeling. I had just gone over the part of Insight Exposed where you have a screenshot of this note from your journal. For a split second, I had no idea where I’d seen this before. Then I remembered.

Like an open kitchen restaurant, only for email. The email that was getting cooked right before my eyes a few minutes ago is now served. Thank you, Chef Bejakovic! 👨‍🍳

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I remember hearing marketer and copywriter Dan Kennedy say once that you shouldn’t ever let clients see you writing copy, because it’s not impressive work and it spoils the mystique.

That might be good advice, but I definitely don’t heed it Insight Exposed, my new training about how I take notes and keep journals.

Like Liza says, Insight Exposed is like an open kitchen. I smile from beneath my chef’s hat, I explain the provenance of a few recent emails, and I show you the various animal bits and pieces from which the email sausage was made.

Let me be clear:

Insight Exposed is not a copywriting training. But it shows you something that may be more important and valuable than copywriting technique. It shows you how I go from a bit of information I spotted somewhere and expand it into something that makes people buy, remember, share, and maybe even change their own minds.

I am only making Insight Exposed available to people who are signed up to my email list. In case you are interested in Insight Exposed, you can sign up for my list here.

The secret spider web of money and love opportunities

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This morning, I woke up, stood up, blinked, stumbled to the living room, and reached, addict-like, for my laptop. I checked my email. The first email started with,

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Hi John!

Thanks for all your patience.

Now, let’s get you paid.

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That’s for some work I did at the end of last year. The money is finally arriving. Today of all days.

I say today of all days because today and the past few days, since the start of this month, strange things have been happening.

I made more no-deadline sales of my Most Valuable Email and Copy Riddles programs than I had since I created these offers.

I’ve had a surprising number of people replying to my emails with interesting comments.

I’ve had a new surge of email subscribers.

I’ve also spent more money on new courses and trainings than I had in the past two years’ total.

And all this has been happening while I’ve been keeping most of my attention on another project I have been working on, which I believe has the potential to be much bigger than this Bejakovic newsletter, and which I am looking at as real business, unlike this Bejakovic newsletter, which was and remains primarily a daily way to feed my curiosity and need for novelty and some kind of creative work.

You might wonder why I’m telling you this, or why you might possibly care.

A while ago, I wrote how I believe there’s a secret spider web. This spider web connects copywriting clients. There’s another spider web for money-making opportunities. There’s even one for women in your life, if women are what interests you.

And here’s what I’ve found, over and over in my life:

Once you start jumping up and down on one corner of that web, no matter how remote, it gets the attention of the other spiders, I mean clients, I mean women, or business partners, or customers, or people who owe you money. And if you keep jumping up and down, they will seek you out. Sooner or later.

It’s true the other way around also.

If things are not going as you like in your life, if nobody is seeking you out, if no pleasant coincidences are happening to you regularly, there’s a good chance that the spider web has grown silent and still.

You might think I’m just telling you to take action. In different ways. And to keep taking action, even if the action seems futile.

And yes, action is how you jump up and down the spider web, and how you set it vibrating.

But if you ask me, there’s value in having a story to tell yourself, or an image to keep in your head, or an analogy that you can believe in.

For me, I’ve found the image of jumping up and down spider web works much better than the rough command, “keep taking action.”

Maybe this image will work better for you as well.

And who knows. Maybe there really is a secret spider web, and maybe you really can make it vibrate.

And now, it’s time for me to do some jumping myself.

So if you’d like to spend some money as a way of getting your spider web vibrating, then take a look at my Copy Riddles program.

I’ve put a lot of work into this program, and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to create.

At the most basic level, Copy Riddles is about writing sexy sales bullets. But beyond that, Copy Riddles is really about the fundamentals of sales copywriting. But beyond that, Copy Riddles is really about the essence of effective communication, whether in a sales context or not.

Maybe those are grandiose claims. So let me bring it down to earth, and share what copywriter Liza Schermann wrote me after going through Copy Riddles:

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The entire course is an a-ha moment. Because you see these things from other copywriters or you read other copy, but you don’t see what’s behind it or why it’s working. Your course shows what happens behind the scenes. Why is this working… and why is this working in this specific case… and why it wouldn’t maybe work in another case.

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If you’d like to find out more or buy Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

A peek behind the scenes of a smashingly successful launch

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A while back, copywritress Liza Schermann, whom I’ve promoted in this newsletter as somebody who writes interesting, funny, and — I’m ashamed to say this — even sexy emails, went through my Copy Riddles program.

​​Liza had this to say about it:

“The entire course is an a-ha moment. Because you see these things from other copywriters or you read other copy, but you don’t see what’s behind it or why it’s working. Your course shows what happens behind the scenes.”

As an example of that, consider another revealing thing Liza told me:

This summer, she went through Copy Riddles for a second time as a refresher.

​​She applied the bullet lessons in Copy Riddles to a rewrite of an email launch sequence for a client. The client sent out this rewritten email sequence to an already spent list, promoting the same tired offer, for a second run of this launch, and—

Ended up making NOT just a few extra sales from that spent list and tired offer…

NOT just matching the sales she made the first time around…

But actually making 150% of the money she made during the first launch, when the list was entirely fresh!

