Ben Settle

About a year ago, I had a chat with my ex-copywriting apprentice about…

“Positioning”

She had been intensely interested in figuring out ways to position herself in her market as someone who can (1) charge the most amount possible (2) attract nothing but the best, highest quality customers and clients and (3) leverage her time while making the most profit (i.e. servicing a small handful of premium clients/customers vs a horde of low class jackass clients/customers — adhering to the concept I told her about, where it’s better to have 4 quarters than 100 pennies).

Anyway, my (admittedly crude) advice to her?

This:

“Be the bitch at the top of the mountain, not the hoe at the bottom”

In other words…

• Don’t be easily accessible

• Be productive, not “busy”

• Don’t respect anyone who doesn’t respect you

• Guard your time like it’s worth money (because it is)

• Have standards for who you allow to buy from you

• Sell to value shoppers (not price shoppers)

• Put funnels in place — to sift & sort the good from the bad for you, so you only deal with people ready to buy, and with automated back end sales, offers, etc, in play, working hard on your behalf, freeing up your time, and giving you true freedom.

Most of this is self explanatory.

Except, for the funnel part

That’s a mystery to nearly everyone.

Enter my pal:

Todd Brown.

He’s the sales funnel guy that other sales funnel guys go to when they need help with funnels. While practically everyone else (including me) is playing checkers with their funnels… Todd plays Monopoly, and he always builds a hotel on Boardwalk, and he always wins.

(If’n you catch my drift.)

For example:

He’s co-orchestrated multiple six-figure launches within the internet marketing community (not just for people with huge lists and “guru status” — but people who were new and/or struggling before he got a hold of them)… has been a partner at Strategic Profits with Rich Schefren (where I hear tell they did $3 million in just 7 days, using Todd’s launch magic, not too shabby)… Was a faculty member for Jeff Walker’s $10,000.00 per person Product Launch Manager Training… And has presented his ideas and methodologies on the same stage with best-selling authors, Brian Tracy, Michael Gerber, etc/

And you know what else?

He’s a helluva cool cat, too.

But, even more important:

He’s also the newest member of the elite Oceans 4 mastermind March 25th and 26th next month, along with my droogies-in-crime Andre Chaperon (master at building multi-million dollar earning auto-resoonders), Jack Born (who is not only Perry Marshall’s affiliate manager, but he’s like the “Walter White” of cooking up tools for marketers to use — hunched over his desk in his motor home, gas mask on, smoke billowing out the top…)

More:

It’s not just us blokes above attending.

We also have media buying wizard Steve Gray coming.

(He was one of our special trainers in Vegas, and buys something like $10 million per year in media — he will be there as a guest sitting in this time, too. You can ask him any questions you want about media buying, funnel building, and all the other solid gold bars of knowledge he has running a supplement business and also a business in the survival niche, the guy has seen it all and is like an encyclopedia of knowledge, wisdom, and experience.)

Still more:

Our special guest trainer this time is Rich Schefren.

Rich is the guy all the other gurus you hear about go to for advice on their businesses (he’s been called “the guru’s guru”.) And, you can name any TV or cable network or major newspaper, and they’ve probably done a feature on Rich or one of his businesses. He’s been profiled (i.e. he didn’t just run an ad and then say he was “as seen on” like all the wannabes do, he was interviewed and profiled) on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Entertainment Tonight, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, Vogue, GQ, MTV, VH1, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Cosmopolitan, The Daily News, The New York Post and many others…

Finally, there are the other attendees.

Each time we attract the best of the best.

For example, our “roster” of previous clients have included:

• Agora Publishing ($200+ million newsletter empire)

• Bad Ass Ventures (One of the biggest companies on Clickbank)

• The founder of the biggest job portal in Australia’s multi billion dollar mining industry

• A New York Times Bestselling financial author (Ramit Sethi who sent his right-hand-marketing chick to attend)

• One of the world’s top marketers for PGA Tour Players

• Russell Brunson (Quite possibly the savviest online direct marketing genius I’ve ever met — just hanging out with this guy will make you a better marketer by “osmosis”)

• One of the world’s top affiliates in the hyper competitive weight loss niche

• Other leaders in their respective industries (like LinkedIn job training, building brand awareness, etc).

• And the list goes on.

(With all the talent that shows up, nobody — not a single one of us in the room, not even the 9-figure earning business owners who have shown — walks away without at LEAST a dozen or so “ah ha!” moments and ideas to implement, with some clients even reporting all time sales highs just weeks after)

Now, for the details:

1. It costs $5k to get a hot seat

You can bring one guest free, but only one of you gets the hot seat. However, if you’re thinking price vs value you don’t belong in the room, anyway. There are plenty of low cost and more conventional events and so-called “masterminds” to attend instead. They’ll be happy to take your money, give you a cheer-leading session to pump you up, and then give you a swat on the butt and send you on your merry way.
2. We’re capping it at 9 people

We keep things small and intimate.

(i.e. a true interactive mastermind, not a lecture or conference)

But, since these few spots are going lickety split that means time is short. After all, I’m not the only person mailing about this. Andre, Todd, and Jack (all of who have much bigger lists and many more connections than I do) are, too. With our combined lists, those last spots are going to vanish like a fart in the wind before you know it.
3. There probably won’t be a next time

I never say never.

But, I’m kinda surprised we’re doing this since everyone’s schedules conflict and the low price we charge makes it not really profitable for us. We’re also all getting burned out on doing it, too (we like doing it, but it’s, you know, work). I bring this up because we were doing so many of them (3 one year alone) people started thinking they could just “catch the next one.”

But, I wouldn’t count on that happening.

So, that’d be a foolish attitude to have this time.

Anyway, that’s that.

To apply to attend, or if you have questions, reply to this email.

Word up.

Ben Settle

Lend me your ears for a second.

Recently I was having a conversation with my ex-copywriting apprentice about podcasts. Even though I’ve hosted a podcast for 2 years and 107 shows… I hardly ever listen to other podcasts. Maybe once in a while I do, but it’s rare. And so I asked her how good (or bad) some of these other podcasts are she listens to.

“They suck,” she said.

“They’re that awful?”

“Yes, especially the ones where they’re interviewing someone. They are painful to listen to. I don’t get why people don’t interview more like you do on your podcasts!”

And so the conversation went.

Apparently, there are people who don’t know how to interview.

(Shocking!)

And, so, I vowed to my ex-copywriting apprentice I would do my part to help the podcasting community by teaching not only how to conduct interviews that get people lost in an almost “trance” like state (literally)… but, if you’re selling something (as an affiliate, etc), you’ll get a ton more sales, too.

How can I be so obnoxiously arrogant about this?

Because I know what I’m doing with this, my little droogie.

I’ve been doing audio interviews since almost before the term “podcast” was invented… and I learned directly from studying the best (like Michael Senoff — who’s been selling with interviews for almost as long as the Internet has been around, and Paul Hartunian who is the king of selling his own products on professional radio shows, for example) for years.

And, I’ve made a pretty penny doing it, too.

Like when we sold Ken McCarthy’s copywriting course on my podcast last July.

We nabbed $28 per click.

Yes, email had a lot to do with that, but so did the interview, and techniques I use to draw info out of people, etc.

Anyway, so that’s what today’s new podcast is all about:

How to interview and make sales.

If you do podcasting, this (free) episode can put more smackola in your hot little hand than probably some of the paid courses you’re buying. (And if you have clients, you can use the exact same techniques to draw a ton more info out them during research.)

A bold claim?

You be the judge, Fonzy.

It’s free to listen to, and will only take 24 minutes:

www.BenSettleShow.com/107

Word out.

Ben Settle

Amusing opt-out of the week…

Dude I have no idea what this letter is about nor do I care do not send me anymore emails or scam letters anymore I am not interested. THAN OR NOW!!!!!!!! LOOSE MY EMAIL ADDRESS. ……..DO NOT SEND ME ANYTHING ELSE. EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The lad sounds a tad too tightly wound for his own good.

Usually I just delete these.

But, in this case, I wanted to track where he came from.

And, sure enough, he came from Pay-per-click (back on December 23rd, with his IP address and general location where he opted in at recorded) where we don’t use double opt in. Plus, he used a free yahoo address. That probably means he joined just to “get the free stuff” (i.e. the bribe to join my list), then probably just checked his email again for the first time after almost a month, saw a few dozen emails from me piled up, and proceeded to go into full-on nutzo mode.

It’s ironic, too.

Why?

Because emails like the above are the real “spam.”

Guy opts into my list willingly and on his own volition, then sends me an unsolicited shrieking complaint (some of it in ALL CAPS which means he’s serious) about getting emails he asked me to send him.

Even more ironic:

I not only say “you’ll be getting daily promotional emails” at the opt-in box (clearly, so the Google AdWords powers-that-be see it) but you also have to check a box acknowledging you read the terms before my form lets you opt-in, and the first email with the bribe link outright says I mail a lot, etc and how to opt-out if that’s going to give someone acid reflux.

Anyway, I ain’t mad at the guy..

It’s probably not his fault he’s stupid.

But if you’re going to email using my system, best brace for similar emails.

Especially if you use paid traffic and single opt-in.

(If you don’t occasionally get these, you ain’t trying hard enough, Bub.)

All right that’s it for today.

Go here next:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

In today’s podcast we wrap up the first 70 “Email Players” rules.

We talk about:

• How to wisely (and ethically) use “hype” to side-step lagging attention spans.

• Why credibility is only the second most important thing in email marketing (hardly anyone talks about the #1 thing and it costs them lots of sales).

• Arguably the single best movie ever made for would-be entrepreneurs and business school students to watch before spending a single penny getting started.

• What copywriters working on commission need to be aware of.

• When never to get involved in a joint venture — even if the person your JV’ing with is honest as the day is long and has no intention of screwing you over. (I wasted over a ever of my life with nothing to show for it that I can never get back not knowing this.)

• Why I don’t segment my list but insist on everyone else segmenting theirs.

• The dangers of trying to “reverse engineer” marketing and copywriting systems instead of just paying for them.

• The big mastermind group lesson I learned while eating lunch with Brian Kurtz (former Executive VP of Boardroom, Inc).

• How you’re hurting your leads, customers, and clients by not emailing them daily.

• The dead comedian’s counter-intuitive guide for keeping good people in your life. (Clients, customers, friends, girlfriend, etc.)

• And lots more…

Get your lovin’ here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/antipreneur

Ben Settle

Following story is 100% true.

Only the niche and names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Here’s the scoop:

Back in mid 2014 I got involved in a major project taking on part ownership in a company in a very rabid niche I’ve sold in before. My two partners and I have our marketing down pat, and stand to have a lot of fun and adventures (the profitable kind).

But, it’s taken us almost 1.5 years to get started.

Why?

Because we made a terrible mistake.

A mistake I have made many times before.

(What’s that definition of insanity again…?)

And, a mistake that has cost us each over a year’s worth of lost profits, lost sales, and lost time we can never reclaim.

The mistake?

Doing business with the wrong people.

By wrong, I don’t mean “bad” people.

Nor do I mean incompetent people.

These particular people we wanted to do business with are as honest (as far as we know, at least), professional, and sharp-as-a-whip smart as they come for the most part. No, by “wrong” I mean they simply didn’t want the company to succeed as badly as we did.

Thus, they got in their own way.

Slowed progress up for months to get things “perfect.”

Would not send us the content we needed in a timely manner.

(If at all, and even then we had to almost nag ‘em to do it.)

And, basically, didn’t care about it working as badly as us.

Thus, we had to “fire” several talented people.

And, cut the side of the business they would have been in charge of (and which would have made the company a lot more sales a lot more quickly) out altogether and change things around.

All because we didn’t “vet” the talent.

We didn’t really need these guys.

But, we thought we could change them and make them see the big picture.

(Obviously that didn’t work.)

Anyway, again, that’s almost 2 years we can’t get back.

And, it’s an important lesson for anyone doing joint ventures.

It’s also one of the 7 new “Email Players” rules I talk about on the next exciting episode of “The Ben Settle Show” podcast — streaming to a device near you tomorrow.

These Email Players rules have become fan favorite episodes.

And we wrap up the first 70 of them tomorrow.

In the meantime, listen to prior shows here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/antipreneur

Ben Settle

In the name of fairness:

Below is an email written to his list about how methods did NOT work (well, briefly, at least…) from a man who is a Gary Halbert and Dan Kennedy-approved marketer, Agora Financial copywriter, and one of my best marketing chums… Doberman Dan Gallapoo.

After busting my chops for years about not emailing my list every day, I finally gave in.

And only a few months ago I started sending a daily email.

Guess what happened after the first month.

Nuttin’ honey.

I sooooo wanted to prove Ben wrong. So I told him my results.

He told me to stop trying to sell surreptitiously, grow a pair and pitch in EVERY SINGLE EMAIL.

Since I wanted to prove him wrong, I did exactly what he said.

Guess what happened after two more weeks of daily emails… but this time with a blatant pitch in every email.

Nuttin’ honey.

So I kept doing it. ‘Cuz I couldn’t wait to tell Ben his system failed.

But guess what happened two weeks later.

The floodgates were opened.

And I’m happy to say that the number of knights in the Marketing Camelot has never been higher.

Ben Settle, ya big beautiful bastard. I soooooo wanted to prove you wrong.

But dammit… your email system worked.

Sure, it took a while to get it tweaked and build some momentum. But it’s now generating a steady, predictable and reliable flow of new knights into my Marketing Camelot.

I shoulda done this when Ben first told me about it YEARS ago.

Gawd knows how much money I’ve missed out on because I didn’t.

You really need to study the email marketing Jedi mind tricks Ben reveals in his Email Players newsletter…

www.emailplayers.com

No, that’s not an affiliate link. Ben doesn’t allow affiliates to sell his newsletter.

And no, we don’t have any kind of rev-share agreement.

In fact, he has no idea I’m even mentioning his newsletter. (Until he reads this email.)

I’m just sharing it with you for two reasons:

It’s excellent and it’s making me a lot of money.

I don’t have a scarcity mindset.

In other words, I don’t believe that promoting Ben’s newsletter to the people on my list is going to negatively affect enrollment in my own membership program and newsletter, The Marketing Camelot.

Ben’s newsletter is something I believe in so I wanted to share it with you.

Simple as that.

(Ben, I’m not breaking your rule of pitching in every email. I DID pitch. I just pitched YOUR newsletter… probably much to your surprise.)

Look, I’m not gonna lie to you and tell you that doing an email every day is a walk in the park.

There are some nights when I’m sitting in the family room with my wife at midnight, staring at my laptop half asleep, wondering what the hell I’m going to write for tomorrow’s email.

But I do it.

‘Cuz I made a commitment to do it.

And it’s worth it.

Listen, I’ve heard all the objections for not sending a daily email. Hell, I said them all myself.

But I tried it and now I’m a believer.

Try it. You’ve got nothing to lose.

All the best,
Doberman Dan

P.S. Ya know what?

I think Ben has been using his mind manipulation tricks on me for YEARS…

…knowing I would eventually pull my head outta my posterior and start emailing daily.

I bet that smug S.O.B. is gloating right this very second.

I SHOULD be mad. But his system is making me so much money I can’t be anything but happy.

I think you’ll be happy, too.

Pax vobiscum.

Sheesh.

Even my best pals doubt me.

But, that’s okay.

I actually dig it.

Because, it’s the people trying to prove me wrong (the intellectually honest ones, at least) who apply the info, and who end up making out like bandits (some of them even go on to out earn my own results using my own methods!)

Anyway, today’s the deadline to get the February issue.

Whether you want to test my methods yourself or are just looking for an excuse to get started, now’s the time.

After today, it’s too late.

Subscribe here tonight before the deadline is over, and before it’s too late:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

The February “Email Players” issue deadline is today.

Here are some of the tid-bits inside:

• The “counter intuitive” reason why you should treat your best clients and customers like the “side chick” in a relationship if you want a happier, higher paying, and more harmonious business.

• How to get would-be clients, customers, and JV partners selling themselves on doing business with you. (So you’re basically an order-taker — picking and choosing who to work with… or not work with.)

• What to do if a business or client negotiation isn’t going your way and they refuse to bend or leave any “wiggle room” in their demands.

• A little-known way of using old fashioned snobbery to get high quality clients and customers chasing you down, practically putting their money in your hand.

• A 100% fool-proof way of knowing what your list wants to buy, without surveys, guessing, or even asking them.

• How even highly talented business owners, freelancers, and coaches “think” themselves out of high paying gigs. (It’s weird, but I can virtually guarantee you that, by shifting one little thought in your brain while talking to clients, you can exponentially increase the chances of selling them, even if you’re not the “best” option to buy from.)

• A secret way to get yourself (without inviting yourself or even telling anyone you’re interested in doing it) invited to speak and train at events, seminars, masterminds and other high paying events.

• Why the easiest and most reliable way to lose (or get fired by) a big client or customer is to do exactly what they tell you to do.

• The one attribute JV partners are repulsed by more than anything else. (I would guess at least 90% of people do this online… if you’re doing it, stop, immediately, and watch how fast people who have been ignoring your calls & emails want to do business with you.)

• Why most people who pound their chests online saying they “give zero fugks” are almost always the most insecure people you’ll ever do business with. (And the secret to truly giving “zero fugks” — and having everyone know it, without you saying a single word. A secret that can irresistibly draw JV partners, clients, and customers to you like flies to a fresh, steaming pile of dog poop.)

• The “golden rule” of negotiation that works like magic whether you’re buying a house, negotiating a deal with a client, or even trying to get an A-list JV partner to want to do business with you on your terms.

• Why being “nice” is a sure-fire way of not only hurting your own business/profits, but your client’s business/profits too.

• What Brian Kurtz (Target Marketing Marketer of the Year and former Executive VP at Boardroom) taught me about power… and how not to squander it. (Especially in Masterminds, and other business settings.)

• And lots more.

