Ben Settle

Producer Jonathan and I get down and dirty ripping apart the so-called “law of reciprocity” in today’s Ben Settle Show.

Here’s a small taste of what’s inside:

• A secret way of “arranging” it so when people buy your first product, they immediately and automatically (no sales pitch even necessary in many cases) buy your second, third, fourth, and future products.

• How old school door-to-door salesmen would use the law of reciprocity (correctly, not the current Internet goo-roo way) to get people to eagerly open the door for them to sell their wares. (And, where people would look forward to seeing the salesman again later.)

• What a “pity sale” is, and why you should avoid doing them. (Like the Dark Side of the Force — they seem like a quick and easy way to make sales, but they’ll backfire on you and drain your bank account fast.)

• What your favorite goo-roo doesn’t get about the popular “marketing” book “Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion”.

• Why the so-called law of reciprocity is a shoddy foundation to build a business on.

• The difference between buyers and customers. (And which one is worth more to you over the course of your life.)

• How the law of reciprocity attracts the bottom-of-the-barrel people to you.

• Why people who obsess over the law of reciprocity have a hyper-scarcity mindset.

• The only reason to give away a bribe or premium in exchange for opting in to your list. (Hint: If you’re doing it so you think someone will “reciprocate” and buy from you, you’re basically stepping over dollars to pick up pennies — do it for this reason we talk about instead, and watch how much higher quality of opt-ins you get.)

• What you should be weary of when studying the best, highest-paid salesmen and marketers. (Doing what some of these blokes do will send you into the poor house lickety split. Here’s why…)

• And lots, lots, (lots), more…

Here’s where to download it:

www.BenSettleShow.com/antipreneur

Ben Settle

Waaaaay back on June 6th, 2006 I wrote to my then-much-smaller list about how people were acting kinda bitchy, rude, and weird on that day.

I can still remember that day clearly.

And, I made a little conjecture about it:

Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion” talks about how people are unconsciously influenced by what’s going on in the news. Specifically, how people with suicidal tendencies will be more likely to “all the sudden” get into a fatal car and even plane crashes following news stories of suicides. In fact, Dr. Cialdini is so freaked by this he says in the book he even tries to avoid traveling after news stories about suicide.

And so it was that day.

The date itself was literally influencing peoples’ behavior.

For example:

Women refusing to give birth due to the stigma left on the child’s birth date, schools upping security in case someone wants to use today to pull another “Columbine”, and people all around the world basically expecting something bad to happen that day.

Anyway, so it was.

Speaking of Robert Cialdini:

Tomorrow’s “Ben Settle Show” podcast talks about another ditty written about in his famous book “Influence: The Psychology of Behavior” — specifically, something inside a lot of marketers think they’re being “clever” using, but is most likely killing their sales.

What is this trick people are using?

You shalt see tomorrow.

Until then, check out past episodes here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/antipreneur

Ben Settle

I’m gonna pitch you until I enrich you

Today’s the deadline to get the June “Email Players” issue.

Here’s what’s inside waiting for yo’ azz:

• The simplest marketing funnel (your list is already psychologically “primed” to want to buy from) in the history of Internet marketing.

• Why selling “how to” content is killing your sales. (Yes, my little droogie, we are moving away from the age of selling “how to” content into something completely different. I have been doing a lot of “field research” on this with other marketers far more successful than I am, who all agree. I doubt 1 in 1000 marketers gets this — it did not dawn on my until earlier this year — but those of us who do will be cleaning up in the coming months, years, and decades.)

• The Howard Stern method of using repulsion marketing. (Only a handful of us on the Internet do this to drag in far more sales than we normally would, and now you can, too.)

• Another way to “judo flip” hater and troll comments into sales. (Recently someone complained that I’d sent too many emails talking about trolls lately. He said it was “boring.” If he’d been smart, he’d have askd me *why* I did it. And that reason is… that topic was making the cash register ring. It still does. And, always will. You just have to know how to do it right. Here’s one of the best ways I’ve ever used to turn lies about you, troll comments, or even non-malicious myths people start about what you sell into lots of sales.)

• When you should (and, when you shouldn’t) segment buyers off your list.

• Why I rarely use email for back end offers.

• The secret of the 3rd conversion. (I learned this from the man I consider to be the most underrated marketer on the Internet. People who “get” this and also apply it, almost always see huge spikes in sales over time.)

• A secret way to use Facebook to multiply your sales. (I first heard the power of this while having dinner with Russell Brunson last year — it’s simple and ingenious, and works like crazy to get lots more sales, testimonials, and customers.)

• How to use email to dominate in MLM. (I am not in MLM anymore, but if I was, I would do this exact thing I recently taught an “Email Players” subscriber to recruit dozens of people per month, while spending hardly any time, and dealing with almost zero rejection.)

• The secret of the one-minute presentation.

• And the list marches on…

Today’s the last day to get this issue before it goes to the printer.

Subscribe here to get in on this action:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

In just a couple short days the June “Email Players” issue goes to the printer, so if you want in in time to get it, best hop to it.

Chop! Chop!

Still, there are some (actually many) I don’t want subscribing.

And that is if you…

• Have no list, or no plans to build one (you don’t need a big list, but a list you must have if you want to profit with emails)

• Want super secret “ninja tricks”

• Are in debt (get ye your house in order first)

• Require hand holding (you can ask me unlimited email-related questions, but you still have to think, act and be decisive on your own, yo?)

• Are just “kinda sorta” interested in it

• Don’t implement new information

• Think it’s “expensive” (it’s only $3.23 per day — plus, it’s an investment, not an expense, if you don’t know the difference go ye elsewhere)

• Tend to whine and complain (i.e. are “high maintenance”)

• Are expecting a thick package each month — foolishly judging information by weight and volume instead of content. Each issue is only 16 pages, and sometimes I toss in a bonus book or report, etc. But I don’t overfeed you, bloat you up, make it hard to move — I give you enough to take immediate action and make your $$ back (in spades) each month

Anyhoo…

I’d rather save people some time and money.

So, if you fit the above, it’s best to pass.

For anyone else?

Bring your “A” game here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Behold:

Earlier this year, a question was posed in the private Facebook group I co-own with Ryan Healy that a lot of people have asked over the past few years about list segmenting and my so-called funnel.

The question?

This:

“When it comes to emailing every day, do you treat buyers differently? Or do you send to the same links they just bought from? Wondering how segmenting works for buyers of each level of product when you are emailing daily. (What if they bought entry level product but not second tier or second tier and not third tier?)”

I get why people ask this.

Truly, I doth.

And it’s mainly because (I think) people are merely observing what I do, and not learning “what” I do (or how I do it).

In other words:

They be reverse engineering what I do to this list.

(For BenSettle .com)

Which is understandable, since that’s the only one I publicly talk about or demonstrate, and not thinking it through. By that I mean, they aren’t looking at their own unique market-product-relationship, their goals, their own product line, or their own business.

Instead they’re essentially “swiping” me.

Or wanting to swipe me.

And it’s a big mistake.

(I don’t rail against swiping me for nuttin’).

Anyway, this is a very important lesson.

Whether you are putting me or anyone else under a microscope. And in the June “Email Players” issue I go into great detail about my funnel (and why it’s not going to work for 99% of people), as well as a special way of constructing a funnel that works like gangbusters for most anyone who tries it.

It ain’t the only way to do it.

But, it works.

And, it could very well work for you.

She goes to the printer in a few days.

Subscribe here while there’s still time:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Following is a true story:

A couple weeks ago I decided to help fulfill a dead marketer’s final wish (Stan Billue, who was the world’s greatest phone salesman trainer) by helping his widow with some funeral and cremation expenses. The guy never had health insurance and it looked like all the medical bills in the end ate up a lot of his wealth.

Anyway, I learned a lot from Stan.

And, wanted to help.

So what did I do?

I did a special sale with a tight deadline promising to send anyone who donated a minimum amount to his widow’s fund an “Email Players” issue about some powerful email tactics I learned from Stan’s phone sales tactics. I didn’t make a dime from this, obviously. I paid to mail and print these issues, and it cost me probably a couple hundred bucks when all was said and done.

But, we put a nice dent in the medical bills.

And, of course, right on cue, a couple trolls piped up.

One of who said:

“Now it sounds like your rent is due tomorrow or you are going to buy something and you are short of cash. Just sayin”

My response?

Nothing earth shattering.

Just one of my standard troll slaps.

(I got many up my sleeve.)

Not only for his stupid assumption, but for his lack of thinking it through at all before responding.

Moral of the story?

Not sure there is one.

Except, maybe, act like a troll, get slapped like a troll.

More:

Besides slapping (or just ignoring, which is ideal) trolls, there is a way to profit like gangbusters from them, too.

A way that’s a lot “nicer” than the ways I’ve taught before.

But, is also a lot more profitable.

And guess what?

I reveal it in the June “Email Players” issue. I’ve made out like a bandit using this secret troll response. And, methinks you will, too.

That is if you are a subscriber.

Or, if you subscribe by Friday (the deadline to get it).

Subscribe ye here while you can:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Earlier this year I wrote an email with the subject line:

“Why Email Players is like a period”

Where I made an admittedly crude analogy about the monthly timing of “Email Players”.

I expected a bit o’ mush cookie feedback.

(Some people still don’t think periods, farts, or tampons exist).

And, I admitted as such in the email.

Anyway, “Email Players” subscriber Jon McCulloch replied back with something that was just brilliant about the kind of attitude to show people who try to tell you how to run your business (when what you’re doing is working). Specifically, it was a link to a sound file from the Howard Stern Show. And, it demonstrates the exact attitude I have towards people who offer me dumb unsolicited advice, who complain I don’t treat my list like a democracy (it’s not, it’s a dictatorship), who whine I send too many emails (like when I promoted the Titans DVD’s a few weeks ago sending 17 emails over 4 days… easily the single most profitable promo I’d ever done), and so on.

And guess what?

I loved that clip so much I transcribed it.

And, I include it in the June “Email Players” issue.

(For your reading pleasure.)

Deadline to get in on the June issue is Friday.

Chop! Chop!

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A subscriber gots to know:

Ben, I have to know if you get freaked out when writing controversial emails? You must have a thick skin! Doesn’t the feedback get nasty and angry? Does it freak you out sending emails like that?

Yeah I used to get nervous.

And it can definitely be hair-raising.

But now it’s just pure fun.

I even have a sort of “secret romance” with controversy.

And, get a thrill from the feedback.

It’s like the movie “True Romance”.

Easily one of my all-time favorite flicks.

There’s a scene where a mobster (ironically played by Mr. Soprano himself — James Gandolfini) explains to the character he’s about to whack how it feels to kill someone. The first time was hardest — he puked the first time. The second time was also rough, with the same feeling, but it was better this time — more “diluted.”

Now?

He does it just to watch the expression change.

Freaky, eh?

But it’s similar to how being controversial in emails is.

The first few times put my stomach in knots.

No doubt about it.

It was nerve-wracking pushing “send.”

But each time it got easier.

And easier…

And easier…

Until now, I do it just to read the amusing replies from people who are obviously way too wound up for their own good.

Anyway, it’s not for the “thin skinned.”

But it can be extremely profitable.

If you want to write emails like this, go to:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Behold the persuasion power of storytelling:

So I was hanging out at a local wine tasting room Sunday here in The Burgle (my all-time favorite Oregon winery, btw, called “TesoAria”), when I got to talking to the guy doing the pours about the movie “Sideways”. It’s a pretty cool movie (even if you hate wine) about a couple middle aged dudes who take a week long trip through California’s wine country.

Anyway, they are about to meet some chicks at a restaurant.

But, before they go in, one of the guys says:

If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!

Believe it or not…

This ONE line in an indie movie with a $12 million budget…

Killed Merlot wine sales!

And I mean, just killed them.

It gave Merlot a terrible stigma.

Made people think it sucks.

And, sales dropped everywhere.

Yes, even in other states.

Example:

The guy at the winery I was hanging at said even in Oregon at their winery, Merlot sales plummeted. But, when they changed the name to something else (didn’t call it it Merlot), sales went back up.

The point?

There are several.

Like, wine snobs are idiots and followers.

Test changing your product’s name if sales die off.

But, most importantly…

The power of stories.

Humans are “hard wired” to be persuaded by stories.

And they can work either for or against you.

So tread carefully…

To learn my email methodology, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle