Robert Cialdini

I couldn’t give this new reviewer one star

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Last week, I wrote an email about an Amazon customer who wrote the first 4-star review of my new 10 Commandments book (all the other reviews were 5-star up to then).

The review was to the effect of, “the book is really 5 stars, but nothing’s perfect.”

I took a joking tone and gave that reviewer a “4-star review” in an email I sent to my whole list.

Well, the universe must have liked that because it’s now thrown a similar though entirely flipped opportunity in my path.

Here’s my most recent, 2-star review from Amazon customer LouisXIV, who didn’t even want to give my book those two stars:

“I couldn’t give it one star…had to give it two because it at compelled me to buy. This book is a magic trick from a (former?) pick up artist. It’s a bunch of stories loosely strung together. To be fair, I was familiar with a lot of these concepts already so someone may get more out of their introduction. Throwing it the garbage but kudos to the author for getting me to buy! 🤣”

I cannot give this new reviewer five stars, because nobody’s perfect. But I certainly cannot give him one star either. Not only is he helping me write this email and make some sales, but everything he says is true. Namely:

“This book is a magic trick…”

Why thank you.

“… from a (former?) pick up artist.”

… you’re making me blush but ok…

“It’s a bunch of stories loosely strung together.”

Yes, and it took a lot of work to get it so. The whole concept of the book is 10 commonalities among 10 seemingly unconnected disciplines:

“10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters”

It took a few years of research and a lot of fiddling to string together the stories that illustrate 10 common techniques used in these fields, as well as the underlying psychology and neurology common to all human beings, which you can then apply to your own life, even if you’re not, say, a pickup artist or a magician.

As for the techniques and principles themselves, they might not all be new to you, but you won’t find any of them in Cialdini’s Influence. Again, that’s by intention and design. For example, take Commandment VI:

“The best way to respond when someone accuses, mocks, or criticizes you. A trick used by pickup artists, which works on men as well as women. (Politicians obey this commandment too, too, from Andrew Jackson in 1828, to Ross Perot in 1990, all the way to Donald Trump in 2016.)”

If you’re as knowledgeable as LouisXIV seems to be, you might already know what this is. You might even have spotted me using it, right in this very email.

But if you’re not 100% sure, or you simply want to hear me go into this in more detail, via several stories that I’ve managed to string together in the most delicate and loose way, you can find it all in my book.

Maybe you’ll even give me kudos for getting you to buy it. In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

10 ideas for writing better daily emails in 10 weeks

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Once upon a time, I had a habit of focusing on one aspect of writing daily emails for a week at a time. The next week, I’d pick something else, and so on, until I got really good at writing emails.

At some point, I dropped the habit. That’s a shame. Recently, I had the idea to pick it up again, and so I made a list of 10 things to focus on in my daily emails, one thing per week, in order to make your emails much more fun, sticky, and effective in terms of sales and influence.

In case you’re curious or would like to do something similar, here’s 10 ideas for writing better daily emails in 10 weeks:

1. Be narcissistic, or give undue importance to yourself or things associated with you.

(This can be done earnestly or tongue-in-cheek. For example, I once wrote an email about how I had drafted a patent application to protect my Most Valuable Email trick, because it is too valuable not to protect, and because it satisfies the three criteria required by the U.S. Patent Office, namely novelty, non-obviousness, and concrete and practical application.)

2. Push-pull, near misses, teasing.

3. Fun vibe.

4. DHV = demonstrations of higher value.

Another term for this is status building, such as for example, when I tell you that I am currently running the only private, invite-only group of email marketers and course creators in the email marketing niche, which brings together pretty much everybody you have heard of in this space.

5. Clarity.

6. Personal frame. Meaning, every email should really be about you, or should have a frame of “you,” even if the picture inside the frame is, say, a scene from a Batman movie.

7. Being black-and-white, dogmatic.

8. Teasing or building up upcoming things (push-pull on a longer scale).

9. Transparency, Skeleton Protocol.

10. Reason why.

If some of the terms above — “push pull,” “near misses,” “Skeleton Protocol” — are unfamiliar to you, that’s because you have not read my new 10 Commandments book.

It took me several years of research, thinking, and paring down my ideas to the most valuable ones to be able to write this book.

This book is not a replacement for Bob Cialdini’s bestselling Influence, but a complement to it. As Rob Marsh, founder of the Copywriter Club, wrote after he read my new 10 Commandments book:

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In addition to Cialdini’s well known 6 principles of influence (urgency, scarcity, consistency and so on), it’s time to add Bejakovic’s 10 commandments of persuasion. This book will make you a better writer and a better sales person. But more than that, you can use John’s commandments to be more persuasive, more engaging and more interesting in everything you do.

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Imagine if you had been one of the first few thousand people who had read Cialdini’s Influence, back in 1984.

Entire multi-million dollar info businesses have been built up in the ensuing years by simply repackaging and selling the ideas in this book.

And many much bigger businesses have been built up by taking the ideas in Cialdini’s book, including the many nuances in there beyond just the chapter headings, and applying those ideas to sales and influence systems.

Would I be bold or arrogant enough to claim my new 10 Commandments book offers a similar opportunity today, in 2025?

Clearly I would. So in case you haven’t read it yet, you have only one option:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Gary Bencivenga, Milton Erickson, Chris Voss, David Mamet, Derren Brown, Harry Houdini, …

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Yesterday I got a message from Miro Skender, who is a personal development coach, one of the few successful ones in the small market of my home country, Croatia. Miro wrote (I’m translating freely):

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I mean, you and your book!!!! I start reading, then some quote or you mention somebody, so I have to Google or ChatGPT to find out more, then you mention somebody else and again, it’s like browser windows keep popping up on my computer on their own. Then I say, fuck it, I’m just going to read, two pages later I’m searching for my favorite comedian on YT 😂

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In case it’s not 100% clear, Miro is talking about my new 10 Commandments book. As for the engagement trick that’s making his browser tabs explode:

It’s a universal truth, one I’ve found to be very powerful in marketing and influence, and yet one I find lots of people ignoring to their own detriment, that it’s much easier to sell people than to sell ideas.

Ideas are shadowy and hard to grasp. It takes work and effort.

On the other hand, we all have big chunks of our brain dedicated to detecting, recognizing, and evaluating other people. It’s automatic.

You can apply this fundamental truth in a million ways, but here’s just one simple and practical one:

I ran ads on Amazon for my previous 10 Commandments book, about A-list copywriters. I tried ads based on keywords (eg. “stages of market sophistication”). I tried ads based on related book titles (eg. “Breakthrough Advertising”). But nothing worked as well as simply matching the names of people who are somehow connected to my book (eg. “Eugene Schwartz”).

I’m doing the same for this new 10 Commandments book. I’m running ads on Amazon for search terms like Gary Bencivenga, Milton Erickson, Chris Voss, David Mamet, Derren Brown, Harry Houdini, Jim Camp, Patrice O’Neal, Robert Cialdini…

… all of whom are somehow connected to my book. In case you would like to find out how, or to get sucked into my new book yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

#1 New Release

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I launched my new 10 Commandments book last night. So far, the book has turned into the #1 New Release in the Business Communication Skills category on Amazon, and is only a couple spots behind Cialdini’s Influence among the bestsellers in the same category.

Speaking of, one of the people I asked for feedback on the book before I published it was Rob Marsh, founder of the Copywriter Club and co-host of the world’s #1 copywriting podcast. As Rob was reading through my new 10 Commandments book, he wrote me to say:

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Hey John… I haven’t finished yet, but so far I like what I’m reading.

Your teaching style is subtle, yet effective.

And what you share is spot on. It will help a lot of readers be more persuasive.

Any way… hoping to finish this week.

I will definitely share with my audience.

Also happy to give you a “blurb” if you think it would help.

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I was happy with what Rob had already written and I didn’t ask for more. But Rob’s a generous guy, and when he finished the book, he sent me the following Cialdini-scented blurb:

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In addition to Cialdini’s well known 6 principles of influence (urgency, scarcity, consistency and so on), it’s time to add Bejakovic’s 10 commandments of persuasion. This book will make you a better writer and a better sales person. But more than that, you can use John’s commandments to be more persuasive, more engaging and more interesting in everything you do.

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Would you like to be more persuasive, engaging, and interesting? Or to sell more? Or to write better?

I don’t know. Hmm…

On the odd chance that you answer yes, you can find a copy of my new book waiting patiently for you here:

​https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments​

My top 7 marketing books

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I heard once that reading lists make for great lead magnets.

Is that true? I don’t know.

But it got me to put together a recommended reading list of my own.

I started with a goal of 10 books — but though I’ve read many more than 10, I couldn’t honestly recommend 10. That’s a good thing for you — less reading to do.

So here are my top 7 marketing books, for you to enjoy, learn, and profit from:

1. The Robert Collier Letter Book, by Robert Collier

This book has it all — wagons of coal, silk stockings, genies in the lamp, free pens, rattlesnakes, dinosaurs. If you only ever read one book about direct marketing, this is my number-one recommendation.

2. Positioning, by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Tons of other good marketing advice beyond, “Get yourself into a niche of one.”

3. My Life In Advertising, by Claude C. Hopkins

All the wisdom in Hopkins’s vaunted Scientific Advertising, but presented with stories and detail that make it go down more easy.

4. The Adweek Copywriting Book, by Joe Sugarman

Very accessible, usable, and current, even if you never write a full-page magazine ad selling a calculator or UV-blocking sunglasses.

5. Influence, by Robert Cialdini

I wish I had written this book. What more can I say?

6. Start With No, by Jim Camp

You may have seen this negotiation book recommended before by online marketers. It happens a lot. What is it about Camp’s negotiation strategies that could be useful to sales and marketing online?

7. Made To Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath

I read this book only once but it’s stuck. That’s because the authors know what they’re talking about, and because they apply it to their own writing.

Like I said, I’ve heard that reading lists make for great lead magnets.

Do they also make for effective email copy? I don’t know.

But I’m willing to test it out.

If you haven’t already clicked away to Amazon to get one of the books above, maybe you will click below to the sales page for my Daily Email Habit service. It sometimes forces even me to write emails I would never write otherwise. Here’s the link if you’d like to find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Not even Cialdini could coax, talk, or shame a solution to this problem

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Towards the end of chapter 4 of Bob Cialdini’s book Influence, Cialdini shares a personal story that I want to share with you today.

I want to share this story with you because it serves my purpose.

But you might want to read this story because it can help you achieve your purpose as well.

Here goes:

Robert Cialdini, a world-famous expert in influence, persuasion, and communication, wanted to get his 3yo son to learn to swim without wearing an inflatable inner tube.

Each year, a bunch of kids in Arizona, where Cialdini lived, drowned in unattended pools. Cialdini wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen to his boy.

So he tried a direct appeal — “Let’s teach you how to swim, son.”

NO!!! was the response. ​​Cialdini’s kid liked water, but he was terrified of getting in without the inflatable inner tube.

No matter how Cialdini tried to “coax, talk, or shame” his 3yo son, the boy wouldn’t let go.

Fine. Cialdini hired a graduate student of his, who was also a lifeguard and swimming instructor, to get his son to learn to swim.

Nope. Once again, the kid refused.

Not even the lifeguard’s professional techniques could overcome the boy’s fear of swimming without the inflatable inner tube.

Fast forward a couple days. Cialdini’s kid was attending a day camp.

One day, as usual, Cialdini went to pick his son up. And he saw a shocking, never-before-seen sight:

His kid was running down the diving board at the pool. He reached the end of the diving board and jumped into the deep end. No inflatable inner tube.

Cialdini rushed over, ready to dive in the pool and to rescue his certainly drowning son.

Except the kid wasn’t drowning. He was swimming.

Cialdini was stunned. He helped his kid get out the pool. And he asked the boy how come he could finally swim without his inflatable plastic ring.

Response:

“Well, I’m 3 years old, and Tommy is 3 years old. And Tommy can swim without a ring, so that means I can, too.”

You can probably imagine a bright-red handprint on Cialdini’s forehead as he slapped himself upon hearing that.

Point being:

We’re all looking for some kind of confirmation that what we’re trying to do is actually possible.

Examples from others can help there. But in order for it to actually help, those others must have the same limitations we have.

If you’re 3 years old, it doesn’t help much to see a 26-year-old lifeguard swimming without an inflatable plastic ring. But when you see 3-year-old Tommy do it, then that means something.

And now to my purpose:

If you are not yet writing daily emails for your personal brand, or if you are not yet successful with it, then next Thursday I’m putting on a workshop called Daily Email Fastlane.

A key part of this workshop will be the common elements I’ve seen among three daily emailers I have coached over the past 18 months.

​​These three coaching students have stood out to me in terms of the money they make, the stability of their income, and simply in how much they seem to enjoy their business and their life.

My claim is that seeing inside these guys’ businesses can help you overcome your own self-imposed or real limitations.

​​Because among these these three daily emailers, you can find at least one who has faced the kinds of problems that you might be facing now:

– a small list
– an unpromising niche
– leads without money
– imposter syndrome
– a genuine lack of credibility

And yet, these three guys turned out successful. Maybe seeing their examples can make you successful also, and quickly so.

If you’d like to join me for this workshop to try it for yourself, here’s where to dive in:

https://bejakovic.com/daily-email-fastlane

I just remembered Cialdini’s best way to teach anybody anything

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I’ve just awakened from a hypnotic trance.

I spent the last 16 minutes watching a video of a fridge repairman from Alabama disassembling a failed fridge compressor.

As my hypnotic trance cleared, I began to marvel at this mystery.

After all, I don’t have a fridge compressor to fix. And I’m not looking for DIY advice.

In fact, I have zero interest in fridges or handymanism. I wasn’t familiar with 95% of the technical terms the fridge guy was using. I really could gain nothing practical or pleasurable from his 16-minute video.

So why did I watch it, with rapt attention, from beginning to end?

Perhaps, you say, I was just looking to waste time instead of writing this email.

I certainly do like to waste time instead of working. But why not waste time doing something I like, like reading the New Yorker, or watching some Bill Burr on YouTube?

No, it wasn’t that.

But perhaps, you say again, I just enjoy feeling smug and right.

After all, the dead fridge compressor was from 2009. And the fridge repair guy specializes in maintaining long-running, old fridges that go back to the 1940s. So maybe I was just looking for confirmation of my belief that old is good and new is worthless.

Maybe. But if that’s the case, why did I have to watch the video, and all 16 minutes of it? I mean, the video’s title gave me all I really needed to feel smug:

“Declining quality of consumer-grade products – 2009 fridge compressor autopsy…”

So no, it can’t be that.

But perhaps I just wanted to share something cool with a friend.

Even though I have no interest in handymanism, I do have a friend who is into it. I wanted to forward him this video, and maybe, you say, I just wanted to make sure it was worthwhile.

But that doesn’t hold water either. After all, this video popped up on a news aggregator I frequent, where it got 2-3x the usual number of upvotes. That’s a lot of tacit endorsement of quality. And I could tell within just the first minute or two that my friend might find this video interesting, and that I should send him the link.

So why did I myself watch the entire thing?

In trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle, I jumped back to a critical point in the video at minute 5:54.

The fridge guy has just tested whether the compressor failed because of electrical failure. No, it turns out, it wasn’t electrical.

So he decides to cut open the locked-up compressor and see what’s going on inside. As soon as he cuts the compressor open, the motor moves freely, and is no longer locked up.

The fridge guy is in wonder.

“I don’t understand at all,” he says. He decides to try to power the compressor up again. “My guess is it still won’t start.”

“Aha!” I said. “I get it now!”

Because I realized what was going on. I realized why I had been sucked into this video so hypnotically.

It was the structure of the way the fridge guy was doing his compressor autopsy.

He was using the exact same structure I read about once. A very smart and influential professor of persuasion spelled out this structure in a book, and he said it’s the best way to present any new information and teach anyone anything.

I don’t know if the fridge repair guy had been secretly reading the work of this professor of persuasion.

But I do know that if you’re trying to teach anybody anything, whether in person, in your courses, or just in your marketing, then this structure is super valuable.

It makes it so people actually want to consume your material. They will even want to consume it all the way to the end (just look at me and that 16-minute fridge video).

This structure also makes it so the info you are teaching sticks in people’s heads. That way, they are more likely to use it, profit from it, and become grateful students and customers for life.

And this structure even makes it so people experience an “Aha moment,” just like I did. When that happens, people feel compelled to share their enthusiasm with others, just like I am doing now with you right now.

You might be curious about this structure and who this professor of persuasion is.

Well, I will tell you the guy’s name is Robert Cialdini. He is famous for writing the book Influence. But the structure I’m talking about is not described in Influence.

Instead, it’s described in another of Cialdini’s books, Pre-Suasion.

Now, if you read Daniel Throssell’s emails, you might know that Daniel advises people to skip Pre-Suasion. He even calls it the worst copywriting book he has ever read.

I don’t agree.

Because in Chapter 6 of Pre-Suasion, Cialdini spells out the exact structure I’ve been telling you about. Plus he gives you an example from his own teaching.

This is some hard-core how-to. ​And if you ever want to get information into people’s heads, and make it stick there, for their benefit as well as your own, you might find this how-to information very valuable.

In case you want it:

https://bejakovic.com/presuasion

The plagiarism trick of James the Baptist

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James Altucher is a kind of modern day John the Baptist. He rails against college, owning a house, or paying your dues in any industry.

I first heard about him from entrepreneur and copywriter Mark Ford. Mark cares about good writing and interesting ideas. I guess that’s why he’s friends with James.

James has a colorful life history. He has a talent for making and then losing millions of dollars… he’s neurotic and nerdy… at one point, he lived for a year straight in Airbnbs, and owned only 15 things.

But people follow him. Online. Huge audiences.

James also has a podcast. The world’s elite comes to him to promote their causes. He’s interviewed Tony Robbins… Richard Branson… Robert Cialdini… and hundreds of others among the rich and influential.

James interrupts his guests while they’re speaking. He asks out-of-left-field questions. He makes his guests pause. And then relax. And then answer honestly with real insights.

A while back, James published a brilliant idea. It allows you to avoid agonizing over your writing, and create content that’s guaranteed to light up your readers’ minds.

James’s post gives an example of how he got crazy spikes of online traffic using this idea. He spells out exactly how you can use it too. You can use it to write your own popular online content, winning sales copy, or even a bestselling book.

In short, James just shared a way to stop trotting along on a lame copywriting mule… and to start galloping on a copywriting thoroughbred.

I even used this technique to write this email. It’s been a revelation. And I want to share it with you now:

https://jamesaltucher.com/blog/i-plagiarized

The future of break-em-down selling?

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Imagine tomorrow you see an ad for a magical job opportunity:

“$6k a month, only requiring 3-4 hours of work every week.”

The job is with a new video game company. The work is easy. You can do it successfully as long as you have the digital skills of somebody born after 1980.

Plus you can work whenever you like, wherever you like, as much or as little as you like. All you need is your phone. And if you want to work more and make as much as $10k or $15k a month, that’s fine too.

There will be a presentation, the ad tells you, at the local Cheesecake Factory this Friday. Anybody interested can get all the info there.

So on Friday, you show up to the Cheesecake Factory, both hopeful and cautious.

“What’s the worst that can happen,” you tell yourself. “If it’s some sort of scam, I’ll just up and leave. But if it’s for real, it could be life-changing.”

A dozen other people are there with you. Soon enough the presenter arrives. He chats to everyone for a few minutes. Funny enough, it turns out his sister went to the same college you went to.

“But it’s too noisy here,” the guy announces. “We’ll actually go to go to a different location where the presentation will be held.”

So you all load onto a bus. And that’s when the ride really gets going.

If you’re wondering why I’m painting this picture, it’s because situations like this happen for real. Bob Cialdini once told his own personal experience of it.

He got on the bus. And he and the others interested in the opportunity got taken from one town… to another… and back. It took many hours, and they never got a chance to up and leave until it was over.

To help them make the right decision, the bus was covered with inspirational posters. Eye of the Tiger kept playing over and over. Meanwhile, the presenter pitched the amazingness of his pyramid scheme, while the bus bounced and rumbled along the highway at 55 mph.

Result:

Except for Cialdini, who had a little bit of self-defense thanks to his knowledge of persuasion techniques, everybody else signed on for the pyramid scheme.

My point is that a controlled, live selling environment, particularly one that lasts for hours or days, and one where you can’t leave… well… it can sell anything.

So if you are looking to get rich in the pyramid scheme business, it’s time to invest in a bus.

But what if you’re not selling pyramid schemes? And what if you do your business online?

It might seem hopeless. How can you control people’s environment… how can you keep them from leaving… how can you break them down… unless you can physically isolate them?

It might seem hopeless. But social factors are working in your favor. And I’m not even talking about the corona lockdowns, though those certainly help.

The real thing is we all carry our own Eye-Of-The-Tiger bus in our pockets these days. We allow it to create a completely controlled and engrossing environment for us. We take it with us wherever we go, even to small, isolated spaces like the toilet.

And in case you think I’m trying to make a joke, I’m not.

For the past year or so, I’ve been watching Ben Settle promote his build-your-own-mobile-marketing-app business.

I thought it’s stupid. Because I myself refuse to install anything on my phone except Google Maps and this thing that helps you identify trees. And even those have all the notifications turned off.

But I will eventually break down. That’s how the world is moving.

So if you are looking to get rich in any business, it might be time to invest in a mobile app. One with lots of notifications and an inspirational poster background. If I’m right, this is the future of break-em-down selling… and it can help you sell anything.

Meanwhile, the best you can do is get people onto your email newsletter. I’ve got one here. It’s not the same as a bus… so I have to compensate by being entertaining and informative.

Constant scarcity loses to recent scarcity

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Yesterday, a copywriter who reads my email newsletter wrote me with a job offer.

The offer sounds great. I’m planning to get on a call with the copywriter and the COO of the company to talk about it, hopefully later today.

It took over two years of everyday mailing to get to this point.

For the longest time, nobody read my newsletter. But gradually, a few people found me, and then a few more.

And now, even though I still have a small list, opportunities are coming my way out of unexpected corners.

I’m telling you about this for two reasons:

First, if you’re getting started in any kind of service business, then writing daily emails is a great way to get in front of high-quality, high-paying clients, very slowly.

Maybe you can do it faster than I did, if you work hard on growing your list and if you push your services in your emails. Both things I never did much of.

Which brings me to the second reason I’m telling you about this, and the real point of today’s post.

Several copywriting influencers claim you should reach out to your email list whenever you’re looking for work. They advise saying something like:

“I just wrapped up a big project… I currently have an opening in my schedule… if you’re interested, reply and we can talk.”

I always had a bad feeling about this advice.

I’m sure it works, if you have a big enough reputation and a big enough list.

But if you have a small enough list or a small enough reputation… then the message above smells of need, at least to me.

​​I figured there must be a better way.

My suspicions were confirmed when I read Bob Cialdini’s book Pre-suasion. Cialdini cites laboratory research showing that constant scarcity is less motivating than recent scarcity. From the research:

If there are always a few cookies in a jar, you want them more than if there are a lot of cookies. But…

You don’t want them nearly as much as when there were always a lot of cookies… and now suddenly there are only a few.

“Pfff, lab persuasion!” you might say. “What does that have to do with the real world?”

I don’t know. Let’s find out.

As I mentioned at the start, I have a new job offer. That’s in addition to my ongoing clients in the ecommerce space… plus a real estate business I’ve recently joined… plus my own books and courses, which I’m building up and selling.

And like I said, new opportunities are popping up, more and more often, as my little newsletter picks up steam.

In other words, I’m really not looking for more work. But I am still open to it.

So if you would like to work with me in some form… before I get so entangled in other projects that it becomes impossible to say yes to anything new… then get on my newsletter, get in touch with me, and we can talk.