This issue is packed wall-to-wall with content.

It’s a bit “off script.”

But, last time I did an issue like this it got more feedback and fanfare than practically any other kind of issue I’ve written.

But today’s the deadline to get it.

Subscribe here while you still have a little bit of time:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on The Burgle, after all?

New “Email Players” subscriber Wardee Harmon (whose office is in my old haunts in The Burgle) writes:

“This is changing my business. I believed it when you said it or I would not have tried it. Yet, I am surprised by how much I like doing it. I thought I would dread it, but I actually look forward to the daily writing and I have more ideas than days to email!”

She also reported:

• December sales (in just her first 3 weeks) were her highest sales ever

• She made top 3 for sales in an affiliate contest (with a list size much smaller than the usual top affiliates) with double the conversion rate of almost every one else’s

• She now gets from 5 to 50 (or even a hundred) replies each day to her emails (which gives her an unlimited supply of email “fodder” to do with as she wants)

It’s a fun time to be an Email Players subscriber.

Lots of big changes in businesses are being made.

Lots of marketplace branding & positioning are being built.

And, yes, lots of sales are being created.

(Out of thin air, basically, just sending emails, no other changes.)

Plus, the info I’ll be showing in 2016 in “Email Players” is going to blow people away (my sales last year were almost twice as high as the year before, due in large part to some changes in the way I write emails and promote myself — things you can only learn from the elBenbo’s mouth, not by observation or in any of my other teachings, speaking gigs, trainings, or products).

However, a word of warning:

The people who are seeing these big bumps in sales all are doers and already have a product and an offer. They don’t think they can magically make more sales by putting each issue under their pillow each night via osmosis with no list, no offer, or no desire to work. And they sure as hades don’t get their monthly issue and then just nod, smile (eyeballs rolling to the back of their head at their temporary dopamine drip high of getting something “new!”) just to file it away (without implementing) and chase some bright shiny object on the side.

They read, implement, profit.

They also treat it like an investment not an expense.

(They are investor-minded, not opportunity-minded.)

And, as a result, they make lots of sales.

Very simple.

And, pretty easy, too.

(And fun.)

Get in on the February issue before it goes to the printer tomorrow here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Behold this quote from comedian Dante Nero:

“A woman falls in love with you for what you are, spends the rest of the relationship trying to change you into something you’re not, and then leaves you for a man who is what you were.”

He’s obviously talking to spurned guys in that quote.

(His podcast is all about that.)

But, in business, it applies to both men and women.

And, it especially applies to freelance copywriters, coaches, and consultants — where there are certain clients who hire you for what you’ve done/are known for, spend all their time getting you to change everything you know works (based on raw experience and 100-years of direct marketing history) to what they think will work (based on some cool ninja-sounding bright shiny object theory they learned at a seminar or on Flakebook). Then, when you give in just to “get along”, they say what you did didn’t work and hire someone else who does what you were originally doing.

That certainly happened to me back in the day.

It’s also happened to many others who tell similar tales of woe.

And you know what?

If that happens to you (just like when it happened to me), it’s all your fault — not the client’s. Chances are, the clients are good people and mean well, but are being led astray.

You simply don’t know how to manage them.

And, thus, you both got hurt as a result.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is, this is one of many such things I teach in the February “Email Players” issue. I show you not only how to avoid having the above happen to you… but I also show you how to never get “friend zoned” by a client, either, where someone gladly takes your best ideas, your time, and your knowledge… only to turn around and hire someone else who gave them hardly any of their time or ideas or knowledge, and probably aren’t even as good as you at whatever it is you do/sell.

This happens all the time to copywriters especially.

And, it also happens to anyone who doesn’t know how to sell.

(i.e. people who only know how to pitch “benefits.”)

And you know what else?

Maybe I’m just old fashioned like this.

But, in my way of thinking, if you truly care about the clients you want to help, and if you truly want their business long term, then it behooves (how’s that for a word?) you to know how this bizarre game works, so they’ll fall in love with you instead of someone else, and so you can save them from making the mistake of hiring/buying from someone inferior.

More:

Don’t think this doesn’t apply to selling other kinds of products.

It ain’t just service providers that make this mistake. Info publishers (especially those who stubbornly insist on “moving the free line” farther and farther), people who sell health-related products, sales reps for big ticket products, etc — everyone who has anything to sell is potentially at risk of making these kinds of mistakes. And, when you apply what I show in the February issue in your emails, chances are it simply won’t be an issue for you henceforth.

Anyway, more about this in the February “Email Players” issue.

She goes to the printer tomorrow.

Subscribe in time to get it today here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle