Recently I got the email below from a customer I assume does not want me naming him.
(Unless given permission I just default to keeping people anon)
The context:
He read an email from some goo-roo virtue signaling to his list about how he’s different (the goo-roo version of a pick-me) from me, because he doesn’t use shaming and threats to keep people subscribed to his product the way I supposedly do, etc. But the part that stood out most was when the goo-roo quoted a rhetorical device I’ve used for my “No Coming Back” policy for Email Players.
The offending line:
“Plus, practically speaking, if the trash lets itself out why take it back in?”
Hence my customer’s question:
…it made me stop and think. Are you (truthfully) trying to shame people when you suggest that there is basically something wrong with them if they don’t act in the way you’d personally want them to?
(Eg. They’re ‘trash’ if they cancel, they’re X type of person, they’re quitters, they lack character, they have X deficiency, etc etc). Just be clear, I’m not saying you ARE trying to do this for your own benefit or manipulate people out of self-interest like the copywriter below is basically saying, but I know you’ve actually mentioned this shaming tactic several times before (like in the podcast intro) and never really thought of the possibility that you yourself might actually be doing it when it comes to your ban-for-cancellation policy. So don’t take my question the wrong way.
Just wondering if it’s really just (at least partly) a persuasive tactic/strategy to maximise your retention by tapping into shame (or fear via the threat of a lifetime ban). Looking at it from a marketing POV. As, in reality, people (pretty much everyone who has ever signed up to anything) cancel continuity products/services/etc all the time (even the ‘higher quality’, ‘better’ people who supposedly aren’t supposed to cancel). And it does deter people from canceling. But I see no problem with you running your own ship however you want.
Everyone’s entitled to that freedom, regardless.
First things last:
The garbage line is an analogy about a relationship that ends.
i.e., the trope of taking a girlfriend who leaves you back is like taking the trash back in.
That does not mean she is literally trash.
In some cases the man may even still love her but it’s for both their best interests to let it go. It would apply to the woman too, if she brought the man back, and it would be the exact same thing. And to virtue signal over it is the kind of silly self projection I have come to expect from goo-roos far and wide up in this business.
As for me supposedly shaming people or whatever:
There is no reason to shame someone I’m not allowing back.
I wouldn’t even bother. If anything, I am far more likely to wish people the best. For example, just a couple weeks ago I had a mini skirmish with a new Email Players subscriber by email. It was one of those cases where I could tell he was going to be a gigantic pain in the ass customer to deal with and told him as such, and he could tell he did not like my attitude about that … and he left, and I still told him I hope he makes lots of money and is successful, it’s just not going to be with me, obviously.
Sometimes people don’t belong in my World and vice versa.
And for either of us to accept each other back is taking the trash back in.
In fact, some of my former customers are friends.
And I am pretty sure they will tell you I don’t think they are trash..
More:
The whole “I’m not Ben Settle! I’m a nice guy! See? Look! See? Look at me! I’m someone who can be trusted unlike Ben Settle!” thing some of these guys do is admittedly as amusing when I see it as when I see blatant lies being told and spread about my offers from trolls. Especially since at the end of the day, they only make me sales in the long run, in ways I showed and proved in the March Email Players issue (about the pathology of trolls, reply guys, etc to better monetize them). So the way I see it, if it works for these guys who can’t get attention or engagement without invoking my name or taking shots at one of my businesses then all the power to them.
It all just becomes fodder for me eventually anyway – just like with this email you’re reading.
I am delighted if they want to help me, help them, help my business grow.
As for my policy being a tactic to deter people from leaving:
If that is true then I’m doing a piss poor job of it.
Especially since I constantly kick people out for the smallest of offenses.
For instance:
If someone shows me a bunch of attitude or disrespect, they got to go back. If it is clear they don’t have an actual business (a qualification to subscribe clearly listed right under the headline on the sales page — it ain’t a biz opp) I give them the boot, too. If I find getting packages into their country or dealing with their customs is too big a PITA I ban the entire country. My list of banned countries is growing bigger each month now, and that ain’t no exaggeration. I have also kicked people out who I found out refunded offers I sold as an affiliate. Brian Kurtz, for example, could hardly believe I canceled a couple people from Email Players who refunded his honestly advertised and over-delivered offer I sold as an affiliate once. I have zero tolerance for such people.
And that ain’t all:
Since buying ownership in other businesses (BerserkerMail/Learnistic/SocialLair, Low Stress Trading, the Oregon Eagle newspaper), etc… I have been curating the low class customers out even harder, banning people more aggressively, and blocking anyone who causes me even a smidgen of drama. If I find myself thinking about any customer creating headaches for me (due to their behavior – not due to no fault of their own, of course) more than two days in a row… they got to go back, and don’t think they’re the first.
Why would I do that?
Doesn’t that mean less revenue?
In the short term, definitely.
Email Players is my Mickey Mouse, so to speak (as I taught last year in the issue about World-Building) and so that is my first priority. But I also have other companies to tend to now. And that means more and more I only care about serving the hardcore boys & ghouls who use the info inside Email Players and profit from it… and could not care less about the lukewarm boys & ghouls. Frankly, I don’t even bother chasing people whose credit cards expire. People get an automated email every day their card is declined spelling out — in plain English, that even a 3rd grader can understand — what to do, how to avoid interruption, what will happen if they don’t… and they got til the first of the month to get their shyt together and figure it out.
Otherwise?
They get cleaned off the list, never to be allowed back, without a word from me.
Some will them will contact me right after – “But Ben, I didn’t realize…I’m sorry!”
Too bad, you had the info, you were briefed, and now you gotta go back.
Again, if that is trying to deter people from leaving then I’m failing miserably at it.
Just going by the number of people who have tried sneaking back in, asked to come back in, been waiting for a chance to come back in… I have zero doubt at all that if I sent all the exiled & banished an email saying they could come back to Email Players and lifted all the blocks… I’d add at least 100 paying subscribers, and probably a lot more than that. But I don’t want those people back. Nor should they want to come back – as the newsletter obviously did not benefit them and/or they were not intelligent enough to use the info and/or they did not value the info enough to use it.
There is no reason for either of us to waste any time on each other.
i.e., no reason for either to let the trash back in once it’s let itself out.
All right, so bottom line:
These pick-me goo-roos upset by my policy are doing what they always do.
And that is:
They are projecting.
Long ago I realized they do the pick-me “I’m not Ben Settle!” shtick because THEY think in terms of always gaming things, running tactics, tricking people, manipulating customers, trapping people inside, afraid to see people go, fear losing money, etc… and so they project it onto me while hiding behind fake altruism and simpish virtue signaling about how they aren’t me, don’t have my mean policy, or whatever it is they say. They simply cannot fathom someone running a business in a manner where I am perfectly happy making less sales if need be, turning people away until they are ready to buy, using brutal — arguably offensive, although not my intention — honesty at times… and not slobbering over getting the sale with silly tricks and goo-roo gamesmanship, virtue signaling, and pick-me clout chasing.
So as far as these goo-roos chasing clout and attention and engagement?
It never works.
Not long term, at least.
Goo-roos upset by my policy can posture and chest pound all they want to their lists or on Facebook or wherever they do their thing. But people know they’re full of shyt. And those who don’t realize it at first eventually find out soon enough. I know this because many of their own customers, clients, and lists tell me about them — just like the very person who emailed me above, due to him seeing one of these email goo-roos’ emails, which I never would have seen otherwise.
All of which brings us back full circle about the not taking the trash back in analogy:
That’s all it is — an analogy.
And it’s there to benefit both me and my customers.
I would also argue it benefits those who leave, too.
How?
Because most won’t waste their money or my time again on my products.
And, in the email goo-roo’s case above:
It gives him content fodder to virtue signal & pick-me about.
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Ben Settle
