Ben Settle

[smart_track_player url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/elbenbo/BSA-125.mp3″ title=”Why I love drudge – the original contrarian” artist=”Ben Settle | Antipreneur Show” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

One of my favorite novels is Charles Bukowski’s:

“Women”

I’ve written about this book before — about a butt-ugly, alcoholic poet and writer in his 50’s and his adventures with a string of women who suddenly start floating into his life.

Really, it has no plot.

It’s just one adventure with a different woman after another.

But, there are certain characteristics (his desire to be left alone, introverted, enjoys his own company or hanging with just one person over the company of a bunch of people, etc) I share with the character Henry Chinaski (which is really just Charles Bukowski — it’s autobiographical) that make it so entertaining for me I’m on my 3rd read of it now and enjoying it even more than the first two times.

One of my favorite quotes is:

“The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.”

(I have found this particularly true amongst copywriters at times.)

And, another, that I just picked up on yesterday while reading it is:

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.

The more I write, the more I realize how true that is.

No sane person think the way those of us who write every. single. day. does.

The best writers (whether copywriters, email writers, bloggers, novelists, etc) all seem to have traits that make regular civilians (i.e. non writers) think we are a tad insane.

And you know what?

If someone casts elBenbo as a villain, then I’m gonna play the part well.

And, I do it by writing more.

More emails.

More copy.

More fiction.

More posts in my private Facebook group.

And the list goes on.

I’d rather be insane than boring and non-productive, just sitting around all day watching the telly, obsessed with the latest riots or race baiting on the shnooze, or, even worse, floating around with no mission or agenda in life, just existing (as the late Earl Nightingale said), like a starfish or amoeba.

Screw that sideways.

Writing THIS email has been immensely fun for me.

I had to write it.

That’s how my email methodology works.

I don’t teach hard writing.

I teach fun writing.

And, also, profitable writing.

If you want to tap into your inner insanity, you can join me and my fellow insane Email Players droogies here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

[smart_track_player url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/elbenbo/BSA-125.mp3″ title=”Why I love drudge – the original contrarian” artist=”Ben Settle | Antipreneur Show” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

One of my favorite novels is Charles Bukowski’s:

“Women”

I’ve written about this book before — about a butt-ugly, alcoholic poet and writer in his 50’s and his adventures with a string of women who suddenly start floating into his life.

Really, it has no plot.

It’s just one adventure with a different woman after another.

But, there are certain characteristics (his desire to be left alone, introverted, enjoys his own company or hanging with just one person over the company of a bunch of people, etc) I share with the character Henry Chinaski (which is really just Charles Bukowski — it’s autobiographical) that make it so entertaining for me I’m on my 3rd read of it now and enjoying it even more than the first two times.

One of my favorite quotes is:

“The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.”

(I have found this particularly true amongst copywriters at times.)

And, another, that I just picked up on yesterday while reading it is:

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.

The more I write, the more I realize how true that is.

No sane person think the way those of us who write every. single. day. does.

The best writers (whether copywriters, email writers, bloggers, novelists, etc) all seem to have traits that make regular civilians (i.e. non writers) think we are a tad insane.

And you know what?

If someone casts elBenbo as a villain, then I’m gonna play the part well.

And, I do it by writing more.

More emails.

More copy.

More fiction.

More posts in my private Facebook group.

And the list goes on.

I’d rather be insane than boring and non-productive, just sitting around all day watching the telly, obsessed with the latest riots or race baiting on the shnooze, or, even worse, floating around with no mission or agenda in life, just existing (as the late Earl Nightingale said), like a starfish or amoeba.

Screw that sideways.

Writing THIS email has been immensely fun for me.

I had to write it.

That’s how my email methodology works.

I don’t teach hard writing.

I teach fun writing.

And, also, profitable writing.

If you want to tap into your inner insanity, you can join me and my fellow insane Email Players droogies here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

[smart_track_player url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/elbenbo/BSA-125.mp3″ title=”Why I love drudge – the original contrarian” artist=”Ben Settle | Antipreneur Show” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

One of my favorite novels is Charles Bukowski’s:

“Women”

I’ve written about this book before — about a butt-ugly, alcoholic poet and writer in his 50’s and his adventures with a string of women who suddenly start floating into his life.

Really, it has no plot.

It’s just one adventure with a different woman after another.

But, there are certain characteristics (his desire to be left alone, introverted, enjoys his own company or hanging with just one person over the company of a bunch of people, etc) I share with the character Henry Chinaski (which is really just Charles Bukowski — it’s autobiographical) that make it so entertaining for me I’m on my 3rd read of it now and enjoying it even more than the first two times.

One of my favorite quotes is:

“The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.”

