Ben Settle

Happy suckers, in some cases.

Content suckers, in probably most cases.

Maybe even rich suckers, in a scant few cases.

But suckers they are.

And I’ll tell you a story that perfectly illustrates why:

In the book Backstory 2 there is an interview with an absolutely brilliant screenwriter (but also a total sucker — and he basically all but admits it) from the 40’s and 50’s named Curt Siodmak. You may not be familiar with that name. But I can almost guarantee most have at least heard of some of the movies he wrote — like The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, Son of Dracula, The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Woman, and a whole bunch more.

His scripts made hundreds of millions for the studio.

(He only got $500 per week, if that gives you an idea of his suckernessness)

Anyway, he drops a zinger I think every freelance copywriter should hear.

Even if you don’t “want” to hear it.

Frankly, freelancers should read it especially if they don’t want to hear it.

Here is what he said:

“Irving Thalberg once said: ‘The most important man in the motion picture business is the writer. Don’t ever give him any power!’ Even today the writers are oppressed. Even today a writer gets little appreciation. That’s why good writers become writer-directors, or writer-producers, to get more standing, and of course to make more money. I haven’t met a writer yet who owns a yacht like producers or directors. But don’t let them kid you. Where would they be without writers?”

Now swap out “writer” with “copywriter.

And “motion picture” with “direct response marketing.”

And “writer-director” & “writer-producers” with “clientless-copywriter.”

That’s why I say freelance copywriters are total suckers.

Oh, it’s not personal, nor meant as an insult. We’re all suckers in some ways. I certainly am, for example, when it comes to all the time and effort I waste writing fiction that will, in all likelihood, never make back anything more than the cost to have the covers created.

We all have our vices…

But freelance copywriters are a special breed of sucker.

At least the ones who think they’re anything more than high-paid employees. Absolutely nothing “wrong” with that, btw. If that’s your bag, and you like it, and I know some who love it, do it. Just like I write fiction for the love of it. But don’t for a single nanosecond think you’re not a sucker.

After all:

You are literally creating a better lifestyle for your clients than you are for yourself — and doing it all while creating some of the most important work and while getting little or any of the real payout and/or glory. And even if you do eek out and get recognized with a bit ‘o glory, you’ll never make but a fraction of what they do.

And that’s okay.

That is really how it should be.

The clients are doing the hard work of building the lists, building the brands, building the followings, and building the world, the offers, the infrastructure, and the business as a whole — at their risk, with their own money, and using their own resources.

As a freelancer you are basically a parasite who, hopefully, makes the host healthier.

But that makes you no less a parasite.

Thus they – the host – absolutely should make the lion’s share of the money.

And the freelancer – the parasite – absolutely should get paid peanuts compared to that.

But, that makes a freelancer who fancies themselves an entrepreneur no less a sucker.

Entrepreneur implies risk.

There’s very little real risk for most freelancers.

If an ad they write bombs, they may take a hit to their reputation. But they presumably still got paid. If the copy they wrote pisses off someone at the FTC (or an exec at a competitor who has the FTC in their hip pocket — which happens especially in the health niches) the client gets fined, sued, blinded with paperwork, possibly even tossed in the slammer. If the product sold gets overrun with refunds the client has to deal with the merchant account fallout, bad PR, and customer service hassles.

And so on, and so forth.

The freelancer doesn’t really have to worry about that.

They get paid either way, unless they are absolute noobs at making deals.

Especially as so many have to keep hustling for more work, having to keep putting up with a lot of disrespect, keep putting up with clients who are both ignorant & arrogant (as the great Bob Bly once quoted someone as saying, those are the worst kind — and it’s a fact), keep having to play the game, keep spending all your time working on someone else’s fortune, and keep putting long hours into someone else’s world and nest egg while getting crumbs compared to what you have actually contributed… and the list goes on.

I fully expect a bunch of freelancers living in cognitive dissonance to balk at this.

I can already imagine what the dumb Facebook thread will look like if someone complains about this there, with all the usual fluffpreneurs rationalization hamster-spinning everything I’m writing about, throwing out anecdotes that don’t apply to the whole, and missing both the big picture and nuance.

That’s fine.

This message ain’t for them.

And, frankly, the vast majority of freelance copywriters should do client work. They should be taking orders and doing as they’re told. And they probably should chase that secure fee, if such a thing even exists. Although the ones I keep hearing from worried about A.I. … I dunno.

Them boys & ghouls are truly a special kind of sucker.

The kind I certainly can’t help.

But, there’s also a small handful of freelancers reading this who know I speak the truth.

They can’t stand kissing client booty.

They hate having to constantly wonder where their next gig is coming from.

Or, they wish they were their own client (i.e., an Alt-copywriter – which is a term I invented about 5 years ago to describe a copywriter who either does client work in conjunction with selling their own stuff like a Gene Schwartz, or just sells their own stuff like a Bill Bonner) and making the same — or hopefully more — money they do at freelancing… but are so entrenched in the game, they don’t know how to leave it. I’ve had more than a few copywriters working in the financial niche especially tell me this is their plight — since they get paid just enough in fees & royalties, despite knowing they are selling utter crap or info that is too old to truly be useful to the market by the time they are writing about, to stick around and not do their own thing.

Those are the ones this message is for.

And, if it does nothing but light a fire under their arses I’ve done my job.

More about my paid Email Players newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A sensible question:

Hey Ben,

I’m a big fan of yours and I listen to your podcasts repeatedly at the gym.

I am currently trying to pick a strategy for content creation for my business…

-5,000 people mailing list

– 54,000 subs on YT and growing

– starting on other social channels as well 

My question – on YouTube would you treat it like a daily email and pitch my program at the end of every video, or use the videos to build my list?

Survey says:

Use the videos to grow the email list.

My opinion is ALL roads lead to the list.

I have no blessed idea why anyone screws around trying to get people into social media, to their podcasts, to their YouTube, or to anywhere else, when all those sites should merely be vehicles to move people from other platforms onto YOUR platform, not the other way around. Unless, I suppose, you want to give the algorithms a quick shot of juice in your favor (which I do at times). And yet, send leads to other platforms instead of their own platform/list is exactly what a lot of people do.

Screw that.

If you are one of them, then tattoo this onto the back of your hands:

All roads leads to your emails list.

Or should.

That’s the “alpha and omega” of everything online if you have an email-driven business. It’s why, for example, my only website/blog’s purpose is to build an email list. It’s not to build trust. It’s not to demonstrate credibility. It’s not to educate, establish legitimacy, give value, show my writing, or to promote my “brand,” or anything else. All those things serve building the list, not the other way around. And the reason why is because the list is the beating heart of an email-driven direct response business online.

It all starts from there, flows from there, takes over from there.

This leads into another, related question that rolls in here on the regular:

“Ben why don’t you use tripwires to build your list”

Personally, I don’t do them.

For one thing, there is nothing new about them.

The concept has been around for probably 100 years. The whole “send a dollar for postage and I’ll send you xyz” thing in magazines and comicbooks were essentially that – which was a way to get people on a mailing list to offset ad costs. It’s just been updated with a name that gets people thinking it’s more exciting than it is. And, to be fair, if you have your numbers dialed in it’s not a bad thing to do, just like the wise use of more expensive self liquidating offers can be great. For example, one of my old clients back in the day hired me to rewrite all the sales letters for his info products. And he eventually stopped even collecting opt-ins and instead drove all traffic to a $80+ SLO, then only sold to those buyers with email.

And that’s fine.

Especially if you have 10,000+ visitors per day like he did.

And you have a kick ass back end in place like he did.

And you know all your numbers cold and run a $30+ million biz like he did.

But most of us don’t have all that going for us.

In fact, the vast majority of people reading this email are probably like me:

Kitchen table-entrepreneurs (I literally work on a wine barrel table in a detached guest house kitchen) with no employees, everything possible outsourced, just want to write, make money, and move on with life. For us’n regular folk, I suggest getting ‘em on a free opt-in list. Then, you can mail it daily using what I teach about writing emails (force) and what I teach about strategy (leverage, far more profitable than force), build a relationship while you sell, and in every single case I’ve ever seen, witnessed, or experienced… potentially rake in as much as 5 – 10x+ the results over time.

Plus, have a much stronger relationship with those buyers.

Which means they are probably far more likely to consume your offers.

Fare more likely to probably use your offers.

And, yes, far more likely to probably benefit and then tell everyone about your offers.

One more thought about this:

Last year I talked a lot about Psychological Marketing vs Sociological Marketing.

The client I mentioned above was pure Psychological.

And that’s fine — for a guy like him, with his kind of operation.

Me?

I’m a Sociological Marketing kinda guy. I invented that term about 5 years ago when writing my elBenbo Press book to describe the approach I use to my book and newsletter publishing model.

And doing what I do is more for Sociological vs Psychological Marketing.

Something I’m not going to go into here, as it is in the above book.

I just leave it for you to think about.

In the meantime, to check out my paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

In which the question is asked:

“How far do you go with segmentation in your businesses/with your lists?”

Answer:

I don’t beyond the very basics.

And even that isn’t much, since my buyers lists are not on BerserkerMail, they are in a car some joke is one step away from being an actual shopping cart… My buyer’s list that I’ve been using since 2009 and would be a tremendous pain in the gluteus assimus to switch is simply on a platform that does not play “nice” with anything —including Zapier.

Thus, I basically do zero segmenting.

But I also don’t need to, either.

My business model is so caveman simple it’s not all that necessary. And since I’m not greedy, and since I have a life outside of trying to goose every last penny out of my list and then telling everyone about it on social media for clout, it’s all good around here.

That said:

Like a lot of things up in this game, whether or not one should segment depends on what you’re selling, and the logistics of what you’re doing. If you do eCommerce, for example, you’d be foolish not to segment, slice & dice, and do everything you can to get that figured out. A lot of people have listened to one-too-many email goo-roos talking out of their arses and think there is a one size fits all way (their way, of course) to this while bragging to the 5 people who give a crap about how complicated they make everything when they don’t even really need to.

It’s not all that different from a lot of funnel guys.

I still remember this blue flame special back in my old elBenbo’s Lair Facebook group who tried pounding his chest about this 30-point funnel full of mazes or whatever… when guy didn’t even have an offer yet.

It’s all aesthetics with some of these funnel floozies.

Very little actual substance.

And that’s why they yip and ankle-bite when called on it.

I’m not really sure where else I am going with this.

Except to say, simple is often better with funnels and list segmenting. Especially if you want to use my email methodology in the paid Email Players newsletter.

More on that here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

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