Tim Ferriss

My fruitful first Clickbank failure

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first-ever book. Well… book might be a bit grandiose.

It was more like an 85-page pdf. And by publication, I really just mean I put it up on Clickbank for sale.

The title of this thing was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. The background was this:

10 years ago, I was a dissatisfied office drone working at an IT company. Day after day, I’d sit at my computer, drumming my fingers on the desk, looking out the window as the sun set at 4pm. “And I still have to sit here and pretend to work for 2 more hours!” I wanted to get free.

And then I heard about Mike Geary. Mike was making a million dollars a month selling his own 85-page pdf, The Truth About Abs, on Clickbank.

How could I do the same?

Fortunately, the same source who clued me in to Mike Geary (Tim Ferriss) also clued me in to that most highly revered and valuable guide to direct marketing:

Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters.

Being the bookish type that I am, I got the Boron Letters and I read them. At the time, I wasn’t sure what exactly was so great about them. But I did get one thing from Gary, and that’s when he talks about how to create an info product:

1. Pick a topic
2. Read 5 of the best books on the topic and take notes
3. Write up your own book/85-page report with the best information taken from those other books
4. Make millions!

And here we get to the crossroads.

Because in an unusual move for me… I actually put the Boron Letters down… stared at the void for a bit… and then took a hesitating, first step forward.

In other words, I stopped reading and actually did what Gary was telling me to do. I followed his steps 1-3.

The outcome was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. I put it up on Clickbank. And then, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of step 4 aaaand…

Total sales? 0. Total money made? $0. Total learning experience?

Well, with 10 years of hindsight and about 6 years of working as a direct response copywriter, let me highlight a few of the mistakes I made with this first project:

1. Name. I went with Salary Negotiation Blueprint just because every other info product at the time was “something something blueprint.”

But what exactly was the promise in my name? That with my blueprint, you could… negotiate? Not very tempting.

2. “Affiliates will love it!” No, they won’t.

You can see public lists of what Clickbank affiliates love to promote, and salary negotiation guides are not it. This was a lesson I could have learned from the Boron Letters — sell to a starving crowd.

3. My market. What profile of person is going to buy an ebook on salary negotiation?

I can’t say, because I never managed to sell a single copy. But my guess is, these aren’t exactly players with money. More likely to be schlubs on a budget — much like me at the time.

6. The back end. What can you sell to somebody who bought a guide on salary negotiation? A course on networking over the water cooler? Or a guide on Slack tips and tricks, maybe? It feels like grasping at straws.

Ultimately, salary negotiation is a one-time need. Which is bad — because the profits come on the back end.

7. The price. I can’t remember the price. I think I started out at $37, and when I failed to make any sales there, I moved it down to $17, where I continued to fail to make sales.

But whether at $37 or at $17, my price was completely disconnected to the value of my offer. There was zero thought or strategy to it.

So there you go. Maybe you can learn a bit about direct marketing from my mistakes above. Or maybe you knew all this simple stuff before.

Either way, you’re in a good place.

Because there are mountains of people out there who don’t know even these basics of direct marketing and copywriting.

​​And not all these people are as clueless and unsuccessful as I was 10 years ago. Some of them have working businesses — even thriving businesses — in spite of awful, self-defeating marketing.

But you’ve probably heard this claim before.

I know I heard it for a long time. And all I could say is, “Well, where are all these mountains of business owners who could benefit from my growing marketing knowledge? I’m ready to help them out!”

The perverse truth is, they seem to pop up the most when you no longer need them.

A part of it is simply your level of skills. But a part of it is the exposure you give yourself.

In other words, you can shortcut the process somewhat, by giving yourself more exposure. Which brings me to my ongoing offer:

You can get a free copy of my Niche Expert Cold Emails training.

This training covers two cold email strategies that got me in touch with a couple of business owners, one with a working business, and the other with a thriving business.

All in all, these cold emails led to $16k worth of copywriting work. Not Mike Geary money, but an important step on my journey away from office dronedom. And I’m sure I could have gotten more work from these emails, had I just used them more consistently.

The training is yours free right now, as part of a promotion I’m trying out. For the full details, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

The 400-Hour Workweek: Embrace the men in gray, multiply what you do, and join me for Influential Emails

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“Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. The men in gray knew this better than anyone. Nobody knew the value of an hour or a minute, or even of a single second, as well as they. They were experts on time just as leeches are experts on blood, and they acted accordingly.”

Michael Ende, the guy who wrote the 80s hit Neverending Story, also wrote a kids’ book called Momo. That’s where I got the quote above. It’s a story about a little girl, Momo, who stands up to the mysterious, cigar-smoking men in gray.

The men in gray show up in Momo’s town and open the Timesaving Bank. “Deposit your current time,” they promise, “and you’ll get it back with interest in the future.” All the townspeople jump at the offer and lose themselves in the process. Momo is the only one who resists.

I’ll get back to Momo in a second. But first let me tell you about something interesting I read today. It’s an article by Cal Newport, the guy who wrote Deep Work. Newport’s article is titled Revisiting “The 4-Hour Workweek.”

In the article, Newport says that we as a society missed the real message of Tim Ferriss’s 2007 book. Instead of learning to improve our productivity, reduce our working time, and live a happier life, we focused on Ferriss’s hacks. So we could get done more. So we could strive more. So we could be more busy.

But Newport is hopeful. Now, with work-from-home, and corona, and a different economic situation than in 2007, he thinks we have a real chance to rethink our relationship to work.

I have my doubts.

In Michael Ende’s book, the men in gray don’t just roll over and give up control of the Timesaving Bank. It takes Momo to take them on and defeat them.

Something similar will have to happen in our world. The men in gray will fight hard for the 40-, 60-, and 100-hour workweek. They won’t just sit on the edges of their seats, nervously sucking on their cigars, watching to see if we’d maybe like to run them out of town. It will take a fight, and a big one.

But it will be even harder in our world than it was in Momo’s.

Because here, the men in gray — whatever they represent — aren’t some external parasites. Rather, they are inside each of us, as much a part of being human as decency and common sense.

Maybe you find that thought repulsive. Or maybe you find me repulsive, and you wonder what I’m on about. So maybe this is where we part ways. In that case, I wish you good luck in your fight for the 4-hour workweek.

But if you’re still with me, let me tell you how you can get the equivalent of a 400-hour workweek, without working harder, longer, or even smarter.

The secret is to take advantage of the magical power of multiplying what you do, so that a bit of work can get you paid disproportionately.

Thanks to the Internet, it’s pretty easy to do these days.

It’s how I’ve been able to achieve the real promise of Tim Ferriss’s book. Escape the 9-5. Live anywhere. And join the New Rich.

I embraced the men in gray inside all of us, along with all the other weird, wonderful, and repulsive parts of being human. And for years, I’ve been using this to help clients with their “salesmanship multiplied.”

More recently, I’ve been helping myself also. Except I find that, rather than “salesmanship multiplied,” what works even better for me is “influence multiplied.”

If you’d like to find out exactly what I mean by this and how I do it… you can do so in my Influential Emails training. I will be putting it on soon.

But the deadline to sign up for it is even sooner. Only two days from now. Tik tok.

Time is life itself… and time to sign up is passing. If you know the value of an hour or a minute, and you want to multiply the value of yours, then this might be for you:

https://influentialemails.com

Great product names for dummies

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Today I spent some time looking up the worst book titles of all time, according to the Internet. Here are a few standouts:

– The Joy Of Uncircumcising
– You Are Worthless
– Reusing Old Graves
– The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa In Theory – And Practice
– How Green Were The Nazis?

Ridiculous, right? But it’s easy to shake your head and point and laugh. Can you do better though?

Can you come up with a great book title that gets people to latch on to a book… pick it up… thumb through it… buy it… and mention it to friends, before they’ve even read it?

It’s a relevant question if you’re a marketer or copywriter. Because book titles are the closest mainstream thing to naming direct response products and offers.

If you like, I’ll tell you what I think. I think there are lots of ways to come up with good titles or offer names. Let me illustrate just one:

– The 4-Hour Workweek
– The 16-Word Sales Letter
– The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches

How good are these titles actually? ​​Well, the first and third are backed up by results.

Neither Tim Ferriss nor Joe Karbo were famous. And yet they managed to get their books to millions of people, largely on the strength of the appeals in those 4- and 5-word titles.

The second title on that list is a book by Evaldo Albuquerque. It’s about a very niche topic — writing long-form sales letters. And even so, it’s got a respectable 260 reviews on Amazon.

A part of that is because Evaldo is as close to a star as you can get in this field. Plus he has the backing of many copywriting and marketing influencers.

But his title certainly helps. And in any case, it’s an illustration of the point I want to make:

* You can write a good name through paradox.

“Paradox” in this case is a shortcut for flat-out impossibility (“The 16-Word Sales Letter”)… contradiction (“The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches”)… or subverting strong expectations (“The 4-Hour Workweek”).

So how do you use this? All I can do is give you an example.

​​Say you’re selling a solution that helps people title their books. So you start with “book title” in the name of your offer. And then you ask yourself:

What’s the opposite of that? What are things that people believe to be “musts” around this topic? What are people expecting?

Well, one thing people might expect is that a good title has to be short. So you could use the name:

“The 99-Word Book Title”

People might also expect that you have to be creative to come up with a good name. So here’s option two:

“The Dullard’s Way To Great Book Titles”

Finally, people might think that coming up with a title name will take brainstorming or a lot of time. So you subvert that:

“The 4-Second Book Title”

But perhaps the results still suck. Fear not. There are lots of formulas you can use.

​​For example, if your topic is tricky, overwhelming, or requires study or intelligence… there’s an easy way to turn that into a title that works. Just put your topic in your name… and then attach “for dummies” at the end. And if you think you need it, add a disclaimer:

“Great Product Names For Dummies: Not just for dummies — but for everyone who is intrigued by paradox!”

Well. Maybe you’re still not sold. Maybe you want more ways to come up with great names for your product or offer. Then here’s an offer of my own:

I write an email newsletter. Product naming is something I might talk about more in the future… or I might not. But if I do, my newsletter is the first place where any such talk will go. If you don’t want to miss that, click here to subscribe.

The Son of 4-Hour Work Week

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“There is an inverse relationship between the value of knowledge and what people are willing to pay for it. The most important things in life you’ve probably heard a hundred times before, but you’re not paying attention. When you’re in the right place and you hear it, you have that ‘aha’ moment and everything changes.”
— Mark Ford

In 2007, Tim Ferris published The 4-Hour Work Week.

The book had great kairos. It hit the New York Times Best Seller list, stayed there for four years, and sold over 2 million copies.

And it wasn’t just 4HWW. Around the same time, lots of marketers were telling you how to make good money online by building lots of tiny niche websites… or publishing dozens of crappy ebooks… or in general making some hit-and-run cash grab.

I’m sure you can still find these kinds of offers floating around the Internet. But my feeling is — and I could be wrong — that the zeitgeist has changed.

For a while now, the pendulum has swung in the other direction.

That’s the direction of building a real business, a personal brand, of creating an asset. Like Rich Schefren said recently (I’m paraphrasing):

“Why would you want to have a job that you hate so much you only do it for four hours a week? Why not build a business that you love to work in every day?”

The thing is, markets get saturated. People get bored of hearing the same message, even if it is completely on-the-money.

And my suspicion is, right now, the pendulum of “Build a sustainable business” is at its peak.

I hallucinate the pendulum will come swinging down soon. People will again be ready to hear the message that you can make passive income, and that money-getting can be reduced to an occasional unpleasant chore, much like going to the dentist.

That’s just my prediction. I’m sharing with you for two reasons:

1. If you haven’t been able to buy into the “Build a business you love” mantra, and you feel guilty about it (as I do), then better times might be ahead.

2. Like I said, it’s been over 10 years since The 4-Hour Work Week was published. Since then, there hasn’t been any money-making book that’s hit the mainstream and had the same impact.

In other words, there might be an opportunity here. If you get going on writing something right now, you might have it ready just as the world starts to emerge from its current months-long delirium. ​​

​​You might even become the next Tim Ferriss. ​​Only trouble is, much like Tim Ferriss, you’ll have to work much more than four hours a week to get there.

In other news, I have an email newsletter where I write about marketing and copywriting. Topics like what you just read. So if you want a regular daily diet of such essays, here’s where to go.