Ben Settle

Over the past several months I’ve been hearing from customers bummed out.

Some have gone into long, detailed explanations about watching their engagement drop, their numbers going down, and a rise in marketplace ‘noise’ and competition amongst other things depending on what market they are in, or what market their client is in. Totally caught them off guard, and they don’t know what to do or where to turn.

If that is you I’ve heard your cries, and I will tell you exactly what to do.

You should get excited.

Why?

Because downturns like this have always been an app-solute opportunity for those smart enough to see the signs, and who have the ambition to begin tripling down on marketing/copywriting knowledge acquisition (it is why I’ve been publishing extra-sized and even double & triple-sized Email Players issues the last year and a half… my boys & ghouls will be prepared), list building, service level you provide, the works. People always wait to do these things until things get bad, and then just stand around with their John Thomas in their hands.

Well you can safely put your John Thomas away.

These things are not only cyclical but downright predictable at this point.

For example:

A lot of what happened during the dot com crash is happening now:

Billions thrown at internet startups, artificially inflated valuations, bank loan dependency, dumb money investors backing bright shiny objects like it’s a sport, people who are great at building followings but can’t market their way out of a paper bag pounding their chests about how great they are as they produce shyt products sold by “sock puppet-level” advertising.

But when it all crashed?

It happened fast.

And people legit didn’t see it coming.

Yes, even despite the big flashing warning signs that always precede such events.

A lot of gurus then ended up moving back home and parking cars for a living.

They all thought the party would never end.

Happened again later again with Google AdWords and SEO slaps, draconian Facebook ad rules, Internet Marketing Syndicate collusion, push-send affiliate offers, Salty Droid-inspired goo-roo counter culture rising up… all of which put a big spotlight on the glut of dumb marketers who thought they were smart just because the government made sure credit was easy to access and their customers had money to spend.

Ask yourself where half the gurus and forum chest pounders back then are today.

History is about to repeat again, or at least be a very loud echo.

This time it’s the glut of ‘startups’, e-commerce brands, cold email bros clogging up inboxes all over hell and gone, AI nerds flooding the internet with lies and hype, and dumb money corporate suits paying influencers to shill nonsense to TikTok brain-addled scrollers who have no intention of every actually buying anything. Even if Clown World wasn’t going to draft half these people to fight in the next younger and hotter war, it would all collapse.

It’s inevitable.

Social media has admittedly made the bubble bigger and last longer.

But it won’t end any different than the others.

Just more fireworks, probably.

And all that artificial noise diluting the legitimate voices (like yours) who are doing the equivalent of sock puppet marketing today with their idiotic TikTok videos and hiding behind cartoon avatars being doxed left and right, showing who they really are (i.e., not who they pretended to be)?

They will disappear like a fart in the wind.

It’s already happening, and it’s only going to accelerate.

All of which means:

Now is the time to position your business to profit from the chaos. Now is the time to double down on investing in your marketing education, your lead gen, your networking, copywriting skills, and list building. Now is the time to start building and growing an EMAIL list (not just your social media following). Now is the time to look for problems to solve for the people on that list, find or create offers to sell them that solve those problems, and start growing a real relationship with them.

Something else:

Later this year I will have a course for freelance copywriters wanting help with this. i.e., The reboot of my 10-Minute Workday program — which is a totally different offer, for totally different times like we’re in now, that also is probably about 80%+ different information than the original, as so much has changed since 2016 when I created that.

But in the meantime?

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Ben Settle

Except for, at least, the great Dan Kennedy:

“I finally went through elBenbo Press page by page during the past couple days. To say the least, it is impressive. As you know, l’ve been in this field for more than 50 years and have seen a lot of “how I do it” books, courses, etc., and have long labeled most as “B.S.”. Rarely does somebody lay out, truthfully, exactly what they have done and do to create and sustain and earn tremendous success as an information marketer, author, publisher. A very few of the ‘old masters’ like Ted Nicholas, Lyman Wood, George Haylings and Dean F. DuVall did. Your magnum opus is more valuable than any of their works.”

At least someone is reading this shyt…

Anyway, elBenbo Press is not currently for sale. I only bring this up because it gives you an idea, I believe, of the kind of quality info you can expect if you’ve never bought anything from me.

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Ben Settle

I recently read quite an interesting insight from a movie writer/producer (I don’t know who it was, he was hidden behind a screen name and avatar) that was as equally obvious as it was profound and eerily timely for anyone up in the marketing world to hear.

The comment he made was:

“Everybody’s famous but nobody’s talented.”

Ain’t that the troof.

It was not like this nearly as much before the rise of social media.

Back then — and especially pre-internet — you had to basically earn any fame.

Now?

You don’t need any talent, knowledge, experience.

I remember even Madonna saying this about her daughter once – that she just shows up on Instagram and gets millions of fans. But she didn’t work for that fame, didn’t earn it with any real accomplishments other than being born to someone who did. And didn’t sweat/bleed/face trials by fire for it… and that it was not a good thing at all.

This is rife in the online business world, too.

When you see someone come out of nowhere, say nothing but some empty platitude or political commentary, and then get all kinds of unusually high praise and adoration… just watch what happens. Most never last long, although social media has extended their half lives I suppose. And those who do last longer than their usefulness tend to self destruct for the reason Earl Nightingale talked about decades ago: they know they aren’t getting paid (in this case, paid not just in money but engagement, likes, whatever) in proportion to their service/knowledge/usefulness.

The results it they burn really bright, then fizzle out just as fast.

I lost count of how many marketing goo-roos this has happened with since the early 2000’s.

It’s practically a trope.

In some cases the boys & ghouls may even have talent. But because they are relying only on a social media platform and it’s constantly-changing algorithms controlled by God-knows-who… they lose everything once that platform is taken away (or the algorithm that favored them changes) and then they don’t know what to do with themselves. And it’s all because they never built anything other than an audience they didn’t have the wisdom to put on a list they could export and, thus, own, like email or direct mail.

I’ve also seen it happen in copywriting more times than I can remember.

For example:

It’s why you have copywriting coaches selling high priced coaching while admitting to guys like me (yes, I know where quite a few of these particular bodies are buried) they feel like imposters because they aren’t all that great at copywriting but everyone likes and believes them on Facebook. Same with all these supposed experts popping up selling whatever the flavor-of-the-month BSO is.

Lots of fame, no talent.

Both fame and talent can be good to have.

But both are all but useless without the other. This has been a plot point in stories for probably thousands of years: guy asks the devil to become talented at art or music or something. Devil gives him that talent. But guy dies penniless and alone anyway, realizing he should have wished for fame and talent not just talent alone…

Anyway, all of this is why the “influencer” bubble is just a Faustian deal.

It will pop or just continue hissing air through an ever-widening gaping puncture hole.

But when it’s over it will also be humbling and devastating to many.

Ans as for these little broccoli heads running around sliding into your DMs pitching you on how to help you make 6-figures when they are literally broke still living at home, spanking out cold DMs from a template they bought, and probably spanking something else too in their basement… while waiting for mom to finish making supper?

They’ll have to get real jobs soon enough.

This goes for a lot of these boys & ghouls with fame but no talent.

Something else:

Now that Creepy Joe is forcing the young’uns to register for selective service that is very likely a prelude to a draft for some new bull shyt war to make a bunch of bankers and wealthy elite richer and you poorer, hoping people are dumb enough to fall for whatever lie is trotted out again to rally everyone together.

Ever hear that phrase “There’s a silver lining in every cloud?”

In this case, due to drafting a lot of them to fight for Satan and his henchmen in Washington DC the number of broccoli heads for the next bull shyt war is guaranteed to cut down on the endless number of cold emails plaguing inboxes the world over.

At least we’ll get some inbox relief, I suppose.

That’s my opinion and forecast.

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Ben Settle

So said the actress and star of one of my all-time favorite 80’s horror movies (Night of the Comet) who has been consulting me on my Zombie Cop screenplay:

Kelli Maroni.

She has told me that several times.

And the context is not to worry about what anyone necessarily thinks. Just write a cool story first and foremost. To illustrate this, she showed me a note written many years ago that said:

To Dan O’Bannon

Dear Dan:

Pursuant to our discussion, I am returning ALIEN.

Thank you for the submission.

Yours very truly,

Louis S. Arkoff

Even ALIEN was rejected… by someone paid a lot of money who clearly did not know anything.

Today the franchise has been (so far) worth nearly $2 billion.

Nobody knows anything indeed.

We got a lot of this in the direct marketing world, too.

Case in point:

One of my Email Players and I recently got to back-and-forthing over a question he had about segmenting and selling subscription offers up front or doing it later. And when answering his question I mentioned it was discussed at length (but not solved — there is no “one” solution to it, just options to try, test, and tinker with) in my upcoming entirely re-recorded and completely re-branded 10-Minute Workday program with AWAI (it won’t be called 10-Minute Workday anymore, totally different offer, so much has changed since 2016…)

And I also told him:

“The older I get, the more I realize nobody really knows anything. Which is ironic in a day and age where everyone thinks they know everything. What a time to be alive..”

So always remember:

Nobody really knows anything. I don’t care what their tests say. I don’t care what your favorite goo-roo says. I don’t even care what the old masters say, what I say, or what anyone else says. There’s a big difference between “what’s working now” for someone else’s business and just “what works” for your business, whether anyone else agrees, blesses, or approves of it.

Focus on the former and you’ll be chasing the market from now until Christmas.

Focus on the latter and the market will chase you.

That’s been my experience.

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Ben Settle

Or at least can give people the will to keep living, trying, not give up.

For example:

About 20 or so years ago I remember listening to a doctor talk about someone who had a terminal illness. I was especially interested in this topic at that time because my dad had a late stage potentially terminal illness himself. And for whatever reason, this patient the doctor was talking about went and holed himself up in a hotel room with nothing but Marx Brothers films. As the story went, the patient emerged weeks later totally health — having literally “laughed himself back to health.”

I’m not making any claims or giving medical advice here.

Let the pedantic types take note…

I’m simply telling you the story I heard about the potential power of entertainment. Many entertainers, movie producers/directors, and writers know full well how entertainment can and does change lives. Not long ago Bounding Into Comics ran an article quoting the director of the ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ game saying the purpose of entertainment is:

“To give the people the will to live, today and tomorrow.”

The late Stan Lee would talk about this a lot as well.

One of my favorite quotes from him was:

“…I have come to realize that entertainment is not easily dismissed…Without it, lives can be dull. Singing a song, playing sports — anything that entertains, that takes people away from their own problems, is good.”

Then there’s the Rocky films.

How many lives have been changed, extended, improved by those movies? How many people got into shape, avoided amputated limbs, strokes, early heart attacks because they saw Rocky and got inspired? We’ll never know. But just anecdotally it’s a lot of people I have known over the years. I suspect many reading this can attest to that as well.

More:

Back in the last Depression it was a known phenomenon that people depressed, out on their arse, unemployed would spend their last few cents not on food but to watch a movie — as it was the ultimate in self medication. Many people reading this on their $900 iPhone who have never missed a meal in their lives would bark about how that was irresponsible. But I’d argue it was very likely a way to psychologically regroup and find the strength to keep going.

My point:

Entertainment is an extremely powerful force.

And if you’re not using it in your marketing/copywriting/emails you’re almost certainly missing out on a ho bunch of sales, happy customers, and opportunities to help your market and bond them to your business in ways your boring competition just parroting the same benefits as everyone else cannot touch with a 12 foot cattle prod.

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Ben Settle

By forces of evil I refer to gov and corporate bureaucrats with lots of power who take a, shall I say… “interest” in your righteous business.

In no particular order:

* Have 10+ merchant accounts, minimum and even more if you can find them, and use a gateway service that lets you rotate them so no one merchant account gets all the sales at any given time

* Make it a goal to become a platform unto yourself like all the extremely polarizing people you either love to hate or hate to love who always grow more influential the more they are attacked, hated, prosecuted, and persecuted

* It only takes one rogue employee or bureaucrat at a tech platform or bank or in the government who doesn’t like you to lose access to all your data and ability to sell

* Have an email list on a privately owned platform that is not run or financed (i.e., corporate or bank loan funded) you mail regularly and back up daily to at least 3 places besides your phone: like a secure cloud untouched by any big tech… your own hard drive of course… and if you’re really paranoid put it on a flash drive on a keychain you take with you everywhere you go…

* Realize any device with a speaker in your home or place of business can and probably will be turned into a microphone…

* Never say or write anything online (anywhere, in any app, in any email exchange, yes, even if you think it is “private” and secure — including in Gmail even if a draft you don’t send) you wouldn’t say in front of a judge or jury deciding your fate, the police, a hostile reporter, and especially the folks who provide you merchant account, banking, or other professional services your business relies on

* In other words… before writing that joke or making that flippant reply imagine it being discussed at a deposition passed around the room (happened to me once… very sobering) or in front of a jury or group of alphabet agency people trying to decide what to do to you and then proceed accordingly…

* Assume there is no such thing as truly being “anon” — hiding behind a cartoon or statue avatar on Twitter is fine and well, but assume you’ll be ratted out or discovered some day and behave accordingly now, if you want to have a chance to save yourself from a lot of potential bull shyt later

* Assume every sales page on your site, every email to your list, every webinar pitch you give will be looked at by a competitor with one of the alphabet agencies in his hip pocket wondering if you’re competition

* The above is where legitimately advanced copywriting, email, & selling game comes into play

* Have all ads and sales pages reviewed by a sharp attorney

* Impose harsher and stricter rules for any claims in your advertising and in following direct marketing laws than even the alphabet agencies require

* Learn how to make the skeleton dance (turn legitimate flaws into benefits/reasons to buy) and  learns how to monetize haters/trolls/slanderers/1-star reviewers/media reporters/goo-roos, etc — not only can it be good for sales, but can also help make your business the proverbial “porcupine” surrounded by aggressive creatures wanting to bring you down

* However paranoid you think you are, you ain’t nearly paranoid enough

* You’ll know you’re probably doing it right when the death threats, black mailing, doxing, swatting, and coordinated de-platforming attempts begin…

* Read Gary Halbert’s The Dark Side of Success newsletter issue (easily found online), then read it again, and again… and again… and then read it several more times, especially if you are seeing quick success and find yourself getting overly arrogant

* Consider alternate forms of generating income that do NOT rely at-all on merchant accounts, customers, clients, or being in the spotlight in any way like investing/Options trading (like taught at Low Stress Trading) or a local side business in your community (one of the things we will be doing with Stefania’s business when Willis is a little older), etc

* When your business gets big enough you might want to have your business and asset affairs set up like politicians set theirs up… (will not explain, and, frankly, am not even qualified to)

* It probably won’t always be this way, just ride it out for the next 5-15 years, after the inevitable collapse it will straighten out depending what part of the country you live (if in the US, at least) when it happens

None of this is legal advice obviously

And it won’t all apply to most reading this anyway.

Just depends on your business, niche, market, product category, size, revenue, etc.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately for reasons I won’t go into here.

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Ben Settle

Following is something for the:

“I just want to write content but not sell every day”

…boys & ghouls I’ve heard from over the years. Those who really just don’t like copywriting, marketing, selling. And for who it’s a “necessary evil” they grit their teeth and do. I could give it some kind of snazzy marketing name. But I prefer to just call it:

“The Product-less Business Plan”

I have not done it myself.

But I suspect it would be ideal for those who love writing, but hate selling.

Here goes:

1. Grow email list

2. Pick topic you love writing about

3. Write 1000+ word article every day to list

4. Put short pitch at end or in the middle or somewhere visible for running ads in your emails (just because you hate selling and marketing, doesn’t mean there ain’t plenty in your niche who’d love nothing more than to sell and market to your list..)

5. Start making deals with potential advertisers who respond

6. Copy & paste an ad that an advertiser already wrote & paid you for in each daily email

7. Enjoy life

Probably way too simple for most.

Especially those who want something complicated, with multi-step funnels, year-long launch campaigns, nurture sequences, upsells, downsells, cross sells, and and endless string of coaches, masterminds, events, and consultations. But the above is for those who are passionate about a topic they love writing about, want to share that content with people, and be able to charge advertising to marketers in that niche who sell to people in that niche.

I don’t know if these numbers below would work out exactly for everyone.

But just a thought:

Imagine if you had a list of, say, 5,000 opt-ins passionate about the topic.

Many who eagerly tune into your musings each day.

And with no shortage of people wanting to advertise.

Now, imagine you charged, say, $500 to run an ad in each email. Maybe place it somewhere for the diehards to see, but easy for the bums on your list who think you should work for free, toil away for free, and just send them free stuff each and every day like you’re Santa Claus to ignore.

$500 per day x 30 days = $15k per month.

All without you writing any ads, and without really selling a “product.”

Totally hypothetical, of course, so take with giant grain of chili pepper.

I merely wrote this as a springboard for ideas & what could be possible.

All right so that’s something to chew on.

And while you’re chewing:

You can get the first issue (as a PDF) of my paid Email Players newsletter free here:

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Ben Settle

A couple months ago I got this email from a veterinarian:

Hi Ben!

We love you and Zoe as clients! To say thank you, we’ve got a new mobile app for you and your animal companions. It helps manage their lives so you don’t have to! Plus:

* Request Appointments 24/7

* Pet Pickup Notifications

* Create and store all your pet’s reminders

Sounds like a mighty fine service for pet owners.

I will certainly give them that.

But, here’s the problem:

Last time Zoe went to this vet was 9 years ago, way back when I lived in

The Burgle. She has since long passed away and joined the Kennel Invisible a year and a half ago. And yet, this vet is sending me this ditty about how much they love having my deceased pet as a client. Anyone who owns pets knows

their lifespans are short — and so I guarantee you I am not the only one who had a “WTF is wrong with you people?” moment when seeing that.

Bottom line?

Not even my paid Email Play

ers newsletter can f

ix email marketing this bad..

Anyway, not a problem for 99.9% of marketers.

But a cautionary tail — as Zoe would have put it — nonetheless.

Speaking of Email Players, you can learn more about it here:

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Ben Settle

So said the kooky Irishman Stephen in the movie Braveheart.

I got to thinking about that recently, and how those of us who grew up without an iPhone in hand or internet access while in constant fight or flight mode binging movies like Alien, Terminator, War Games, even Maximum Overdrive… tend to have a visceral distrust of machines, crypto, AI, digital products, technology, the government, and other institutions run by utter morons who have power over the populace — especially services people rely on.

And for good reason.

Marcus Gill ‘splains:

Ben,

Your view of AI is spot on.

We live in Houston, 4th largest city in America, 

Harris County 3rd largest in America.

Advanced tech modern city blah blah blah..

Two weeks ago One sudden unexpected Hurricane/tornado instantly took us back to the Flintstones in less than 1 hour.

From 

Uber eatz at the push of a button

To 

Pitch black. No A/C in 100 degree heat.

“Sorry, cash only” everywhere if they could function.

Neighbors stuck in elevators and no traffic lights etc

ALL bc  1-2 main towers and several lines were knocked down.

Thousands of contractors flooding the streets from out of state still cannot fix it fast enough.

We have had several storms in Texas since.  

The shortages are real.

so

AI ain’t a threat. Not even close.

Not knowing how to live off the land or work with your hands, or knowing the trades is.

Writing copy (by hand even) is.

Thinking like a prepper is no longer fringe here.

So keep preaching.

But alas, distrusting technology doesn’t mean not using it.

Or, in an online marketer’s case, shamelessly profiting from it.

Case in point:

We heard from several people who bought my “Email Bastard!” offer a couple weeks ago asking what cart we used for it. And, even more importantly, people wanted to know if it was our ContraCart software? (That I have been mercilessly teasing for over two years now – most recently in the Email Players Comicbook #2 I sent Email Players subscribers back in January to commemorate the newsletter’s 150th issue.) And if it was ContraCart, will it ever be for sale or am we just gonna leave them hanging forever?

It’s a fair question.

And here is my unfair answer:

Selling a cart is a gigantic, logistical, and maybe even unsustainable for our small team task to do it as a service — and so we just shelved it as an offer, and decided to just selfishly use it for our own internal use instead selling Learnistic and BerserkerMail-related offers. It always sounds like a good idea to sell ContraCart, and we know a lot of people could certainly benefit from it… until we run alll the variables involved, after which we just want to reach for the ibuprofen. But all the recently feedback did get us at least talking about it again. And it was not all that surprising to hear about the flaws in a lot of the cart software our boys & ghouls use.

So who knows?

Maybe it will happen or maybe not.

There are certainly no timeframes either way.

And even if we do, it’ll only be for sale to BerserkerMail and/or Learnistic clients.

In the meantime:

If the demand continues it’s far more likely to happen.

If not?

We’ll just use the cart for our own offers.

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Ben Settle