(I have found this particularly true amongst copywriters at times.)

And, another, that I just picked up on yesterday while reading it is:

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.

The more I write, the more I realize how true that is.

No sane person think the way those of us who write every. single. day. does.

The best writers (whether copywriters, email writers, bloggers, novelists, etc) all seem to have traits that make regular civilians (i.e. non writers) think we are a tad insane.

And you know what?

If someone casts elBenbo as a villain, then I’m gonna play the part well.

And, I do it by writing more.

More emails.

More copy.

More fiction.

More posts in my private Facebook group.

And the list goes on.

I’d rather be insane than boring and non-productive, just sitting around all day watching the telly, obsessed with the latest riots or race baiting on the shnooze, or, even worse, floating around with no mission or agenda in life, just existing (as the late Earl Nightingale said), like a starfish or amoeba.

Screw that sideways.

Writing THIS email has been immensely fun for me.

I had to write it.

That’s how my email methodology works.

I don’t teach hard writing.

I teach fun writing.

And, also, profitable writing.

If you want to tap into your inner insanity, you can join me and my fellow insane Email Players droogies here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

[smart_track_player url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/elbenbo/BSA-125.mp3″ title=”Why I love drudge – the original contrarian” artist=”Ben Settle | Antipreneur Show” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

One of my favorite novels is Charles Bukowski’s:

“Women”

I’ve written about this book before — about a butt-ugly, alcoholic poet and writer in his 50’s and his adventures with a string of women who suddenly start floating into his life.

Really, it has no plot.

It’s just one adventure with a different woman after another.

But, there are certain characteristics (his desire to be left alone, introverted, enjoys his own company or hanging with just one person over the company of a bunch of people, etc) I share with the character Henry Chinaski (which is really just Charles Bukowski — it’s autobiographical) that make it so entertaining for me I’m on my 3rd read of it now and enjoying it even more than the first two times.

One of my favorite quotes is:

“The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.”

(I have found this particularly true amongst copywriters at times.)

And, another, that I just picked up on yesterday while reading it is:

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.

The more I write, the more I realize how true that is.

No sane person think the way those of us who write every. single. day. does.

The best writers (whether copywriters, email writers, bloggers, novelists, etc) all seem to have traits that make regular civilians (i.e. non writers) think we are a tad insane.

And you know what?

If someone casts elBenbo as a villain, then I’m gonna play the part well.

And, I do it by writing more.

More emails.

More copy.

More fiction.

More posts in my private Facebook group.

And the list goes on.

I’d rather be insane than boring and non-productive, just sitting around all day watching the telly, obsessed with the latest riots or race baiting on the shnooze, or, even worse, floating around with no mission or agenda in life, just existing (as the late Earl Nightingale said), like a starfish or amoeba.

Screw that sideways.

Writing THIS email has been immensely fun for me.

I had to write it.

That’s how my email methodology works.

I don’t teach hard writing.

I teach fun writing.

And, also, profitable writing.

If you want to tap into your inner insanity, you can join me and my fellow insane Email Players droogies here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

[smart_track_player url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/elbenbo/BSA-125.mp3″ title=”Why I love drudge – the original contrarian” artist=”Ben Settle | Antipreneur Show” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

One of my favorite novels is Charles Bukowski’s:

“Women”

I’ve written about this book before — about a butt-ugly, alcoholic poet and writer in his 50’s and his adventures with a string of women who suddenly start floating into his life.

Really, it has no plot.

It’s just one adventure with a different woman after another.

But, there are certain characteristics (his desire to be left alone, introverted, enjoys his own company or hanging with just one person over the company of a bunch of people, etc) I share with the character Henry Chinaski (which is really just Charles Bukowski — it’s autobiographical) that make it so entertaining for me I’m on my 3rd read of it now and enjoying it even more than the first two times.

One of my favorite quotes is:

“The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.”

(I have found this particularly true amongst copywriters at times.)

And, another, that I just picked up on yesterday while reading it is:

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.

The more I write, the more I realize how true that is.

No sane person think the way those of us who write every. single. day. does.

The best writers (whether copywriters, email writers, bloggers, novelists, etc) all seem to have traits that make regular civilians (i.e. non writers) think we are a tad insane.

And you know what?

If someone casts elBenbo as a villain, then I’m gonna play the part well.

And, I do it by writing more.

More emails.

More copy.

More fiction.

More posts in my private Facebook group.

And the list goes on.

I’d rather be insane than boring and non-productive, just sitting around all day watching the telly, obsessed with the latest riots or race baiting on the shnooze, or, even worse, floating around with no mission or agenda in life, just existing (as the late Earl Nightingale said), like a starfish or amoeba.

Screw that sideways.

Writing THIS email has been immensely fun for me.

I had to write it.

That’s how my email methodology works.

I don’t teach hard writing.

I teach fun writing.

And, also, profitable writing.

If you want to tap into your inner insanity, you can join me and my fellow insane Email Players droogies here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

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:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Long time reader Beverly Bergman demands more info about “why I don’t use salutations in my emails” bit.

Let’s gather around and see what she asks:

“Avoiding starting this  email with a salutation seems odd, but I can follow instructions! I have been following you for several years. This email brings two questions to mind that I would love your perspective on if you would care to give it. Which do you believe would be the best approach for infomercial copy, principle-based copywriting or tactic-based, and why? Do you know why not using a salutation works better for you? It seems contrary since we are egotistical and like to see our names in personalized marketing. I look forward to your response.  Thank you.”

I use them in sales letters.

Why?

No particular reason.

There are people who have supposedly tested using a salutation vs not using one and claim giant lifts in response, but I am skeptical of anyone’s so-called test data these days. Although I have been privy to seeing some huge jumps in response in direct mail by using someone’s first name — especially in the headline.

For emails?

My readers tend to be a lot more intelligent than most.

(heh)

And they know what I’m up to.

Ooh, they know…

So anyway, that’s my take on it.

Do with this info whatever you want.

Back I go to prepping for a coastal road trip this weekend.

While I’m doing that, check out my “Email Players” newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Word up.

Ben Settle

Unavoidable fact:

When you do this kind of business (where you’re building a list and sending that list emails to sell them a product or service that’ll improve their lives) long enough, eventually you’ll get your first troll.

And, if you do it right, several more.

And, over time, many more.

All congregating like flies on the same turd online while living in their mom’s basement, fingers stained orange from eating cheetos, eyes buggy from watching pourno all day in between troll sessions.

When that happens rejoice!

It means you’re doing something right.

But, there’s the flip side too…

Sometimes, you’ll get the exact opposite.

An “anti-troll” if you will.

Case in point:

My long time friend, AdWords guy (who’s saved me from many a software and tech problem), and at times business partner Jim Yaghi recently told me:

For years, i have looked around me and seen example after example of people slitting each other’s throats to become rich. i mean, it’s dog eat dog out there. If ever you find yourself a role model and get close enough to know them, you quickly learn they had to rip off people, be very deceptive, greedy, sell your mum for a buck types, and step on a lot of heads to get there. But you are a single shred of proof that it IS possible to become financially successful because you are genuinely skilled, honest and direct person to do business with. I know you did not trample over the corpses of partners and friends to get there. I know you paid your dues. I know you didn’t make fake claims about what you can/have done. I have never ever heard you brag about how much money (specific) money you make from this or that…not even in private conversation between friends. And this is why of all the people in this industry, i rarely advise anyone to buy or learn from anyone other than you ( or me 😛 )

If it was possible, elBenbo might have blushed on that one…

Anyway, if you’re on the fence about trying my wicked ways, maybe that’ll help.

Or maybe it won’t.

But, either way, here is where to get more info:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Came a question earlier this week:

Dear Ben

Greetings and felicitations!

I’m curious as to why you don’t use a salutation in your (irreverent, often entertaining but, honestly, can be a wee bit misogynistic) email missives?

Surely a little, “Dear Friend” or “Dear Aspiring Email Copywriting Supremo”, or even a casual “Howdy” or “Hey there!” wouldn’t go amiss?

Gosh, you know, it’s even possible these days to <insert first name here>. Amazing!

Personal and engaging is good, no?

Or perhaps, against prevailing wisdom, it makes not one jot of difference?

Love to hear your views.

Survey says:

I get more opt ins by not collecting first names.

And, yes, if you know what you’re doing, including or not including it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

But, you know what?

I don’t get surprised by questions like this.

Most copywriters and marketers live in “tactical” world, and don’t understand (nor have ever been taught, so it’s not their fault) the concept of principle-based marketing and copywriting vs tactic-based. That’s why they focus on things like salutations and open loops (nothing will give a goo-roo fanboy a chubby faster than seeing an open loop in an email) or whatever, instead of just working at being a more engaging, personality-driven writer.

More:

As for any precious little snowflake who needs to be greeted with a salutation?

Or who takes my chick jokes literally and not as entertainment?

Or who needs political correctness?

They can go piss off back to their safe place.

We don’t want ‘em around here.

Back to tactical vs principle selling/marketing:

The January “Email Players” issue goes into a lot more detail about this, including a real-life example showing what I mean by this and just how much of a difference it will make in anyone’s sales, in any kind of format.

(Email, video, face to face sales, whatever you do.)

Here’s where to subscribe to get it:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle