Make money opening emails from your favorite marketing influencers!

A couple days ago, I got an email about an event called “How To Make Money Sharing Videos”.

Just to be very very clear: I am not promoting this event, and I am not in any way encouraging you to join it.

But I have to admit it did get me intrigued.

How exactly do you make money by sharing videos?

Maybe you can guess. If not, I’ll tell you the answer in just a sec. But first, let me tell you a curious little story this reminded me of.

Last year, after listening to Dan Kennedy talk about opportunity marketing in his Opportunity Concepts seminar, I started being on the lookout for all things business opportunity.

And so I came across an intriguing ad, which ran repeatedly in bizopp magazines and tabloid newspapers in the early 90s. The headline ran:

Get Paid To Watch Your Favorite TV Shows!
Profits Up To 10,000.00 A Day Possible!

“Yeah yeah yeah,” I panted with my tongue hanging out, “how do I get paid? I like Seinfeld for example, how much can I make with that? I want to know! Or what about Peep Show? Does that pay even better?”

The ad doesn’t say. You had to mail in a “Get Paid Application Form” plus $21.95 to find out.

And depending on which week’s Weekly World News you were reading, you had to mail in your check to different-named businesses in:

Colorado City, AZ (Nov 6, 1990)
Bellingham, WA (Sep 24, 1991)
New York, NY (Nov 19, 1991)

In other words, it’s very likely that this offer was a scam. A new fly-by-night mailing address each month… a bunch of angry and ashamed new customers… and then on to the next place before anyone could catch whoever was behind this bizopp.

Sorry to break it to you, but this probably means you cannot get paid, as the ad promised, to “sit back, relax, and watch television.”

Still, the marketing and persuasion idea back of this scheme is sound. You can use it even if you are running a more legit business.

For example, that “sharing videos” thing is really about affiliate marketing. The videos you would be sharing are webinars for affiliate offers.

Of course, that’s not what the very top of the sales funnel sells you.

Instead, it sells you something more simple, more easy, more familiar. Something you are already doing and probably enjoying.

It’s only once your interest and greed are aroused, once you click through, opt in, watch the webinar, do you find out the cold, hard truth.

So what about making money by opening emails? The promise in my subject line?

The cold hard truth is, open those emails, read them, apply any good and free ideas you come across. Or even pay for some good ideas that those emails advertise, and then apply those.

Do this consistently, and you’re sure to make money in time.

Maybe that’s not what you were hoping to hear.

Maybe you’re disappointed and hurt to hear that, while it’s certainly possible to make good money online, it will take some work, some time, some effort and maybe even creativity on your part. It will never be fully automated, and there’s no secret shortcut to get around that.

If you find that truth repulsive, then my newsletter is not for you.

But if like me, you are a panting, hanging-tongue bizopp seeker at heart… but in time you learned to control yourself and even put in some work… then stick around. I might have some good ideas to share with you.

Also, you might like my Most Valuable Postcard.

This offer is not open right now — I got all the subscribers I wanted during the launch two days ago. But there is a waiting list.

So if you’d like to get on the waiting list, and be the first to find out when I reopen MVP for subscribers, then sign up to my newsletter. And when you get my welcome email, hit reply, and let me know to add you to the MVP waiting list.

 

How to become an opportunity specialist

Back in 2019, while I was writing my first-ever real estate investing promo, I faced a bit of a conflict.

My copywriting coach at the time told me to talk about the mechanism. Basically, HOW you’re going to get rich in real estate.

But he told me something else also. “Go on YouTube,” he said, “and check out old infomercials in the REI space. See what they do.”

So I did. And each 80s and 90s infomercial basically looked like this:

1. You’re gonna get so rich.

2. You don’t need no cash, credit, experience, skills, charm, nothin’!

3. Look at all these people who done it. $10k for this guy. $20k for that guy. $30k for that third guy, and he was totally broke before!

And that’s all the infomercials were. Over and over and over, for 28 minutes. No mention of “how” anywhere.

“Yeah, but that was then,” my copywriting coach told me. “The market has matured. You need a mechanism today to stand out.”

I took his advice and worked the mechanism into the promo. ​​But I’m not sure any more that he was right. ​(The VSL never got produced, so we can’t say either way.)

But I’ve got my doubts, because I’ve been going through a Dan Kennedy course called Opportunity Concepts.

One of the things Dan says is that “Get rich in real estate” has been selling, using the same appeals, since the Civil War.

Have things changed in last 20 years?

Maybe… but probably not.

Instead, Dan says that as marketers, we underestimate how perennially conflicted, confused, self-doubting, inert, and entitled our prospects really are. In all markets. Even in markets that consist of successful, proactive people.

That’s why Dan’s advice is to sell whatever you’re selling as an opportunity. Or as close to it as you can get.

Opportunity? What does that mean?

Well, I tracked down a successful opportunity ad from 100 years ago so you can see. Variants of it ran for years in Popular Mechanics and other magazines in the late 1920s.

Frankly, it could have worked in the 1980s or today just as well. Nothing has changed.

If you sell real estate investing advice, this ad is worth a look. If you don’t sell real estate investing advice, this ad is worth a look. So take a look:

https://bejakovic.com/opportunity-ad