Wu Tang Clan

🧿

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Yesterday I was sitting at a restaurant on the side of the Barcelona cathedral, trying to learn to enjoy a vermouth, a popular drink here.

In front of me, a steady procession of tourists walked alongside the cathedral, some 40 yards away.

I was staring at them idly between the bittersweet sips of vermouth, when I saw him:

A pasty white man, somewhere between ages 30 and 50, with red hair, wearing Teva sandals, cargo shorts, and… a Wu-Tang t-shirt.

The fact is, the Wu-Tang symbol was what drew my eye first, even though I was sitting far away, and though the man was walking in a crowd.

​​The symbol made me instantly predisposed to like the guy and feel an affinity towards him. All the other unpromising details I noticed only later.

Just in case you don’t know the Wu-Tang Clan:

They are a hip hop group from the 90s that borrowed ideas and imagery from old kung fu movies. Their symbol is a large irregular W, split in two, with the words Wu-Tang in the middle of it.

Even if you’ve never seen the Wu-Tang symbol until now, now that I’ve told you about it, you’re likely to see it, on t-shirts and sweatshirts, as graffiti, or even as a tattoo.

Last week, I sent out an email about How To Speak by Patrick Winston. Winston was an MIT who for 40 years gave a talk on the essence of good communication, taken from his own methodical study of what works.

At one point, Winston presents the Winston star, a rather satanic symbol that encapsulates five characteristics of the most successful communication. All the five characteristics start with an “s”. And one of them, as you can probably guess, you clever sausage, is “symbol.”

And if Winston and his MIT credentials aren’t enough to convince you of the value and influential ability of symbols, then just think of every world religion, every influential brand, or hell, think of my Wu-Tang guy at the Barcelona cathedral.

And then, start thinking about how you could integrate a symbol into what you do.

I can’t give you much more advice than that. I’m not sure what makes for an effective symbol vs. an ineffective one, except the obvious things which apply to all good communication:

Your symbol should be simple. It should be distinct. ​​It should be recognizable, even from a distance of 40 yards away.

As an example, I picked a nazar, a design for an amulet to ward off the evil eye, for the symbol in my subject line today.

Oh and one more thing:

Your symbol should be repeated, over and over, everywhere, until it gets conditioned into people’s heads as the image that somehow represents your thing.

So for example, if I decided to use the nazar symbol above to represent my email audit offer (“ward off the evil lurking around your lukewarm daily emails and underperforming autoresponders…”), then I should also put the nazar on the consulting form I use to get new people to sign up.

Which is just what I’ve done.

​​In case you want to see it, or in case you have an email list and want my help warding off evil from it, you can do so here:

https://bejakovic.com/consulting

Free business idea: 9 Chambers of Pain

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Here’s a free business idea for you to run with, if you so choose:

Just a little over a week ago, a new study was published by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh.

They studied over 21,000 patients who came for treatment at pain management clinics around Pittsburgh.

The scientists measured these poor people… probed them… interrogated them… and then fed all this data into a large tube-based computer.

And then they waited.

36 days later, the computer printed out a result:

There are exactly 9 types of chronic pain.

Such as group F (lower back pain radiating below the knee)… and group D (upper and lower back pain).

Each group varied in the location of pain… the severity of pain… as well as in the severity of other problems that went with the pain, like depression and anxiety.

So here’s my business idea for you:

You create a quiz. “Which unique type explains your chronic pain?”

People go through the quiz. You categorize them into one of 9 groups, based on their physical and emotional symptoms. For extra points, you can give it a Wu Tang flavor, and call it the 9 Chambers of Pain.

And then what?

Then you sell them something that helps them. It can be your own offer or an affiliate offer. For example:

Any kind of anti-inflammation supplement…

Or a course on meditation techniques…

Or a visit to a chiropractic clinic or some kind of other physical restructuring.

And here’s the incredible thing:

You can sell the same thing to all 9 groups. Of course, you say something like,

“Based on your unique scientifically-proven pain type… we recommend a free + shipping bottle of our doctor-formulated turmeric dust.”

As I’ve written before, this quiz => same offer funnel works like magic.

Because people like to feel unique… because they want a new understanding of their chronic problem… and because they aren’t very skeptical or critical when they get this new understanding.

Which is why RealDose Nutrition, the first big-name direct response company I ever worked with, built an 8-figure business in record time on the back of exactly the model I’ve just described to you.

And now, if you like, you can start doing the same. You already have the entire marketing concept. All you need is to decide which helpful product you want to sell… and to be quick, so other people don’t swipe this idea from right in front of your nose.

To end:

If you’d like more Wu Tang-flavored business idea, you best protect ya neck and sign up to my email newsletter here.

How to turn your business into a cult or a clan

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I’m currently passing through Budapest, Hungary.

Budapest used to be my home base, and so, for nostalgia’s sake, I sat down in my former number-one cafe.

It’s a bright, wood-paneled place right in the center of the city. And it’s called Madal, after an Indian spiritual teacher who for some reason was very popular in Hungary.

As you might suspect, the whole place has a kind of cultish feel. There’s light, chanting music playing in the background. A selection of books is there for customers to read, with titles such as “My life’s soul journey.” And a large picture of Madal himself is smiling beatifically at me from the opposite wall.

And yet, in spite of all this mind massage, the cafe is extremely popular. I suspect, more so than if they simply had the same offer (good coffee, decent croissants) and a more neutral decor.

And this reminded me of another, less beatific and peaceful business.

I’m talking about the Wu Tang Clan, a bunch of rappers from Staten Island who adopted slang and imagery from old kung fu movies.

Yes, they had good beats and good rhymes.

And yet, I doubt they would have been such a worldwide sensation over the past 25 years‚ had it not been for the mystique of the Wu and the Shaolin behind the music.

That’s something to keep in mind if you have a fairly vanilla business.

Could you take your ordinary product and make it into a cult — or a clan — simply by weaving in elements of some little-known, mystical, or ancient ideology?

It’s something I keep thinking about for my own projects. And that’s why I’m always paying attention to news items involving archeologists, conspiracy theorists, and new age kooks.

Anyways, if you need some mystical copy written for your business, write me and get in touch. I’m traveling over the next few days (in fact, next few weeks), but we can still find a time to talk.