Ben Settle

One of the tips inside the upcoming November “Email Players” issue is like an affiliate marketer’s wet dream.

Why?

Because, let’s say you’re an affiliate marketer.

Or, you just want to sell something on the back end as an affiliate.

So, you go to Clickbank.

You browse around.

You see a product that *sounds* good, gets great testimonials, is a high seller, has a solid reputation, etc. But, you couldn’t be bothered to consume the product. (No time, etc) Nor can you be bothered to watch its 40-minute VSL.

But, you really want to sell it.

Especially since, it converts so high and your list is a perfect match for it.

What do you do?

You turn to page 6 of the November issue, follow the instructions, use the sample email as a *template* (not swipe word-for-word, only losers do that, and I eject losers from the subscriber list on sight), send it out, and go to bed.

The result?

I can’t make you any guarantees.

But, you could wake up to big commissions.

(I certainly have using this technique.)

But, time’s a-tickin’.

Subscribe here before tomorrow’s deadline if you want in:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

“Email Players” subscriber Nicholas Lal makes elBenbo blush:

Just wanted to give another shout out to Ben Settle and his Email Players subscription.

Had I never bought it I would still be clueless as to what a solo ad is, yet here I am a year later and I’ve accomplished my first ever six-figure year online, which has led to so many more relationships, partnerships, and has got me on the path to bigger and better things.

I’m absolutely shocked at the people in the industry who invite me to attend their events, reach out to me for advice, call me, buy my services, all because I saw value in a 16 page newsletter and never questioned the price or content. Every month I get at least one helpful tip to incorporate into my business that pays itself off multiple times over. If you haven’t had your break through moment yet just keep at it. Things only get better when you put in the time, effort and focus on one thing at a time. Next year’s goal quarter of a million. It will happen.

PS I quit my six-figure job as a Software Engineer in April.

That’s all I’m sayin’.

There are so many benefits to “Email Players” if you seize the info and run with it each month.

If you don’t?

If you just sit around waiting for the magic email fairy to tap your forehead with his twinkle pole and magically make you sales without doing anything?

Won’t do you a lick of good.

I can’t help people in the latter camp.

But if you’re in the former?

Deadline to get the November issue looms.

Subscribe here while there’s still time:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Back in my not-so-glorious MLM days I used to dread the price question.

It never failed…

Every time I got on the phone with a cold lead (I used to buy leads that were likely being called by 100 other people just like me), before I could get a word out, the lead would, at least 80% of the time, ask the One Snotty Question to rule them all:

“Yeah, Yeah, Yeah… listen, how much is it?”

I’d stutter and sputter.

I’d back pedal and mumble.

I’d then get tripped up, sound like a complete lunatic, and start babbling off all the facts and numbers and, yes, lose the sale in mere seconds.

Later, when I learned copywriting, it was similar.

Not the same, of course.

(There’s no back-and-forth interaction.)

But, I was always very conscious of the fact the person was thinking about price, Price, PRICE, as soon as they started reading my headline. And, it was something I was always paranoid about, which probably made my copy a lot weaker.

Nowadays?

I don’t even think about it.

In fact, if anything, I WANT people to be wondering about price.

Why?

Because in my emails and sales copy (and when talking on the phone — back when I used to do client work), I use a way (I learned almost 10 years ago from a very smart negotiation guru) to:

1. Instantly eliminate price as an objection

2. Put the reader in the right frame of mind where, when I do release the Kraken (the price) they not only don’t get sticker shock, they realize the value of what I’m selling more than justifies the price

Want to know what this way is?

Yes?

Then get your buttox on the “Email Players” list before the November issue deadline on.

The next issue shows exactly what to say.

(In *any* sales medium.)

And, when you use it, there will be peace…

Here’s where to subscribe:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

New “Email Players” subscriber Niels Teunis shows how it’s done…

Hi Ben,

I finally joined your email players. I never thought I was a player. More of a Stu than a Steve perhaps.

I don’t really have a business even. Just starting out to get serious. And I’m not even sure that I can scale what I currently offer to an online audience.

But…

I have been writing emails each day. You might be offended when you see them. No offer at the end. I just wanted to get started. I’m caring for a chronically ill wife and sick child right now, so a daily email is sometimes all I can manage. But I always manage it (well 5 days a week).

And the response is amazing. Opportunities are already beginning to emerge. I’ve been invited to co-host a professional seminar some time in the new year. I am being invited to do professional development in another setting. I’ve got a new coaching client. And I am creating a new offering based on demands from readers.

And I am finding my voice as I write these stories. That’s actually the funnest part of all.

Interesting benefit. I now read your emails more lightheartedly. No longer do I have to wonder at the end of nearly each one if I’m going to join the club or not. Nope, that’s finally over. I feel relieved that I did and that I am finding the time to take action. About 20% of my list unsubscribed—I told them they could when I told them what I was doing, thanks for that tip on the DVD.

I’m excited to see where this is going. If my market doesn’t seem to be scalable, I will find another one that is when things calm down a bit down here.

In the mean time, from this left-leaning progressive do-gooder who was once aiming to give everything away for free, a heart felt thank you.

Oh yeeeeaaaah, baby.

I do dig on testimonials like this.

There’s nothing quite so fulfilling as seeing people take the info I teach in “Email Players”, run with it (choosing *action* over perfection) and start seizing the benefits of it.

Fact:

There are sooooo many intangible benefits to “Email Players”.

Yeah, the sales are great.

But, it can open a lot of other doors for you, too.

(Like it has for Niels and others.)

All right enough.

If you want to join Niels in using the newsletter to conquer and dominate your market one email at a time, get yo’ naughty self over to this link by Friday before the November issue goes to the printer:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

True story:

I once talked with a guy with prostate cancer. When looking at his options, he went to several different specialists — each of who told him “their” way was the best and only way worth doing.

Example:

The surgeon said the ONLY solution was removing his prostate.

Another doctor said various drugs would be best.

And the naturopath said he should use only natural approaches, and so on, and so forth.

(Ultimately, he took a 4th option, different topic for a different list…)

Well, guess what?

This happens in the ye olde marketing world, too.

A real life example:

If you were to read all my material you would see I’m going to advocate using email as your main way of selling on the front end. But, if you read my friend Doberman Dan, he makes a helluva good case *against* email and *for* direct mail.

Which of us is right?

Both and neither.

I actually agree with him direct mail is incredibly powerful.

And, in many ways far more profitable than email ever will be.

But, it doesn’t work for what I’m doing for lead generation very well.

(I’ve talked to two of the top direct mail specialists on the planet about using direct mail to get opt ins — one of which is Dan, ironically — and both concluded that, for my goals and the part of the market I want on my list and as customers, there are no lists you can rent via SRDS, etc that are worth it, although I’m still searching…)

Another example:

I know one dude who does incredible video marketing.

But, his emails suck out loud.

So, in his case, I have told him to NOT to do email (other than to tell his list he’s put a new video up each day) and focus on pumping out daily videos, instead.

Moral of the story:

Ain’t no one-size-fits-all.

And also, it all reminds me of this quote:

“Hunt what you know how to catch”

Okay, on to bid’niz:

To learn the not-ancient-at-all mysteries of the way I do email, copywriting, selling, and persuasion, check out my “Email Players” newsletter.

It’s expensive.

It won’t make you rich by next Tuesday.

(Wednesday, maybe, but not Tuesday)

And, it’s not for people who merely “dabble” in marketing.

Next issue goes to print in 3 days.

Subscribe here in time to get it:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

My boy and “Email Players” subscriber Josh reluctantly admits:

Hey Ben Settle, had to pop in and share…

I finally started doing daily emails for my freelance copywriting business.

(Why the procrastination? I told myself it was because all the leads that came through my website were crap. Startups with no revenue who wanted a sales letter for $50, yadda yadda yadda. The REAL reason was I didn’t want to make the commitment.)

Anyway, I’m on week 5 now.

I just got off a call with a prospective client.

This guy found me on Twitter and then signed up for my email list.

Then he reached out to *me* and shelled out $250 for me to spend an hour on the phone with him ripping apart his sales letter. (When I told him that’s my process for all my new clients, he said “Sounds like a steal!”)

At the start of the call, I hear him rummaging around. “Hold on,” he says, “I need a pen. I want to take notes.”

As we’re talking, I can tell this client is a great fit for me. They’re making solid 5 figures a month now, and they want to do $1 million next year.

The whole time, he’s hanging on my every word. “Oh, wow, I didn’t see that. Uh huh. That’s a great point…” <scribbling>

We’re wrapping up, and I ask him what his thoughts are.

He says: “I like you, I like everything I’ve seen from you, and I definitely want to move forward. Just don’t kill me on the fee, OK?”

The best part? I’d only been doing daily emails for 2 weeks when he contacted me.

10 emails to land a client who could be worth 5 figures.

You’re a geeeeeenius.

UPDATE:

And as an update, I closed that client for a $9,500 project and I’ve already taken payment for the 33% deposit.

My proposal was actually for $9,000, but he upsold *himself* to tack on one more piece of copy. 🙂

^^ correct.

But, here’s the thing:

One of the secrets I teach in the upcoming November “Email Players” issue is what to say to clients (or anyone you’re selling to — doesn’t have to be clients, can be customers or whoever) when they rudely keep asking:

“Yeah, but what’s the price!!!”

What do you say to quell that rebellion?

What do you say so they’ll shut up, respect your process, and be more interested in how you can help them than the price?

It’s actually pretty easy.

Just one sentence (maybe two).

Say them, and they’ll shutty.

And, be more likely to buy.

(BTW, this works the *exact* same way — word for word — in sales letters and emails, too.)

Subscribe in time before it goes to print here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

In this magic 92nd podcast episode Producer Jonathan and I get down ’n dirty about when and why you should (and when and why you shouldn’t) track email opens rates.

We also rap about:

• Why tracking email opens for most people is about as useful as tracking website “hits” (which is an acronym for “how idiots track success”).

• Why the silly myth that more opens automatically equals more sales is harder to kill than a vampire. (To make sure this myth dies, Producer Jonathan and I decided to stake, behead, and stuff this myth’s mouth with garlic just to be sure its dead.)

• Why computer scientists and engineers laugh at the idea of “scientifically” testing emails.

• An “inconvenient truth” about just how unreliable email open rates are that recently came to light int the news about Apple Computer.

• Why even spammers who get obscenely high opens still get few sales.

• The 4 times when you SHOULD definitely test open rates.

• A secret way of using open rates to come up with super profitable product titles.

• What to check if your open rates suddenly drop out of the blue.

• A little-known way to use open rates to wipe out spam complaints. (I learned this from a guy who has a 2 million+ list, if you’re really worried about spam complaints do this and watch them drop like a politician’s pants at a brothel.)

• The single best way to (1) reduce spam complaints to near nothing and (2) get people actually *thanking* you for sending them pitches by email.

• What producer Jonathan tracks in his emails that is far more important than opens, clicks, and, yes, even sales. (If you do this your sales will go up anyway.)

Anyway, a merry time was had by all.

Download your open rate-love here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/antipreneur

Ben Settle

Since I hate crowds, hate traveling, and hate spending time away from my dog and my (new) secret lair on the Oregon coast… I don’t go to a whole lot of events.

But, I do leave here at times for speaking and coaching gigs.

(Oceans 4 Mastermind, etc)

Anyway, a couple months ago I put up a page with the details and locations of any future speaking/training gigs in case you want to sally forth and attend said event(s).

I just updated it today with my next appearance (AWAI’s Web Intensive) here:

www.BenSettle.com/blog/elbenbos-schedule

Ben Settle

Noticing a trend happening more and more.

And that trend is, people are prematurely replying without reading or edu-macating themselves on what they’re replying to, or purposely warping facts around to the point where it’s just impossible to take them seriously (as if they’re just looking for attention).

It’s always happened.

(And will happen to you if you use my system, you can bank on it.)

But, I’ve been noticing it getting especially bad over the past year or so.

Example:

In my private flakebook group, one of my subscribers started a discussion about how a particular bullet point (“The surprising “water” miracle that could make your blood REPEL cancer cells and shrink tumors down to nothing”) he had read from an Agora ad was unethical.

I disagreed and defended the bullet.

(I think it’s brilliant, for a variety of reasons).

Then, to take it a step further, I talked about how thoroughly Agora and other big mailer copywriters research these things. They have to, not only do they have internal lawyers, but from what the great A list copywriter Jim Punkre told Daniel Levis in an interview once, sometimes copywriters can be held liable for claims, too. And Chase Revel, founder of Entrepreneur Magazine, once got nailed for making a 100% true and documented claim in his ad — even with a solid “no fault” clause in his contract. Anyway, to illustrate how much research goes into these ads, I told the story about how when Brian Kurtz was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he said the first person he went to for advice on various options, etc was copywriter Parris Lampropoulos.

Why?

Because Parris had researched that topic (for all the direct mail packages he’s written over the years on the subject) better than any doctor Brian knew (well, I will take a chance and assume that’s the case, otherwise why wouldn’t he have went to whoever knew more…)

So what happens?

A response that says my assertion that Parris is the guy to turn to over a DOCTOR (he even capitalized doctor, so he must have been serious) specializing in cancer is absurd.

Ooh.

Guess I should have not said that.

Except, for one little problem:

I didn’t say it.

Nor did I “assert” (or even suggest) people should go to Parris over their doctor. The subject was copywriters and research, not who someone should go to for medical advice. I simply told the story to illustrate how thoroughly copywriters at that level research their topics, and how one man thought so highly of a particular copywriter, he asked for his advice first.

Anyway, the point?

More and more people are either just skimming and then prematurely replying or they’re just being trolls.

And you know what?

If you’re going to say anything the mainstream (in any industry) doesn’t like (in an email, blog post, video, social media comment, etc), you can expect it to happen to you, too.

Maybe not today.

Maybe not tomorrow.

But it will happen and is just a matter of time, my little fledgling.

So be ready.

Be prepared.

And, don’t be shy about calling trolls or premature repliers out.

(Which, as you can see, makes for great email “fodder” anyway.)

Yes, those are not-a-DOCTOR elBenbo’s orders.

One last thing:

If you’re going to subscribe to my “Email Players” newsletter, make sure you read, carefully, the ad for it before subscribing. It’s astonishing how many people subscribe without realizing (1) it’s a print (paper and ink) publication not digital (2) it ships the first week of each month (3) the back issues are not free and (4) they are not really qualified to be subscribing at all, even if they can afford it.

Anyway, that’s it for today.

To read (carefully) more about “Email Players” go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle