The New Yorker

Smug, yet falsely modest

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I plopped onto my couch this morning and ripped open the latest New Yorker. I skipped the first few pages by instinct — after all, they’re just ads. “Except,” I said to myself, “that’s kind of my job?”

So I flipped back to page one.

What I saw was a two-page ad for AI company Anthropic, which makes Claude, a ChatGPT competitor.

The Claude logo took up the entire left page.

On the right page, the headline read, “Late bloomer” (including the quotes).

The body copy then went on to say that Claude might not be the first AI chatbot to market. But this was by design, the ad explained, so Claude could be so good, and so safe, and so useful as it happens to be. “We build AI you can trust,” concluded the copy

In a way, this kinda sounded like the famous Avis ad, “Avis is only No. 2,” which turned being second in a market into an advantage.

Or maybe it kinda sounded like the famous Volkswagen “Lemon” ad, which flipped quality concerns into a demonstration of higher standards.

The Anthropic ad kinda sounded like that… but it failed.

Because those headlines — “Avis is only No.2,” “Lemon” — really were objections that people were throwing at Avis and Volkswagen.

Whoever wrote this ad for Anthropic could have gone that same route by saying something like “Also-ran” in the headline.

Instead, they went the board-pleasing “Late bloomer” route, which is not any kind of insult or objection, but in fact a kind of smug self-compliment.

I can’t say whether this Anthropic ad will prove to be effective in any way, and neither can Anthropic. Because this ad is a typical “tombstone ad,” with no mechanism to track response.

All I can tell you is that this headline + body copy violate a kind of core rule of effective communication.

That rule is contrast.

If you say about a person that he is smug yet effective, then there is some tension and power in that description, because of the contrast. Plus, you get bonus points for transparency.

On the other hand, if you describe someone as “smug, yet falsely modest,” then at best you’ll confuse your audience based on what they were expecting. At worst, you’ll sound repetitive, mealy-mouthed, or self-serving, which is what I felt about this Anthropic ad.

So use contrast for power. Avoid contrast for blandness.

Also, if you haven’t done so yet, consider reading my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters. It doesn’t have anything to do with this email, and so I won’t pretend otherwise. The only thing I will say in favor of this book is that it’s short yet cheap. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Have we reached “peak storytelling”?

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This week’s New Yorker features a cartoon of a puzzled couple in front of an apartment door.

​​The man is holding a bottle of wine, so the couple are probably guests coming for a party. But they are hesitating, because the welcome mat in front of the door doesn’t say “Welcome”. Instead, it says,

“Welcome?”

This cartoon connected in my mind to a “law” I found out about a few day’s ago, Betteridge’s law, which states:

“If a headline asks a yes or no question, the answer is always no.”

Ian Betteridge is a technology journalist. And his argument was, if the answer to that yes/no question were yes, the writer would definitely tell you so, right away, as a matter of shocking fact.

Instead, the writer didn’t have enough proof to support his claim. But he decided to make it anyhow, as a question, in order to say something more dramatic than he could otherwise, and to suck you into reading. Like this:

“Will AI and Transhumanism Lead to the Next Evolution of Mankind, or Doom It?”

No. And no.

Betteridge’s law is an instance of the persuasion knowledge model.

​​That’s a fancy, academic term for the fact that people become aware of manipulative advertising and media techniques. And after people become aware, they also start resisting — “Don’t even bother reading this article, because the answer is sure to be no.”

That’s how in time, people become dismissive of intriguing headlines (“clickbait”), of being told something new about themselves (r/StupidInternetQuizzes/), even of effective stories (the entire TV Tropes website).

That’s not to say that curiosity, categorization, or stories no longer work or will not work as ways to persuade or influence.

But it does say that the effort and skill required to make them work today is a bit greater than it was yesterday — and it will be a bit greater still tomorrow.

And so it is with what I’ve been calling the Most Valuable Email trick.

Like stories, categorization, or curiosity, my MVE trick is based on fundamental human psychology.

​​It will continue to work forever — just how a well-told or fascinating story continues to work today, in spite of the fact that you probably have 20 story-based daily emails sitting in your inbox right now.

The thing is, if you act today, you get bonus points for using the MVE trick.

​​The day may come when the persuasion knowledge of the market becomes aware of this trick, and maybe even takes evasive measures. But today, practically nobody is aware of the MVE trick, especially in emails. As copywriter Cindy Suzuki wrote me after going through the Most Valuable Email course:

I’m looking back at your old emails with new eyes. You know that moment people get epiphanies and the entire world looks different? I’m feeling that way about your writing now. You’ve helped me unlock something I didn’t know existed. So incredible.

In case you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity while it’s still early days:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Chicken soup for the marketer’s, copywriter’s, and salesman’s soul

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“In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.”

The above quote is from David Foster Wallace, from his famous “This is Water” commencement speech at Kenyon College.

At some point in your life, you’ve probably either heard this exact quote on something very much like it. It’s basically cognitive behavioral therapy:

1. You only ever have a few pixels of evidence about what’s “really” going on.

2. Those pixels can fit into multiple consistent pictures.

3. Some of those pictures are more pleasant and useful for you to look at than others.

4. So you might as well focus on the useful and the pleasant pictures.

Pretty good advice, right?

Except, I happen to be professionally warped through my work as a direct response copywriter.

And so, while most people might see a healthy life lesson above, I see a sales technique.

A couple days ago, I talked about Sam Taggart, the door-to-door salesman profiled in a New Yorker article.

I showed you one way that Taggart deals with objections. But here’s another way, from the article:

Usually, once the customer realizes she’s being pitched, she’ll say anything to make the salesman go. When I canvassed with Taggart, I often felt anxious: They really want us to leave! But he interpreted every objection as an appeal for further information. He heard “I can’t afford it” as “Show me how I can afford it,” and “I already have a gun and a mean dog” as “What else do I need to fully protect my family?”

Taggart always takes objections as a request for more info, and questions as a sign of interest.

And why not?

Like DFW says above, it’s not impossible. In fact, in at least some situations, it’s exactly what’s happening.

When a potential customer or client asks you an accusatory question, or when they raise an insurmountable objection, those are just air bubbles on the surface of the ocean. You don’t really know what’s going on underneath the surface to produce those bubbles. So you might as well imagine a colorful and fun underwater party, populated by singing crabs and smiling tropical fish who really want you to succeed. “Darling it’s better down where it’s wetter, take it from meeeee…”

Anyways, the New Yorker profile of Sam Taggart doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of the guy. But that’s mainly New Yorker propaganda. And in any case, there’s a lot of value in that article, if you only, as they say, read between the lines.

I might write about some of that valuable stuff in the future. If you want to catch that when it comes out, sign up to my daily email newsletter.

There will never be a moment as perfect as right now to read this email

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I recently got a print subscription to the New Yorker so I can sit on the balcony in the morning and read a few pages of well-written fluff about something totally random.

I like the New Yorker because it exposes me to topics outside my usual horse-blindered view of copy, marketing, and influence.

Except, the article I’m reading right now is square in the center of my horse blinders. It’s about Sam Taggart, a new prophet of door-to-door sales.

I’ve never done door-to-door selling myself, but the techniques of the work are near and dear to me. For example:

The New Yorker article reports how one day, Taggart went a-selling solar panels in Salt Lake City.

He approached a house, and stood away from the porch as a woman opened the door.

Taggart adopted a matter-of-fact contractor’s tone when talking. For a bit, this made the woman believe he was somehow with the utilities company. Once it became clear Taggart was selling solar panels, the woman locked up:

“My husband won’t do it, because we’re faced the wrong way.”

Taggart had a very clever and calculated response to this. It immediately made me sit up and pay attention, because it sounded very familiar. From the article:

“Here’s the thing,” Taggart said. He leaned against the doorway, and the woman leaned against its opposite side — a signal that she felt more comfortable. “What’s your name?”

“Kay.”

“Every kiss begins with ‘K’!” They both laughed. “So, actually, your house is perfect for it!” He hadn’t even glanced at her roof.

Like I said, this technique was very familiar to me.

It might be used in D2D sales, but it is also used in copywriting and marketing.

I’ve heard Dan Kennedy preach it. And when I was in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group, Dan F. even had a very concise name for it which has stuck with me since. In fact, Dan uses this technique not just as a way of handling objections, but more generally, as a way of organizing and structuring his promos.

And now, since it so happens that the Pisuerga flows through Valladolid, I’d like to tell you that I’ve been thinking about podcasts lately.

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about getting onto some podcasts. I got on a couple last year, and gave me a lot of exposure and attention. I also have plans to get on another podcast in a few weeks’ time. But after that, what? I feel podcasts are something I should be doing more regularly, and not just once or twice a year.

So I’ve got an offer for you:

Maybe it’s 100% clear to you what Sam Taggart’s technique above is.

Maybe it’s also 100% clear to you how to use this at the low-level of your copy… or, like Dan Ferrari, even to organize your entire promo.

But if you’re not 100% sure, if you’re more like 98% or 97% sure, or even less, then get onto my email newsletter. When you get my welcome email, hit reply. And let me know the most recent podcast episode you listened to.

Just tell me one. The most recent one.

And if it has nothing to do with copy or marketing, that’s perfectly fine. Don’t lie to me and say you’ve been listening to David Garfinkel if you haven’t. There’s no need to. I want to genuinely know the most recent podcast you listened to, whatever that may be.

And in return:

I will spell out Taggart’s technique above. And I will tell you what Dan Kennedy and Dan Ferrari have to say about the same, and how they use it in their marketing and copy.

Are you game? Then do it now.

It’s the perfect moment while it’s still fresh on your mind. It will only take you a second, and you will avoid the risk that you put it aside for a minute and forget about it among all the distractions of the Internet. Here’s where to get started.

The real heroes are dead

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“As a soldier, Rick Rescorla served in Vietnam, where he earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and also a Purple Heart. When he returned home, Rescorla landed a job as Head of Security for Morgan Stanley. And as you’ll soon see, in many ways, he was the best investment Morgan Stanley ever made.”

I’ve gotten interested in writing financial copy. So as the first step, I started watching financial promos while I eat lunch.

I got going yesterday, with a Stansberry VSL. The hook is the story of a U.S. Army vet named Rick Rescorla… who, the VSL tells you, could end up having an “enormous impact on you, your family, your money, your savings and investments.” And then it leads to the bit about Morgan Stanley and its best investment ever.

“This story sounds familiar,” I said.

“An Army vet… going to work on Wall Street… as Head of Security… where did I read this before?”

I typed a few words into Google. And yep, there it was. First result.

For many decades, the recommended bathroom reading material for copywriters was The National Enquirer. At least so claimed Gene Schwartz, who said:

“That’s why I say that the required medium for you is all the junk magazines in the United States. I would go out tomorrow and get a subscription to The National Enquirer and read every single word in it. That’s your audience. There are your headlines. There are your people and their feelings.”

But the Rick Rescorla story didn’t come from the National Enquirer. So I’d like to give you a different magazine recommendation as new required reading.

I’m talking about The New Yorker.

It’s a snob magazine. If you’re writing sales copy, it’s unlikely to reflect your audience or their feelings.

And yet I recommend it.

Because the New Yorker and its writers manage to dig up obscure stories… find the fascinating implications… and create drama through substance rather than form.

Stansberry’s Rick Rescorla hook came from The New Yorker.

And it’s not the only one.

If you’ve been reading my emails for a while, you know I’ve written about Dan Ferrari’s Genesis sales letter. It tripled response over the control and sold out the entire stock of Green Valley’s telomere supplement.

Dan’s sales letter kicked off with a snapshot. A secret meeting of Hollywood stars and Silicon Valley millionaires… gathered in a Malibu Beach cliffside mansion… to listen to a Nobel-winning scientist reveal her breakthrough research on doing away with death and old age.

That story was true. And it also came from The New Yorker.

“All right Bejako,” I hear you saying. “You almost have me convinced. Two examples is good. But where’s your third example? Don’t know you all copywriting proof comes in threes?”

You got me. I only have the two examples above to give you.

If that’s enough of a pattern for you to work with, then start scanning The New Yorker and checking if some of their stories could be used for your hooks.

And maybe you will be my third example one day… or maybe I will be, because it’s what I’ll start doing.

In any case, if you’d like to read why Rick Rescorla was the best investment Morgan Stanley ever made, follow the link below.

But before you go, consider signing up for my email newsletter, which serves you up with a daily idea or recommendation for improving your marketing or copywriting.

And now, here’s the tight, fascinating, and moving New Yorker article about Rick Rescorla:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/02/11/the-real-heroes-are-dead

Intuition pump

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Let me share a fictional story I just read in an anarchist copywriter ezine:

One morning in a certain November, a man named John Bejakovic walked out onto his driveway and down to the mailbox.

All around, the street was empty, as it had been for days. His neighbors, like most people around the world, were in a panic, and stayed out of the open as much as possible.

Each night, experts on the teletron warned of unusual bursts of cosmic gamma rays. The experts said these gamma rays could cause serious DNA damage. And while some people seemed to handle the gamma rays just fine, others suffered for weeks with strange symptoms. Still others died.

John opened his mailbox. Among the usual junk mail — magalogs from Boardroom and Phillips Publishing — he saw a thin white envelope. He recognized it immediately. It was an occasional newsletter John was subscribed to, written and published by an expert in persuasive communication.

As always, on the top of the white envelope, in large black letters, there was a “teaser.” This week, it read:

“AN HONEST MISTAKE?”

John walked back inside, magalogs under his arm. He tossed the magalogs into the trash, sat down on the couch, and ripped open the envelope.

“I’ve been warning you all year long,” the newsletter started. “The world is finally starting to realize that the Great Gamma Ray Hysteria is nothing more than a seasonal flareup of space radiation. The question is, how did we get here?”

The newsletter then went into a bunch of reasoned arguments. John scratched his head, and scanned over the remaining pages. Expert opinion… statistics… data. Not only was this whole gamma ray thing not real, the newsletter argued, it was purposefully fabricated.

“Yawn,” John said out loud, even though nobody was in the room with him. “How could an expert in persuasive communication write something like this?”

John tossed the newsletter aside, and grabbed an issue of the New Yorker from the coffee table. He was in the middle of an article about philosopher Daniel Dennett. The article picked up:

“Arguments, Dennett found, rarely shift intuitions; it’s through stories that we revise our sense of what’s natural. (He calls such stories ‘intuition pumps.’) In 1978, he published a short story called ‘Where Am I?,’ in which a philosopher, also named Daniel Dennett, is asked to volunteer for a dangerous mission to disarm an experimental nuclear warhead.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” John said, slapping the page. He rushed to his writing desk and got out a piece of paper. “I’ll show him,” he said out loud, even though there was nobody else in that room either.

Hey it’s me again. I mostly wanted to share this fictional story because the main character has the same name as me. What are the odds?

But the story gets increasingly pornographic after this point, so I won’t bother reprinting it verbatim.

The gist of the action is that the guy started to write a letter to the persuasion expert. He wanted to complain about the boring newsletter. But he ripped the letter up because he realized he was making the same mistake of trying to make his point through argument.

So instead, he wrote a short story about unicorns, and about an evil wizard who poisons their meadow. He published his story in Teen Vogue, where it went viral, and wound up being read verbatim on the Dr. Oz teletron show.

What nobody realized is that the story was just an exercise — a trojan horse to make the same point about the gamma rays, but in a more persuasive way.

And after the story was read on Dr. Oz, people around the world had a mass change of heart and started walking out onto the streets again. And you can imagine how that went, with all the surging gamma radiation raining down from heaven.

Anyways, like I said, a fictional story. But I had to share it just because of the coincidence of the name. And who knows, maybe you can draw some value out of it.

Speaking of newsletters, I’ve also got one. It’s email, not paper, and it arrives every day, not only occasionally. Here’s the optin.

Opening the impossible sale

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A few days ago, after reading a terrible article in The New Yorker, I decided to stop drinking coffee. At least for the next month.

It’s not a giant sacrifice. I was never a coffee snob, and coffee doesn’t do much for my flat-lining productivity.

But I do enjoy getting up in the morning, brewing some cheap coffee on the stove, and then thinning it to hell with cow milk. It’s a small pleasure, but in my life, that means a lot.

Even so, no coffee for the next month. That article spoiled it for me. It told the history of coffee, and it explained how the powers-that-be tricked society into getting addicted to coffee for their own evil ends.

To paraphrase Dave Chappelle, “And all these years, I thought I liked coffee because it’s delicious. Turns out, I got no say in the matter.”

Besides The New Yorker, I’m also reading a book called The Catalyst. The first chapter is all about reactance, which is what happened with me and coffee and that article. But the book gives another and better example of it:

Apparently, back in the 90s, the state of Florida ran one of the rare successful anti-smoking campaigns targeting teens. The ads didn’t tell teens about the harms of smoking. They didn’t tell teens to stop.

​​All the campaign did was highlight the devious ways the tobacco industry used to manipulate kids into getting hooked. As the campaign ran, teen smoking rates dropped by something like a million percent. Eventually, tobacco companies sued the state to get the campaign to stop.

Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Something similar happens in persuasion and marketing and sales. The opposite of making the sale is usually not objections. It’s simply indifference.

Of course, the best way to deal with indifferent, ambivalent prospects is to never face them. Selling those kinds of people is almost impossible. At least that’s what I thought until I read that stuff about reactance.

People want to have a feeling of control and agency in their lives. If they feel that’s been violated, they get very motivated to change. Even to the point of doing the exact opposite of what they were doing up to now.

​​That’s reactance.

I’d still rather not face indifferent prospects. But if I do have to face them, I know what I’ll do to open the sale. I’ll simply show them how choosing the status quo is not actually their decision, but the work of some puppet master behind the scenes.

Maybe you can try the same. If you so choose, of course.

Finally, here’s some facts that are not designed to persuade you in any way. I write a daily email newsletter. It deals with topics like the one you’ve just read about. The way to get it is here. And I in no way encourage you to sign up for it.