Ben Settle

The question of the hour:

“What is your 3-5 step process for reaching inbox zero? Obviously I have my way I would do it… but I’m curious how you would do it in a series of steps, assuming I have a shit ton in my inbox now and want to get to that inbox zero approach”

You know, Stefania once had 30,000 (something like that) emails in her inbox.

And she asked me a similar question.

My answer to her is the same I’d give most (see caveat below) across the board:

1. Click “Select all”

2. Click “delete”

3. Only exception is something you have to address, etc

4. After that begin each day with inbox zero

5. In most cases, nearly every case I’ve ever seen at least, if you’re on a thread with multiple people, back and forthing, you can safely ignore it unless or until your name is specifically mentioned or you see it more than 3 times, then you might want to pay attention

6. This is similar to how time savvy people treated the old corporate memos

7. And it works

8. The above all applies to open tabs, too

9. There is a lot of freedom in mass email inbox genocide

10. And once you do it, I suspect you’ll never go back..

Anyway, do the above at your own risk, of course.

I mentioned a “caveat” to all this.

And that caveat is to do the above at your own risk.

I have to say that because there are more and more people who are so hopelessly flakey, and so despicably undisciplined… that they probably should not take the above advice, as they probably really will just end up ignoring or deleting otherwise urgent, important, and maybe even life-saving info.

Not sure where else I can take this topic.

So I’ll just end with this:

If you haven’t registered for my free mobile app, with 40 some hours of content inside, go here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

A question comes in via Linkedin:

“I’m a student currently learning email copywriting and I really admire your work in this field. If you had to give one piece of advice to a beginner who wants to become great at email copywriting, what would it be? I really appreciate your guidance.”

I doubt anyone will want to do the following.

They might get excited by it, and maybe even want to share it.

But actually do it?

Doubtful.

But here’s what I would do if starting over, knowing nothing about email copywriting:

1. Ignore goo-roos reciting corporate CEO talking points about so-called AI –

I do not recommend wasting time getting bogged down in pointless arguments with their useful idiot followers/customers parroting what they’re told to say, either. Some of these guys get very precious about their so-called AI. And it’s like wrestling a pig: you both get dirty, but the pig likes it.

I suggest spending that time on completing the rest of the tasks on the list below, instead.

2. Write at LEAST 10 (yes, 10) emails per day for 30-days –

If nothing else, this’ll get you writing, and get your iterations in.

And no, it doesn’t matter if you have a list or not.

In fact, what I’d do is just write them as if you do have a list and post them on social media.

But, instead of the call to action to buy something, make it a call to action to join your email list. You are looking to see what people are responding to, what they’re not responding to, and honing your craft simultaneously.

3. Watch the “Johnny Carson: King of Late Night” once per day for 30-days –

Johnny was a true master at connecting with audiences.

The first ten minutes alone is probably the only “email” lesson you’ll need. But watch the whole thing, yes every day, for those 30 days while thinking about your life and I DEFY you not to become a far better email copywriter.

4. Read at least one direct mail magalog per day for 30-days –

Use Google to find them.

But find some old school (direct mail) magalogs that were long-running controls and specifically look at the SIDE BARS. Those sidebars are very often perfect email copywriting “templates” to model (not swipe or copy).

5. Listen to one high rated talk radio show per day for 30-days –

You can find these on YouTube, Rumble, etc.

Look for Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, specifically. Rush for how he would rally his base to take action and apply his infotainment super powers, and Savage for story-telling skill, all of which the email copywriter can model, replicate, learn from.

6. Talk to someone in your market each day for 30-days –

Not online, but in person, ideally.

The more you actually talk to your market (by “talk” I mean mostly LISTEN), the better you can sell to them. I guarantee you none of the rubbery little anons chanting “AI is here to stay!” in unison are doing it. And you’ll blow right past them as a result.

7. Watch one Seinfeld episode per day for 30-days –

Many years ago, I invented the term “Seinfeld emails” which has been since used (and re-taught) by a lot of online marketers, I have noticed. And for good reason: Seinfeld was the biggest show of its day, with the biggest influence of its day, with the biggest audience of its day.

You can learn much about persuasive communication by watching it.

8. Watch at least one standup comedy from a master each day for 30-days –

Related to watching Seinfeld, find some comedians you enjoy, the more politically incorrect (i.e., on verge of being cancelled, not the ones who just parrot virtue signaling mainstream narrative approved lines), the better. Pay close attention to how they get you engaged and maybe even enraged.

9. Write a PERSONAL email to someone you love persuading them to do something you want each day for 30-days –

Ooh.

Next time a goo-roo tells you about how great their so-called AI copy is, how you’ll be left behind, and other corporate CEO drivel they’re parroting… ask them if they’d write a heartfelt, emotional, love letter to their wife or a letter about the death of a loved one to their mother or spouse with fapGPT.

Then pay attention to what they say, it will speak volumes.

* Read your SPAM each day for 30-days –

Why?

So you can see a lot of what not to do.

Or, if someone you want to hear from is wriggling around in there, your actions after that will be telling.

There you have it.

It’s not supposed to be “easy.” If it was , everyone would be doing it.

In fact, here’s one last, 11th thing to do, and it’s free:

Go to my mobile app, and listen to an hour of it each day, for 30-days.

Put me on double speed and you’ll get through the 40 hours of content in there waiting patiently for you, that can also do much for your righteous box office gross when writing email copy.

Here’s where to access it:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

An Email Players subscriber asks:

“I was thinking about exporting my YouTube videos audio to post as podcasts. Was curious though, why’d you stop your podcast? Were the leads not picking up? I don’t wanna waste my time but I like the evergreen model of podcasts and I’m already recording the weekly videos.”

The quickie answer to that is:

After 137 episodes of my first podcast, and another 100 more episodes of the second one… it became a slog after a while. In the first podcast’s case it was still a new’ish media. Everyone and their mother did not have a podcast, unlike today.

And so I did it for the Novelty factor alone.

In the second podcast’s case, I realized I had more to say, but ultimately I needed to be doing regular content to appease iTunes, and it just became a slog at a certain point. I lost interest in doing it and it became a chore, and I didn’t want to just go through the motions for the sake of it.

Plus, I prefer writing.

I still do audio (very rarely video) content.

And when I do, I put that content in my free mobile app.

But it’s random, not plotted out, and, thus, not a slog.

I learned many, many years ago not to chase what’s trendy, not to chase algorithms, and not to waste time trying to chase medias I don’t enjoy. When it becomes a slog, your audience eventually picks up on it, and it becomes a net negative.

I’m a plain text email kinda guy, and so my “podcast” is my daily emails.

As for the audio/video content I do have?

It’s all part of the 40+ hours of free content in my mobile app here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

Following is my latest article for the Oregon Eagle.

The Eagle is a local newspaper I have ownership in and contribute business/marketing content to.

All the advice I give below to the state of Oregon’s political leaders, business leaders, church leaders, civil leaders, city leaders, and other leadership the paper is primarily published for/sent to/read by, applies to just about any business.

Enjoy…

Back in January there was a “Tax Strike Rally” in Salem. And a day before the event, Twitter account “HALEY GROUND ZERO” posted:

“Some candidates will not be attending due to leftist intimidation tactics. They were warned they would be doxxed, and because their campaigns and families matter, they made the decision to step back. That choice is respected.”

“Respected” isn’t exactly the word I’d use.

If you’re a “pro-freedom” candidate running for public office in Oregon, and you’re not being harassed, doxxed, slandered, and threatened by rubbery Antifa youths out past their bedtimes then you’re not doing your job. Psychotic, gender-confused leftists coming at your family shouldn’t be cowered to… they should be target practice.

Pro-freedom conservative candidates need to embrace conflict, not avoid it.

Conflict always equals engagement in marketing. And engagement is the coin of the realm when it comes to all influence and persuasion – including influencing and persuading voting patterns.

Even if these candidates don’t have the stomach to fight for your freedom unless it’s safe and comfortable, they should do it for the free publicity, and to give like-minded voters something to rail against.

Not to mention these “intimidating” leftists are daily, breathing excuses to talk to would-be voters in email, on social media, and in op-eds in pro freedom newspapers (like the Oregon Eagle…) to stay in the news cycle and be the water cooler conversation topic at work.

Maybe 2026 will be the year conservative candidates finally take the tampon out and embrace the conflict, instead of avoiding it.

But until then the “conservative” label is phony.

After all, they haven’t even been able to “conserve” the ladies restroom from sexual deviants, or the ballot box from mail-in voting fraud, or the children’s playground from homeless drug addicts dropping dirty hepatitis and HIV covered needles in the last 40-years, with their strongly worded press releases and “I’m above toxic rhetoric!” social media virtue signaling.

If anything, we could use MORE toxic rhetoric from conservative candidates, not less.

Since I don’t like ending articles on a sour note, following are a couple bits of advice for the freedom-loving man or woman that have given me much peace of mind no matter what political party’s in power. They’re not necessarily “easy” to do. But the sooner you do them, the better off you and your family will be.

These two bits of advice are:

One, live in a corner of the state where you’re more likely to see a Bigfoot than a drag queen. And two, make enough money to be able to avoid the consequences of our politicians’ voting patterns.

Especially the conservative politicians selling you out by not fighting.

And so it is.

If you’re interested in learning specific ideas and ways for using this “Conflict = Engagement” approach to your own marketing, see the paid Email Players newsletter and also my free mobile app.

More on both here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

An Email Players subscriber (don’t know he wants me naming him) asks:

“In the November’s Email Players issue you mentioned that a good way to do market research is to talk to the market. When talking to them, are you looking for anything more than the 50 questions in the Copy Slacker book? One more if you don’t mind: how can you tell if they’re lying or not?”

My answer:

When talking to them make it conversational, just asking about how they are, whats going on, like you would anyone.

Ask questions when/if it makes sense.

It is not supposed to be an interview, and there are no canned questions. It is supposed to be a conversation. Ideally get them telling you stories. “Really? Tell me what happened…” “That’s interesting, tell me more” “I didn’t know that, tell me more” “It’s all good, what happened next…”

A lot of answers will come out naturally when lost in their own stories.

Just be a regular guy having a regular conversation let it go where it goes.

You’re just listening, paying attention, being present, and you never know what will happen. Lying only happens if they think you want to hear something specific. That’s why it’s not an interview or series of canned questions. You don’t want to overthink this stuff, just have genuine curiosity and let them talk.

In short:

Be interested.

Thus the 2 greatest market research “hacks” ever invented:

Your ears and your mouth,.

More ears, than mouth, of course.

On a related note:

There’s no shortage of people who ask me questions, and I always appreciate it.

But, while I do appreciate them, what I can’t do is answer them all. I reserve answers primarily for my paying Email Players subscribers, which the above is an example of how I help them. That access is, in my biased opinion and many who take advantage of it, worth many times the subscription price.

Sometimes I also answer them in these daily emails, too.

But even then, it’s as a demonstration like this email is.

You can learn more about it here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

Since I spent so much time ripping on the IM space yesterday..

Here’s a related & timely question I got from an Email Players subscriber:

(not sure he wants me to name him or not)

“Do you think online marketing space is not worth pursuing anymore and should focus on something else online/offline?”

My answer:

Yes it is, but you just have to curate harder than ever before, and focus more on smaller, but higher quality, versus bigger, but lower quality. Some of this may all change again in the coming years though.

But the current flakey business environment is simply not sustainable.

Too many fat and happy years with easy access to credit have made people complacent.

The mindless hook-line-and-sinker buying into generative so-called AI is proof of this.

In my opinion, we’re in the equivalent of 1998 or 1999 or very early 2000 right now. The same sort of thing happened then, with a collapse, with the online marketing space shrinking as a result, goo-roos who capitalized on it who thought they were geniuses suddenly going back to living at home and parking cars for a living, etc.

Then it all came roaring back a few years later.

It’s not the exact same this time, but it’s eerily similar.

The whole “History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes” is often true.

I came into the industry a couple years after the 2000 internet bubble chaos, and about 5 months after 9/11, and it was an advantage in two ways:

(1) I was broke and there wasn’t a glut of goo-roos to have to discern who’s full of it or not, most were solid resources

(2) I got to ride the bounce back up, since it’d already hit bottom

And I can tell you this:

The guys who survived, thrived, are still around today didn’t do it by bouncing from one trend to the next. They did the basics: build list, mail it offers they want to buy, give good Service & Experiences, leverage relationships, strategic JVs, etc etc etc.

Nothing “new” about any of it.

People chasing new and trendy are fooked and don’t even realize it.

Will not explain.

For more on my approaches to marketing, copywriting, business see the paid Email Players newsletter.

You can learn more about it here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

Came a frosty cold email from someone I don’t ever recall meeting:

Hey Ben,

It’s been many many years since we spoke last, but I recently joined Troy and John’s trading system and saw your name come up!

Funnily enough, I’m in a mastermind group with people like [Proverbial GURU NAME DROP – names left out deliberately, to protect the guilty-by-association], and your name often comes up when we talk about copywriting.

Anyway, I’m not sure if you promote any other investment systems, and I totally understand if you don’t, but I teach something that is genuinely in the category of ‘extraordinary’ like the Low Stress system, but in the crypto space.

100% of students get results, and Ive collected the most jaw-dropping compilation of video testimonials as proof.

If you’re curious, please let me know and I’ll happily share the details. If not, I hope we can keep in touch anyway, I love your copy style, and much respect for what you do and how you do it!

When I told him crypto does not really excite me, you’d think that’d be the end of it.

But alas… no… we get phase 2 of the goo-roo playbook:

“Funnily enough, I felt exactly the same way as you. Then during the pandemic I had some time and I did a deep dive. If you’re curious, I’ve shared a login to my training if you want to try it or give it to a family member to try out. Once it’s setup it runs automatically, and I’ve had rave reviews ;-)”

Followed by an email with login details, etc, I summarily deleted on sight.

I couldn’t care less about his idiotic crypto offer or anything he sells.

And when I shared this exchange with my business partner Troy Broussard (since the guy mentioned him), he was even more cynical than me about this goo-roo approach:

“I hate IMers… I really do…It’s why I really want to just leave this incestual IM shit in the dust…”

Stefania, who loathes IMers even more than us, even looked up the crypto wanker’s site. And to absolutely nobody’s surprise, she saw phase 3 of the newly updated and “revised” goo-roo playbook:

Fake reviews with AI headshots, of course.

You can’t make this sort or thing up, only see it in real life, amongst name-dropping goo-roos.

I have less than zero respect for probably 90% of the online marketing space at this point.

And so I post this for two reasons and two reasons only:

1. So these dumb asses hopefully stop coming at me with their nonsensical, 2015-level Facebook life coach approach to selling

2. To explain my contempt for pretty much any goo-roo in the online marketing space

And I can assure you, it ain’t just me.

Almost everyone I do business with mocks the rank-and-file goo-roos like the wanker above, who do nothing but haunt masterminds and seminars and drop names and take selfies, thinking their stupid offers are God’s gift to mankind, when we all know they and their offers and promises are complete and utter shyte.

They’re breathing parodies of themselves and don’t even realize it.

More:

This is one of many reasons why the list of would-be affiliates for Low Stress Trading we reject – sometimes on sight – is extremely long compared to the much shorter list of those we do allow to sell it. Including “name” marketers (like the one I talked about in this month’s April Email Players issue) we are rejecting, with their idiotic goo-roo tactics.

Last month I wrote how I wouldn’t give a bucket of piss for many of their futures.

And that wasn’t just rhetoric.

Anyway, on to the important stuff:

The paid Email Players newsletter.

You can learn more about it here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

Not long ago, I saw a long, detailed tweet from a guy named Aakash Gupta that was almost like getting the play-by-play of a fiery, horrifying car wreck of a once-great business empire:

Red Robin restaurants.

And the tweet detailed Red Robin’s fall into irrelevance by succumbing to what I call “psychological marketing” (letting statistics, metrics, and spreadsheets reign supreme) over what I describe as “Sociological marketing” (letting Service, Experience, and genuine love of the customer/fanbase/the game reign supreme).

Here are a few of the gruesome highlights:

* They hit their peak in 2017 doing almost $1.5 billion in sales with nearly 600 locations, by creating a World families loved entering and hated to leave (i.e., they did tremendous World-Building)

* Then the bean counters started seizing power over decisions

* To “save money” due to rising minimum wages they canned all the bussers

* The savings looked great ‘on paper’ and management started doubling down

* BUT… the customer Experience got worse and worse as tables stopped being cleared, wait times got longer, and people stopped coming in as a result

* Including not coming during the peak hours, when they made most of their revenue

* Customers had to wait near an hour between their orders being taken and their food finally showing up on no doubt filthy & “crusty” tables

* In the spirit of even more spreadsheet tyranny… they started raising prices to try to make up for the loss of revenue created by sacrificing Service & Experience on the alter of metrics & numbers

* Now they not only had intolerably long wait times and filthy tables not fit for rats to eat off… but more expensive food

* They went through 5 CEOs in 10 years trying to fix it all, with new menus, loyalty programs, etc… but nothing about fixing the Service & Experience, just more appealing to numbers, metrics, and the idiocy of bean counters

* The stock went from a fat $92 to a straggly $3.61.

Yeesh.

And it’s all just one of many reasons why online marketers will make more of the green stuff by studying the book “The Tyranny of Metrics” than they will doomscrolling social media posts written by broke goo-roo grifters ratchet-jawing about so-called AI and how it will usher in a new age of utopian fantasy like Elon Marx has been stimming about on Twitter recently..

Anyway, hopefully the point is crystal clear:

Sacrificing effectiveness for efficiency is a loser’s game.

And if you look around that’s what you see most online businesses doing.

This is why I write so much about Sociological marketing vs psychological marketing.

The vast majority of direct marketing is psychological marketing.

i.e., an endless series of tips, tricks, A/B split tests, algorithm chasing, goo-roos playing the same tired “scratch my back selling my shyte offer and I’ll scratch yours by selling your shyte offer” – while they see a little success at it teaching it and preaching it as business “gospel”… with nary a mention of customer Service & Experience, or creating a World they want to enter and don’t want to leave.

I’m convinced 99% of direct marketers simply cannot comprehend this way of thinking.

Many of them are great salesman, but utterly suck at the Service side.

So they get people in, only to lose them, and have to constantly replace them.

And as cold advertising gets more and more gate-kept and less and less effective and affordable, they have no clue what to do with themselves except grift over to whatever is trendy like so-called AI, hoping enough newbie are naive enough to believe them, buy from them, not turn on them.

Then there are people who do what I have long called Sociological marketing:

Focusing on and starting with the customer, not the metric.

If all this seems esoteric it’s because it’s not taught.

I had to literally invent these labels “Sociological marketing” vs “psychological marketing” in my elBenbo Press book 6 years ago, to even start teaching it at all, as nobody was thinking that way.

I talk about these concepts sometimes in my free mobile app here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

Last month I saw a Tweet that showed a brief clip of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”.

Easily one of my favorite horror movies.

And when the most recent version of the story (Robert Eggers’ so-called “Nosferatu”) came out, I watched it with Stefania, hoping it’d be just as good, but both sat there the whole time thinking:

“holy crap this sucks”

We put on Bram Stoker’s Dracula afterwars to wash Eggers’ boring movie out of our minds.

“Fast forward” a few months later to the Tweet above.

A lot of the comments were asking “Grok what is this movie?” when they saw the Bram Stoker’s Dracula clip, which many thought was incredible. It was legitimately “new” to them, even though it came out in 1992. And it dawned on me why so many of these guys slobbered all over Eggers’ boring Nosferatu movie:

They never even saw Coppola’s movie, or knew it existed.

When they saw the clips, some of them behaved like Coppola’s “old” movie invented fire.

This same phenomenon happens in the marketing world, too.

Take what this Email Players subscriber recently sent me:

“you’ve put me onto basically everybody I learn from today. I used to be one of the new kids who thought I knew things. Things sure have changed over the last couple of years. Every time you mention someone, I write down the name and get as much as a can from that person. Thank you for everything!”

I can’t even remember all the names I’ve dropped over the years.

So instead of trying to compile a list of them, I suggest seeing my free mobile app. There’s something like 40 hours of content in there in all kinds of formats, going back years, in some cases, as well as stuff I’ve done in the past few months.

All yours to access, totally free, even though I could charge for a lot of it.

And specifically, there is a section in there called:

“Acoustic Settle”

I’ve probably dropped 100s of such names/resources/influences throughout.

And the info inside is like a sharp stake you can drive right through the hearts of the “Nosfergoo-roos” trying to sell you their silly tools, unproven ideas, and overpriced “courses” that are just recycling what they heard someone else teach, with no real world experience of their own to talk about.

To access this free info whip out your mobile device or iPad and go here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle