Ben Settle

Back in August I published a book on Amazon called “BizWorld.”

(About business World-Building)

I’d been writing about the subject since 2014, and it was quite well received considering its esoteric nature. So well received, in fact, I’m going to be publishing another far more expensive and way more comprehensive book about World-Building later this year. It will be made up of the various Email Players issues I’ve written over the last few years on the subject + I might also (if I have time) do some 1-on-1 consults with various long time customers applying this to their unique situations, and include the transcripts of those calls.

But, not everyone liked BizWorld.

Like, for example, one of the complaints in the reviews was:

“There’s too much repetition!”

Yeah, Spanky, it literally says that in the Amazon description.

And it says that in the description for the sole purpose of deterring people who hate repetition or don’t understand the value in repetition. It also says it in the intro, too. And all that repetition is also necessary for the reader to dig out the deeper concepts to see the same information told from different perspectives.

People who need “new!” are always behind the 8 ball in whatever discipline they’re learning.

Solomon wasn’t just whistlin’ dixie when he said there is nothing new under the sun.

There are merely different ways of doing what’s already been done, or different ways of combining what’s already been taught, or different ways of looking at problems, different ways of expressing knowledge, or different ways of thinking about ideas.

i.e., giving and receiving options for thinking differently, as the late Patrice O’Neal used to say.

Which, in and of itself, is not new.

But in my opinion it’s still quite profound when you apply it if you teach in any way and want what you teach to stick in peoples’ mind, and possibly even change the way they think – which is the goal of everything I teach in my business.

I’m very much a fan of what Earl Nightingale said:

“A mind reshaped by a new idea never regains its original form”

Something, not-so-surprisingly, I had to hear him repeatedly say a dozen or so times before it finally stuck in my head and re-shaped the way I approach my entire business about five years ago, after which more growth happened in my business since then than in the prior 17 years I’d been in business before that.

Maybe that is just coincidence, but I doubt it.

More:

Constantly going wide without going deep on something means never really mastering that which they are trying to learn. And oftentimes the best way to go deep is through repetition, application, failure, trying again – rinse, repeat, forever, of the same info, and especially the fundamentals.

A couple brain farts on this:

1. In Dan Kennedy’s excellent Renegade Millionaire course he admits, clearly and almost proudly, that he’s been teaching the same information for decades to the same customers – and especially to his most successful customers who come back over and over and over to learn it, re-apply it, go deeper with it.

2. Paul Hartunian (the publicity guy) had a monthly print newsletter that ran for over 600 issues before he basically retired. I was subscribed to it for at least a good 5 years or maybe longer (I lost track) before he retired it. And those issues are almost ALL repetition of the exact same 10-15 or so fundamentals by my count and from what I remember, that he taught in his course. Often they were applied to businesses and industries that have nothing to do with my own (dentists, plumbers, etc). And yet, I’d devour each issue, think about it, and have lots and lots of light bulb moments that I used, and still use, in my business today — including a way I’ll be testing soon to promote BerserkerMail.

Anyway, here’s why I am bring this up:

Repetition in a way that talks about the same thing over and over, but from different perspectives, over time, is probably the single most powerful “cheat sheet” there is for both learning and teaching.

Which is probably why so few do it.

And, also, it’s probably why so few people ever achieve any kind of real mastery in anything or get known for anything or add anything new to the body of knowledge in their industry/profession/trade/niche – which is quite ironic, too.

Exceptions obviously exist.

But, in my experience, they are few and far between.

Another story about this:

Back in the late 1990’s I was in MLM, and the company did a lot of business with Kevin Trudeau. For all KT’s faults, his public speaking & training game is about as good as I’ve ever seen even to this day. And during one of his talks, and I still remember this very clearly, he said it was good to listen and re-listen to the same training tapes over and over and over.

His reason:

No, the information won’t have changed,

But YOU will definitely have changed.

Thus, it’s almost like it’s new info every time you change, grow, fail, succeed, have new info that you can now apply in the context of that info you’d already heard, and the list goes on. In some ways that advice has been more profitable to my business than probably any other one piece of advice I’ve ever learned in this racket. It’s why I go through anything of importance not once or twice, but often 10 times. And then I’ll go through it once or twice a year after that in a lot of cases. And each time I dig some new insight, idea, or inspiration from it that leads to something I never would have done otherwise – and many of them are things that have added the most success to whatever it is I am applying it to.

Example:

I used to keep track of these things, probably out of some kind of OCD or something. But before I lost the note card I was keeping track of it with during a move several years ago, I went through Gary Bencivenga’s Farewell course some 35 times, and still go through it at least once or twice per year.

Same with Matt Furey’s original email course.

On his blog there is a post where, in the in the P.S. he says:

“In fact, one of the greatest email copywriters of all times, Ben Settle, says he has listened to this series at least two dozen times… and counting.”

It’s definitely more like nearly three dozen times by now.

(And it’s a 10+ hour long course, so you have context).

Same with Ken McCarthy’s copywriting course.

When I wrote the sales letter for it back in 2005-2006 I went  through it 13 or 14 times.

Same with Gene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising – well over 20x’s since 2004 when I first read it – and I still grab insights & ideas from each read, with notes and headline ideas and sentence transition (he was great at that) ideas, and whole new offer/product ideas from a sentence that caught my attention during repetition. Repetitively reading that book is, in many ways, one of the reasons I started experimenting with comicstrip-style ads, even though there is maybe 6 – 10 words on the subject in the book. And those ads then helped inspire my book Markauteur which is not only my most expensive book ($1,108.00, unless it’s on sale, which it will be in a day or two), but one of my most profitable too. Not to mention just working on that book has led to several opportunities that never would have happened otherwise I won’t bother going into here. I’m also going to be experimenting with comicstrip style ads in a totally different way than I have been the last few years (where I created a running storyline that started with the January 2022 Email Players issue and will end with the December 2024 Email Players issue) starting in 2025 Email Players issues that I am going to be writing them, next week. All from a stray sentence in a book I’ve read over and over and over.

And on and on and on it goes, with many other books:

Including books like Ken McCarthy’s System Club Letters (which, TMI, was my bathroom reading for 8 years straight… not even exaggerating, have read it over 50 times probably by now), Dan Kennedy’s Ultimate Sales Letter and Ultimate Marketing Plan books, all the copywriting-themed issues (which I bought as a spiral bound book from the late Scott Haines back in, I think, 2003) of Gary Halbert’s newsletter, and Joe Vitale’s 7 Lost Secrets of Success (which is probably the sole reason I got into direct marketing and copywriting), as well as Halbert’s Boron Letters book (which, thank God, I bought for nearly $100 when I was dirt broke as it forced me to take the info way more seriously, can trace untold profits to that single book).

And the list goes on.

The more I repetitively read, re-read, and keep re-reading the same books/courses, the more I draw from them, the more insights/ideas/money I make, and the more my evil grows…

I don’t know where else I am going with this.

Probably this has been very repetitive in some ways, of prior emails I’ve already written.

And that is as it should be, for all the reasons I went into here.

If you’re addicted to new, always chasing new, are obsessed with new you are losing out on a lot of growth. And if that is the case, stop, force yourself to look at the top 2 or 3 resources you’ve gained the most knowledge from, and go through them 10x each.

Do that and I defy you not to grow, get better, become more successful.

Enough about World-Building.

Let’s talk more about email marketing instead.

To learn more about my paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Here are 13 big potential benefits of your business having a curated & responsive email list.

1. Sales, of course

2. Security, as you should not have to rely on any one client or any one customer

3. Ownership, if you can export it you own it, unlike the free social media platforms

4. Portable, your list goes where you go

5. Cash flow, if short on scratch just cook up a great offer and let the hounds out

6. Demand, lots of marketers like doing business with the guy with the curated list

7. Testing lab, you can test ideas or offers on demand in “real time” whenever you want

8. Valuable, far more valuable than a social media following

9. Accessible, I once read in an article (I think it was on Studyfinds) the average person online is on 500 email lists – and if that’s even 25% true then the whole ‘nobody reads emails!’ shtick is an even dumber statement than those of us in the know with email already figured it was

10. ROI, higher than any other marketing media I ever done heard of

11. Easy segmentation, you can slice & dice it any way you want

12. Control, you have enormous control over your business — from cashflow, to opportunity, to who you want to do business with (or not do business with), to how you want to run your business, what you sell, what message you want to spread, and the list goes on

13. No traditional offer required, you can literally sell ad space in your list to other businesses (something I wish more marketers did) like I did yesterday

That’s how you can potentially get that “big click energy”, Spanky.

Especially those who rely on clients and or certain customers.

In my experience:

It’s when you have all the above going for you… with a growing, curated email list you mail on the regular, with great copy and quality offers, when you are in a prime position where your confidence can automatically soar, your sales can automatically soar, and your sales “posture” (where you legitimately — you don’t have to beat your chest about it – couldn’t care less if any one customer or client stays or leaves, which is irresistible and I’d even say mandatory when selling to skeptical and discerning buyers) can automatically soar.

It’ll show in your body language.

And in the way you talk.

And of course in the way you write.

So grow your email list every day, even if it’s just doing something – anything – to do so. And treat it like the beating heart of your business it is. Literally grow & mail it as if your business’ life depends on it.

Because in many ways, it does.

In the meantime, go here for more info on the paid Email Players:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A great question about email length:

“…you say you shoot for an email length of around 200-400 words, but most of your emails as of late have run between 900-1200 words. Any particular reason for this shift or do you just have a lot more to say these days?”

My answer:

When I first started doing daily emails I bought into the shtick that they should be short (few lines and a link). Then, I wisened up and realized it’s better to write full length emails. And at the time I was having a lot of success with 300-500 words. It wasn’t a hard rule. But it did force me to learn how to write pithy, get to the point, basically take my first draft and cut it in half in word count while still making it work.

A very powerful writing exercise, incidentally.

I still recommend that to those not used to writing emails.

But it is more of a general guideline until one learns the craft of pithy writing. Especially since people like to go off on tangents about the time aunt Martha made soap in the grove but that has nothing at all to do with whatever they are selling. But it did not take long to realize longer emails can be a whole lot better in my business when I started experimenting with 600, 700, even 900+ word emails.

And the exact opposite happened that I originally thought would:

My sales and engagement usually went up.

Certainly the quality of customer was much higher.

Not every time, in every case, with every promo.

But as long as I was using solid direct response copywriting, writing from the gut, and doing it with intensity and lots of Forward Intent (purposely making it a little harder and taking a little more time than  needed, not just going through the motions), they almost always were getting more sales, engagement, replies, trolling (which is good, for a whole variety of reasons I won’t go into here), forwards to peers/friends, invites to teach on podcasts and speak at events, ideas for whole books and courses coming to me as I was writing them, and the list goes on.

The short ones of 300 – 500 words?

Good, but not nearly as much.

Although I still mix them into my campaigns.

Probably the single most overall engaging email (it wasn’t selling anything) I ever wrote was on January 1 last year – which was a 2,500+ word, 6-page email eulogy for my dog Zoe who had just passed a few days earlier.

That got tons of replies, stories shared, relationships strengthened, etc.

Many of those people ended up becoming customers last year, too, I noticed. Which is just further proof not everything can be tracked with a spreadsheet. Frankly, the intangibles are far more long term profitable in my experience.

(Which I wrote an entire Email Players issue about last Fall)

Nowadays:

I’m often hammering out 1,500 – 2,000 word emails without even thinking about it or caring or even looking at the word count unless I just am curious for whatever reason. The 25+ emails last month that sold the 150th milestone Email Players issue were clocking in at over 2,000 words in most cases. Those long emails + plus the insane nature of the offer turned into around 70 new subscribers.

Many of them took various upsells, etc.

And many will be with me for months and years to come.

Impossible to calculate how much those emails are “worth.”

But it ain’t exactly chicken feed..

Anyway, it all reminds me of something the man universally considered to be the world’s greatest living copywriter Gary Bencivenga once said about direct mail when he granted an interview to Ken McCarthy nearly 20 years ago, that is proving to be just as true for my business in email today:

“Anyone who says long copy doesn’t work is out of their minds”

All right, end of story.

More on my email methodology here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

In which the question was asked:

Why do you choose not to use a greeting at the top of your emails?

You go right into it.

I thought personalization helps connect with the audience. Did you once greet the subscriber by their name? Why did you stop?

I stopped doing salutations probably around 2008 or 2009.

And here are a few reasons why:

1. They don’t matter to the audience I’ve built, and if they did matter to someone that person is in the wrong saloon anyway

2. Less info for someone to screw up on inputting in the opt in form — as it is, the number of people who reply with “I agree” to the confirmation email telling them to click the button to confirm (instead of clicking the button they’re told they need to click to confirm) is astounding… and I legit wonder how some of those types dress and feed themselves

3. A lot of blue flame specials desperate for attention or who want to look like edge lords put in some dumb word for a first name on those forms for fun or to try to troll or whatever, and I figure why encourage ‘em?

4. The subject line is far more important than the salutation

5. The from line is far more important than the subject line

6. In my experience if you get those two right then salutations not only don’t help or matter one way or the other as far a sales go… but might even hurt depending on the market/list/people on that list

7. People I want to sell to or do business with already know it’s not me really writing them one on one

8. If the people you want to sell to legit think your salutation means you are writing to them personally, then maybe you should use one — and if by some miracle they are good buyers all the power to you

9. I don’t believe a single word anyone who claims to have tested salutations in emails to the sale (lots of people claim “clicks” and “opens” – neither of which I care about) says for a whole laundry list of reasons I won’t bother going into here

10. All that said, I have never said people “shouldn’t” use them, I simply don’t

11. I say that for the little peabodies who will now run around saying I am telling everyone not to use salutations in emails when I am not saying that at all

Lots of people put words in my mouth I have noticed.

And, in some cases, even give me credit for saying things I have never said.

So it goes on the internet.

To learn my full email methodology go here next:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

This’ll probably rattle a bunch of guys on my list — young and old.

But following is my (totally unsolicited) advice to the 4 generations of men selling online.

Here we is:

* Boomers – that same resistance you had to the internet that held you back (still holding some of you back) is probably not helping your business now with mobile app tech. Forcing everyone to consume your digital content only on a desktop in a browser-only-accessible membership site or on CD/DVD or USB flash drive is not the end of the world, still profitable, but not doing your clients and customers any favors when the vast majority want to consume digital content on a phone via a mobile app with ability to control the experience beyond what a web browser or even “mobile optimized” (which means nothing) allows. People literally sleep and shower with their phones, and stroke it in the middle of the night like Gollum stroking the One Ring in his cave of gloom.

That’s where your customers are 24/7, not hauling their desktops around.

There are some exceptions, of course, but not all that many.

And no, I don’t like any of this any more than you do.

(I want the internet to go back to plain text).

But embrace the mobile app technology if you dare..

* GenX – it’s endlessly fun watching Millennials & Boomers yell at each other, while simultaneously mocking Zoomers who think they are the “rEsiSTanCe!!” on their $800 iPhones simping for big pharma, big government, big corporate, and whatever foreign country the warmongering neocon media tells them to wave flags for. But all our GenX apathy, doom-pilling, & angry-celebrating the coming inevitable collapse probably won’t help your own long term business survival.

Especially since more and more Boomers are retiring and/or dying.

Millennials still don’t know if they want to be capitalists or socialists when they grow up.

And Zoomers can’t seem to even figure out what gender they are.

So if GenX doesn’t make business great again who will?

* Millennials – yes you were targeted by greedy bankers and clueless teachers about “needing” to get into over $100k in debt to go to college, only to find yourself with a near worthless degree and still living at home as your boomer parents (who bought a house for $50k that would cost you over $500k today, while flooding your country with 3rd world invaders to do the work you supposedly won’t) who just tell you to have more “grit.”

It’s no wonder socialism & drinking yourself into a stupor at brunch is so attractive.

But if you don’t want to eat bugs (or your pets, like in other socialist paradises) some day… and if you enjoy indoor plumbing… you’re gonna have to get sac up and get to work.

Who knows?

You may even like it…

* Zoomers – even mainstream doctors are worried your testosterone levels are abysmally low for your age even as the mainstream media pushes for you to put on a dress and cut off your John Thomas. And it’s wreaking havoc on your work ethic, butchering your inability to handle criticism or differing opinions… and has you desperately chasing every bandwagon the corporate media and educational establishment dangles in front of you making you think you’re some kind of rebel, when it’s the exact opposite.

Following is a 30-day challenge virtually guaranteed to drive up those flaccid numbers.

For the next month:

* abstain from watching any pornos

* delete TikTok cold turkey

* lift heavy weights

* start learning a combat skill where you might get hit in the face on the regular

Come to think of it:

The above 30-day challenge is good for any man — young or old.

To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

P.S. I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but I will for the solipsistic reply guys:

All of this is obviously generalizing, the macro is not the micro, and this email is not about “you” or any one individual. There’s good and bad, smart and dumb, productive and unproductive, successful and unsuccessful in every generation. The above is simply my observation of generations as a whole, after collectively hearing from, dealing with, selling to, and buying from probably thousands of peoples’ businesses in these various categories in this direct marketing game.

You can reject or ignore it at your displeasure.

But I wouldn’t recommend doing so.

There’s a lot of market research packed into this email between the lines I’ve used quite profitably.

And you can, too, if you parse it correctly..

Over the years many have asked your humble daily email horror host about ways to motivate themselves to do the writing they want to do for emails, sales copy, courses, books, even things like fiction.

The obvious answer to them is to just sac up and do the work.

But, one tip I can trace a whole lot more content written, created, sold in my business to is simply reading lots and lots and lots biographies from people who accomplished a lot of work and projects in their lives.

I started doing focusing mostly on reading bios back in 2019.

And since then, I don’t think the sheer output of writing dwarfing everything I did the 17 years before that up in this copywriting and marketing business is a coincidence.

The reason for bios ain’t so much instructional though.

Very little “how to” info in bios.

No, it’s just practical:

i.e., You realize real quick how little time you have in this world.

If you’re a young turk full of piss & vinegar, fresh off the chair with the barber cape removed after getting your latest broccoli haircut this won’t be as easy to grasp than if you’re an old fart in his 40’s, 50’s, and beyond. But when you read lots of biographies of people who got a lot of things accomplished in their lives, and see them from birth (or before birth — most bios start with their parents’ lives) all the way to the moment they wheezed out their last breath, it can’t help but give you a better sense of your own mortality.

It’s no different than when you hear about someone dying.

Funerals and death remind the living that we’re all mortal and gonna die.

My pal and the guy who has the privilege and honor of publishing my deranged Enoch Wars and Villains books titles on Amazon Greg Perry likes to talk about how old school preachers used to get people’s heads on straight. And they did it by simply pointing out the window at the graveyard, and reminding them they’re all gonna end up there sooner rather than later, with no other lecturing to stop sinning and get right with God needed.

The grave has always been the “great equalizer.”

Once you’re there, that’s it. And while this may or may not apply to anyone else — I can say after reading quite a few good bios over the past several years, it definitely has given me more of a sense not just or urgency…

But emergency.

I don’t have to coax or force myself to get up and write.

If anything — and Stefania can attest — I’m up an hour or two earlier than I have to, in my office, banging away at whatever project with reckless abandon. I have way too much work to do to do anything else but either write or think about writing whenever I’m not writing, in order to better prep for the next time I sit down to do some more writing.

The money is obviously one motivation.

As is legacy.

(Which having a son has certainly gotten my head out of my arse about.)

But so is this impending specter of doom constantly hovering over my shoulder and whispering in my ear, letting me know I better hurry up because I only got so much time left… thanks to reading all these bios of people that ultimately died, and some of them frustrated with lots of unfinished work.

Another thing about bios:

If you read ones about people who died young it’s even more motivating.

It is a powerful reminder that you got things you want to get done, and if you’re like me where the more you get done the more ideas you’ll get for other things you want to do… reading bios of long dead people (I rarely read bios of people still living), seeing their entire lives from tugging on the teet to being put in the ground can be a tremendous motivation for doing a lot of writing, creating a lot of content, growing your business a lot bigger and faster than you would have otherwise.

A caveat about all the above:

This all could admittedly be just a morbid quirk of my personality though.

As I’m the kinda guy who watches a Hitchcock movie, for example, and constantly pauses it throughout just to Google how the actors in the movie ultimately died. I also thought the first Faces of Death (not the sequels) movie was extremely fascinating, too, in its own gruesome way for much the same reason.

So I really have no idea how many people will find this bios tip useful much less will do it.

But it’s not something I’ve seen anyone talk about.

So that’s that.

I talk about purely writing stuff like this on in the paid Email Players newsletter at times.

More about that here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Last month I sent out an email that gave advice to a Nigerian copywriter.

Specifically, it was all about how they can be more trusted, write sales copy that doesn’t get them deleted on sight due to stigma, & get clients & customers all in on them by focusing on what I described as a market-first vs marketing-first approach. And that email got me several more replies than usual.

But two of the replies were more interesting than all the others.

I’ll let you see why I say this for yourself:

Response #1:

“People are gonna be so mad because of the lack of specificity your answer provided”

Response #2:

“Wow, this is actually me you are talking about here. I was the Nigerian guy that sent you that message. It was last year I sent it. This is the second time I am seeing that email advice. Well,  I had learnt from that message. I really want to say thank you.”

Two totally different responses.

From two totally different people.

Who had two totally different experiences with the exact same email.

Easily the most ironic feedback I’ve received all year.

No real point to this.

Other than the lesson about how two people can read the exact same email copy and walk away with two totally different experiences, and knowing which one to focus on, and which one not to focus on.

More about the paid Email Players newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Behold a cautionary tale:

One of the reasons I am so skeptical about AI-generated content of any kind (not just emails and sales copy) is because every time I’ve seen it, I’ve been reminded of a guy I know up in this business who I suspect is a bonafide sociopath. No, not the “Dexter” kind of sociopath who’ll drug you at an event, and then you wake up in another room bound by plastic wrap to a table with pictures of all the people you’ve wronged kind of sociopath.

This particular guy is more of a benevolent sociopath.

A sociopath is simply someone who’s not “wired” to care about anyone else. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t. And while probably 95% of people reading this email probably know who this fellow is, those same 95% would have absolutely no idea he is a sociopath by talking to him if they didn’t know how sociopaths operate, communicate, and, frankly, survive in society without being exiled, jailed, or even executed (by the state, someone they wronged, whoever).

Personally, I don’t think they live very easy lives.

And before anyone asks:

No, I am NOT going to say who it is, or give a single “clue” or anything like that — so don’t bother asking. It’s not the point of this, and I have no desire to dox him, or do him any harm whatsoever, as he is not out there screwing anyone over from what I’ve seen, even if he’s racked up quite a few enemies (as well as intensely loyal friends and fans).

But let me give you an example of what I mean:

I remember being at a seminar we both spoke at many, many years ago. And during his talk I remember him starting to cry at an odd point when telling his story. It was odd because, one, it wasn’t really all that sad of a story in the first place. And, two, he did it during a part of the story where it made zero sense to cry.

He was off by a few “beats” at least.

And it was kinda jarring.

The person sitting with me noticed the same thing:

“Why’s he crying?”

And when I looked at other people around us, you could see the confusion on some of their faces, too, while the majority were intensely engaged totally oblivious they were listening to utter bull shyt.

It was just a very strange thing.

And that was when I realized he was almost certainly a sociopath — meaning, he lacks the ‘wiring’ to care about people. Again, I am not saying he screws people over (to my knowledge, at least). But he does seem to lack humanity: that piece of what makes normal people human, makes us feel empathy, makes us feel guilt, fear, sadness, shame, loss, whatever.

In other words:

He thinks more like a machine than a man —

Very cold, very calculating, and with zero remorse.

If I am correct about him, and I may no be, admittedly (this is a cautionary tale, not an FBI investigation), then even if he did screw someone over, he wouldn’t really be bothered by it. Or if he fleeced someone of everything and got them framed for a crime, he wouldn’t even bat an eye. It just wouldn’t emotionally register.

Personally, I do think he’s been taught the difference between right and wrong.

And that is why he doesn’t do these things.

This isn’t a seminar on how to ID sociopaths though.

(See Ken McCarthy’s magnificent copywriting course for that.)

It’s simply an example of how someone with little or no empathy — like AI — thinks.

It will always lack humanity.

Just like the guy above who is great with statistics, looking coldly at numbers, and being an overall Psychological Marketer (like I described in the September 2023 Email Players issue)… but he has to fake human emotions and behavior in order to fit in. Some of the really dangerous sociopaths are almost supernaturally good at faking humanity and do a lot of evil things. Think Ted Bundy who was almost supernaturally good at being “more human” than regular humans when it came to faking humanity. But if you know what to look for, you know something is “off” and can adjust your action accordingly.

On a side note:

This was very accurately shown in the TV show Dexter with the Sgt. Doakes character.

He got a creepy vibe from Dexter, but couldn’t rationalize it, just knew it was there.

Point is, there is no real human connection there.

No humanity.

And it shows in how the guy I am referring to sells and even tells stories.

Which brings me to the point:

That’s your AI like fapGPT, etc, too.

AI cannot be human, so will always lack humanity, even if it tries to pose as human, copies humans, pretends to be humans, takes that data and improves at trying to be human even though it’s not human and never will be human. There are many legit uses for AI, and I have to make that clear for the peanut gallery obsessed with all-things AI. And while you can obviously do whatever you want, I would not rely on it for anything other than cold calculations, brainstorming (like you would a swipe file), research, and other tasks that require no real humanity. I certainly would NOT use it for creating — whole cloth — emails, sales copy, content, customer service (does you really like talking or chatting to prompts when you have a serious customer service question?) or anything that requires genuine humanity.

And just to be clear about something else:

When I say “humanity” I’m referring to that unique spark of individuality that is you and nobody else. Humanity cannot be copied, it cannot be “prompted,” and it can’t really even be “reverse engineered.” You cannot “prompt” your way into a relationship — romantic, friendship, or otherwise — unless you’re one of these deviants who buys secks dolls or, I suppose, a character in Black Mirror.

Something else to compute:

If you ever saw the movie Watchmen (or read the comicbook) there’s a scene that perfectly shows what AI does when it tries to create a relationship by doing everything “right” and checking all the humanity-boxes.

The scene is when Laurie is having sex with Dr. Manhattan.

(Who is a being of basically unlimited power who can bend matter to his will).

And she’s in to it and it’s hot and heavy until she feels another pair of hands.

And then she sees another face.

And then she realizes she’s not doing the horizontal polka with Dr. Manhattan…

She doing it with half a dozen (I forget how many) Dr. Manhattan clones!

Dr. Manhattan (whose humanity was all but gone by then) assumed pleasuring her like that would make her happy, while the “real” him was in another room working on this machine to save the world, and he’s not really focused on her at all, and not emotionally engaged with her on any level whatsoever even if he was ticking all the right boxes for pleasuring her.

So there is no connection, no empathy, and no relationship.

He’s just going through the motions, phoning it in based on algorithms he calculated from his years of knowing her, talking to her, listening to her, being in close proximity with her.

Thus, there was no real connection.

Because, let’s face it, there was nothing there to connect with.

That, to me, is a very good metaphor for using something like AI (fapGPT, whatever) to write your emails and sales copy and content and grow a relationship with your list, customers, and clients with. Because the relationship transcends marketing and copywriting. There’s a transfer of energy and emotion (not in a woo-woo sense, this is all very rational) between you and the person you’re trying to serve.

The old Roman legal meaning of a client was someone under your care and protection.

They considered that relationship sacred.

Which is interesting because in the book “Ten Greatest Sales Persons” the late master of selling Joe Girard used that exact same word — sacred — to describe his customer relationships.

fapGPT or any other AI cannot do that.

Because it’s not really human.

It’s just a tool — like a calculator.

And while a calculator is a useful tool for pushing in numbers (prompting numbers?), I don’t think you’re going to let it negotiate with, deal with, or try to form a relationship with your accountant, stock broker, or friendly neighborhood IRS agent.

I fully realize those with a vested interest in AI disagree with this.

I’ll get a reply with “what about ___” with half a dozen AI marketing guys.

And while I don’t doubt the sincerity of all the AI guys (although some are clearly selling utter bull shyt, tapping into the gold rush, going by what people who buy their offers are telling me lately), I don’t believe a single prompted word I hear about it at this point except from a very small handful of people I know, like, & trust — such as my pal Shane Hunter, who intelligently approaches the topic from the perspective of wanting to better serve his clients vs just selling stuff.

Anyway, this is all a very small part of a very long conversation.

I’m sure I’ll write more about it.

And no, I’m not saying AI is totally useless.

There are legit uses for it (research, etc).

But nothing can replace the physical act of writing, editing, rewriting, and the forces you set in motion in doing so to create a bond with your readers, list, customers, audience.

My opinion.

For more opinions see the paid Email Players newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Following is a “secret” to creating tighter, more pithy, more engaging, and, dare I say… more ruthless writing.

Not just for emails and sales copy-related purposes.

But also for any and all other kinds of writing you do, too.

Frankly, what I am about to show you (I won’t obnoxiously just tease it, gonna tell you exactly what to do) is something that has dramatically improved my own writing in probably every single email I pound out, every single sales letter I write, every single bullet I fire off, every single book I author, every single Twitter post I brain fart, every single video or audio bit I record for the BerserkerMail YouTube channel (and, starting tomorrow, inside the BerserkerMail Facebook group we are launching, ooh…), and every single customer service reply I respond to… as well as every random text sent to friends & family, and even every piece of fiction I write.

Are you ready?

Are you set?

Are you sure?

Okay, then here goes — Stefania as my witness:

I recently finished the screenplay adapting my Zombie Cop novel. And while writing it (during October and November) I worked on it all morning, and again a couple hours before bed while Willis took his bath. I couldn’t not work on it. It was (still is, I just this week re-adapted the screenplay which was adapted from the novel back into rewriting the novel to make it much better — I call it “reverse osmosis content creation”) in my head, and I legitimately lost sleep sometimes because I was so anxious to get back to working on it the next morning.

Yes, it’s fun to adapt my own IP.

But that is not the only reason it’s so fascinating to me.

Another reason is the process of writing a screenplay has easily been the single best power lesson in pithy, tight, “action-only” writing (ideal for copywriting — long form, short form, emails, whatever it is) I’ve ever gotten. The last time I got this kind of power education in writing was when I learned Paul Hartunian’s method for writing press releases. I probably learned more about the mechanics of “pithy” and downright ruthless writing from banging out lots of press releases via his system than any other writing, copywriting, or email source.

But writing screenplays has taken even what I learned there to a whole new level.

Every word must count in a script.

You cannot meander or have even a single punctuation mark of fluff.

And it’s like a game to eliminate as many lines and pages as possible, while making the story better, more engaging, more likely to be read by some low paid script reader looking for reasons to toss the script out and get through the giant pile of scripts he has to churn through each day. You also cannot cheat margins, font size/type, or anything else.  (Has to be 12pt courier font, strict margins, etc which is very important for producers and directors to calculate projected screen time, budgets, etc)

Frankly, if you want anyone to read it, it has to be way shorter than you want it to be.

To give you an example of what I mean:

The first draft for this screenplay was a whopping 174 pages! On the second pass I had it down to less than 120 pages. Now that it’s done after 10 passes (as per my Copy Slacker methodology, incidentally) I got it down to 103 pages and it’s probably 103xs better than it was at 174 pages, which is why I spent all week rewriting the novel based on the screenplay.

To do that, it’s just cut, cut, cut…

Every nibble of fat trimmed.

Every corner smoothed down.

Every dangling mite zapped.

Every bloated description pared down to its core image/idea and every bit of dialogue ruthlessly curated, and the list goes on.

Overkill?

Well, maybe, but realize this:

Years ago, screenplays — especially from new writers — would not even get looked at if they were over 120 pages. Now it’s much worse. They have to be around 90 pages due to lazy script readers and bean counters wanting a movie to be played more times each day to increase ye olde box office gross. This, and the shyt product Hollywood has been putting out over the last few years is just one of many reasons I believe the entire Hollywood system as we know it will crash in the next 10 years or so, and maybe earlier… with whole new opportunities rising from the ashes.

Immoral of the story:

Writing that screenplay forced me to become a better, more pithy, and more discerning and, yes… ruthless writer. Ruthlessly cutting, editing, re-writing, thinking how to say more with less words, and use more imagery and Vision than cold descriptions and facts. Not to mention being more ruthless about knowing what I leave out can often speak far more loudly than what is left in.

Which brings us back to your business:

This one tip alone — writing a screenplay — is a writing technique that can serve your emails, sales copy, and other writing quite well and radically transform all your writing in ways you cannot possibly fathom until you’ve done so.

All right, on to the business.

If you want to learn more about writing check out my paid Email Players newsletter.

More info here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle