Behold:
Last year, when my I was instructing my ex-copywriting apprentice in the arts and craft of Ben Settle email writing, I did something the mush cookies would no doubt say was borderline “abusive” to her.
What happened was this:
She got her first client and sent me her first batch of emails.
I grunted a few times (as her email interrupted my all-important intellectual pursuits at the moment) and read through them.
I was horrified.
They were unfit for public reading.
I said:
“don’t ever show me crap like this again.”
Yes, elBenbo bared his fangs this time.
(I think there was even a full moon that night…)
Anyway, I then spent a couple hours writing her a long, detailed, and informational-dense email telling her not only what to do to correct her sins, but examples of how I think, plot, and strategize when I write my own emails. This is something I’ve never really done before. In fact, the only time I’ve ever done something like it was to some people I was hanging out with at our last Oceans 4 mastermind, at the bar, with a couple of the attendees.
(I was much nicer to them, though.)
And guess what?
The May “Email Players” issue contains this lesson.
I only did some *mild* editing.
(For context).
And if you’re a white knight mush cookie thinking I’m too mean or whatever, worry not:
Her self esteem wasn’t damaged.
In fact, she was grateful for it.
She emerged a MUCH better copywriter from it.
And, she has a thriving client base of happy-as-clams customers as a result. (And just to show I’m not pure evil to her… once in a blue moon — to keep her spirits up — I even give her an *occasional* compliment to boot…)
Anyway, at the risk of sounding goo-roo cliche’:
This is true “insider” info.
Stuff I only would tell someone one-on-one.
And this next issue is probably the only time you’ll see it.
Subscribe here before it goes to print and it’s too late:
Ben Settle