As a result, Liza says, the client “was over the moon. So much so that she recommended me to a friend of hers who also has a language course.”

Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!

Well… about that.

It turns out the reality is a tad more murky. Liza told me that for this second launch:

– The price tag for the offer increased, and
– The list was significantly larger than the first time around, and yet,
– The client actually made fewer sales than first time, though the total money was more.

So was that second launch actually a success or no? And if it was, did Liza’s new copy, and her time inside Copy Riddles, have anything to do with that 150% of money made?

If you ask me, money made is more important than number of sales made. And fewer customers at a higher price are better than more customers at lower price.

Also, having seen Liza’s rewritten emails before and after, I personally believe that the “after” was stronger and contributed to that extra 50% in money made.

Whatever the case, here’s the behind-the-scenes point:

Imagine if I had cut off this email at “Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!”

​​Imagine I had dropped all that murky stuff about price increases and a larger list.

​​Imagine if I had simply kept the picture sharp and clear and said, “… and that kind of smashing success, ladies and gentlemen, shows the power of Copy Riddles, which you can invest in today for the low, low price of…”

The fact is, that’s exactly what happens in copy all the time.

You don’t see all the facts behind the copy. You don’t see what the copywriter chose to omit, and you don’t see how he patiently twisted, polished, and positioned what he allowed you to see.

You might say that’s despicable or dishonest to hold back the whole, naked truth.

​​But to me it’s the essence of what copywriting is — creating a calculated perception, a gloss, a heart-pumping response. And yes, that’s true even in cases like my email today, where I’m making a seemingly transparent reveal and “taking you behind the scenes.”

Anyways, if you want interesting, funny, and — there’s that word again — even sexy emails for your business, you can try to hunt down and hire Liza. She has my full endorsement. And she might be taking on new clients, though I can’t say for sure.

On the other hand, if you write your own copy, or if you want to work with clients who pay you to write copy for them, then you might want to get on my daily email list, and experience more copywriting a-ha moments than you would ever believe possible. If you’re interested, click here and fill out the form that pops up.

The most unlikely Australian murder mystery

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True story:

In 1935, somewhere off the coast of Sydney, Australia, a fisherman netted a 14-foot tiger shark that, unknown to the fisherman, was hiding a nasty secret in its belly.

The fisherman brought the shark to the local aquarium. The local aquarians put the shark into a tank. Then they all stood around, watching with satisfaction as the shark swam around its new home.

But soon, the shark began acting strange.

It started ramming its head against the sides of the tank, clutching its belly, and saying, “Uff… I don’t feel so good.”

The shark ended up vomiting. Within a few minutes, the foul-smelling contents of its stomach floated to the surface.

Visitors to the aquarium took turns identifying what they could see.

Some brown goo… a bird… a rat… and yep, there it was:

A tattooed human arm, with a rope tied around it. But…

Closer inspection of the arm showed no bite marks. The arm was cleanly severed. In other words, someone had cut it off and tried to get rid of it.

So whose arm was it? What was it doing at the bottom of the ocean? And what was the tattoo on it?

If you are curious about the rest of this severed arm mystery or the copywriting moral it contained, I’m afraid that particular fishing boat has sailed. Because the above true story was the intro to an email that email copywritress Liza Schermann sent out — a few days ago.

That email was part of a challenge Liza set to herself – to write 29 days of sexy emails about unsexy topics. So far, she has written about:

* Her failed apple crumble at Christmas
* Cushions
* Her water heater
* The mating habits of lobsters (pretty sexy, but we will let it slide)
* The above shark story (again, pretty sexy, at least copywriting-wise, but ok)
* Her attitude towards clothes ironing
* Toilet paper and the way you hang it (rolling over or under)
* Multiplication (the mathematical kind)
* Household finances

I’m telling you this to point out a curious fact about the mathematics of email copywriting:

Liza has been true to her challenge. She has managed to take the above mundane and unpromising topics and write interesting, funny, and — I’m afraid to say this — even sexy emails.

And here’s the curious thing:

I’ve been on Liza’s email list for a while. She previously only sent an email a week. I liked reading those emails.

But her daily, “unsexy” emails are much better.

That’s something I’ve noticed with my own writing as well.

It’s easier to prepare and write 10 good emails (or in Liza’s case, 29) than to write just one good email. It’s not just a matter of practice. It’s also a matter of research… idea generation… and less fiddling and self-censoring.

So that’s my takeaway for you:

If you’re having trouble writing a good email, try writing 10 instead. Paradoxically, you might find it easier going.

But getting back to the shark. Like I said, that particular fishing expedition has sailed. But a new one is waiting in harbor right now, because Liza is writing these emails day-for-day.

So if you want to follow Liza on her quest to write about tablecloths… the mechanics of garbage trucks… and the history of chamomile tea (I’m just guessing at possible future topics)… then you can do that at the link below. But a warning to ye first:

I’ve known Liza personally for a long while, long before either she or I got into copywriting. I also feel a bit responsible for and invested in her copywriting career. I’ve even hired her to write some stuff for me before. Plus, if you were on my Influential Emails training, you know she was there to help me run the thing and make it a success.

So if none of that turns you off, and you still want some sexy stuff in your life, here’s where you can follow as Liza turns lead into goldfish:

https://www.thecrazyemaillady.com/