It always amuses me when someone tells me how they “suddenly” found respect for me (and admittedly hated me beforehand) after I exited the whole paid podcast (called elBenbo’s Apprentice back in early July) thing.
Yes, it was one of the the most profitable launch I’ve done.
Yes, it could have grown quickly into thousands of members.
And, yes, it could have made a lot of the green stuff for my unrighteous self, Producer Jonathan, and Misty the podcast babe we brought in as a partner on it. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it was crazy profitable. And, that was without even having the PayPal option open (we’d have probably added another 300-400 or so members easy going by how many asked about it).
But, I killed it off literally the day after the launch.
And, I even purposely didn’t mail as much on the last day.
Why?
Because it turned into a monster I despised:
People sending me support tickets (instead of using the support email).
People hunting Misty down on Facebook asking her tech questions.
People (rightfully, this was 100% my bad) pestering me about why they couldn’t download a lot of the content (our web host decided to take a dump on us that weekend, elBenbo’s Law: Whatever nightmares can happen during a launch WILL happen…) This was, incidentally, when I realized I have the single best audience I could ever ask for. Their level of patience about this was astonishing.
Anyway, I called Jonathan the next day saying it had to die.
His wife, Cupcake, couldn’t believe it.
Why would I kill off such a profit machine?
Because it’s not about the smackola for me.
It’s about peace of mind first.
And freedom (I’d have been trapped by that membership site — it was intolerable at 900+ members, it would have gotten exponentially worse at 5k, 10k, members and beyond).
And, yes, fun.
This is a philosophy I apply to every facet of my life — whether it be a biz deal, a woman, a friendship, a family member, or anything else — if something or someone doesn’t jibe with my mission, I hit the eject button and jettison them out of my life. It’s not done out of malice or anything — it’s done out of necessity so I can ruthlessly go after my goals and mission in life without distractions.
You only get one life.
Why waste even a precious second of it on toxic people and things?
Anyway, I don’t know if this adds to your life or not.
But, I do suggest adopting the same mindset if you haven’t.
Okay, onwards to me trying to sell you something:
This “principle-based” way of living life is something I apply to my marketing. And, in the January “Email Players” issue I get deep into the subject and how to apply it to your business, copywriting, marketing, emails, and any other bid’niz endeavors.
Here’s the link to subscribe in time:
Ben Settle
