Ben Settle

In today’s “Ben Settle Show” we reveal…

• Why the customer is never right (ever).

• How “moving the free line” insults customers and kills sales.

• An ancient Babylonian secret for tripling the speed at which you build your business in just 1 hour per day. (After doing this, it only took 6 months to be completely client-free, here’s all I did…)

• The easiest way ever invented to get a fast (and potentially huge) short term bump in sales.

• Advice to old school direct mail copywriters struggling online.

• The “mistress management” secret for having an air-tight financially secure business.

• Dan Kennedy’s secret mindset “tweak” for commanding more respect (and bigger fees) from clients.

• How to prevent serial refunders, thieves, copycats and any low class jackass customers from stealing your time, energy and money.

• How one of the world’s top direct mail copywriters shops for cars.

• How Facebook steals guys’ balls.

• Why being selfish makes people around you happy.

• And a ho’ bunch more…

Download it here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/itunes

Ben Settle

Once upon a time Doberman Dan had me on one of his private coaching calls teaching how to break free of freelancing (or working for someone else), and going full time online with your own business.

A merry time was had by all.

But one thing discussed was especially valuable.

Something everyone can do.

And, I daresay, something everyone SHOULD do.

What do I speaketh of?

Paying yourself first.

But wait!

I’m not talking about this from a financial point of view (although I believe that’s also mucho important).

Here’s what I mean:

When I was doing client work I ALWAYS did my stuff first.

In other words, no matter how much work clients threw at me (and when I was on retainer this was crucial) the first hour of every day was MINE to work on my own projects.

No, clients did not always like this.

But tough titty for them.

Hour #1 belonged to me.

Did it make a difference?

Hellz yeah!

And yet, it’s the OPPOSITE of what most freelancers do. Usually people pour all their energy and time into their client’s stuff first, and then hope they have the energy to do their own stuff later (when they’re tired, burned out, etc).

Big mistake.

Big, big, BIG mistake.

I always gave my stuff #1 priority.

Client stuff came second.

I’m not saying to shirk doing a good job.

I’m just saying to pay yourself first.

Hey, this tip may not be “sexy.”

But it’s got TEETH.

Big SHARP teeth.

And the payoff is enormous.

And guess what?

In tomorrow’s Ben Settle Show we discuss this and 6 other equally important “rules” for growing your business and being successful.

And while you’re eagerly awaiting it?

Get caught up on past episodes here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/itunes

Ben Settle

This is what I’m talkin’ about:

In my last “Ben Settle Show” I took a little flack for preaching the negative thinking gospel as opposed to the usual “just think happy unicorn & rainbow thoughts and you’ll ‘manifest’ everything you want” bs taught in “The Secret” and other positive-thinking tomes of nonsense.

Well, guess what?

Take a gander at this response:

(From someone who can’t afford to rely on woo-woo “feel good” theories in his line of work, or he could die…)

Hey Ben,

I don’t know if this email will get to your inbox or not, but I have to mention something about your recent podcast and how it rings true to harnessing negative energy as a driving force.

First off, I want to say thanks for sharing that.

I get it. I really do. Negative energy, for a lack of better terms, is my primary driving force. It’s good to hear someone else that is more successful than I am state that.

I’m active duty military right now. I’m and infantryman. I’m also a bit of a nerd and introverted. Now, in an Infantryman’s world, smart is not the best thing, especially if you don’t have good social skills from being and introvert. You standard infantryman consist of strong socially confident people that are not afraid to assert themselves in any situation. That’s just the way you have to be, and it’s why a lot of people don’t really make the cut so to speak. Doesn’t mean you can’t be the nerd, you just have to conform if you want to fit in.

Needless to say, I had a lot of negative energy thrown at me by my leadership. But that is just the way the military is and it’s how you get someone to conform. A lot of people don’t get that. The concept behind getting yelled at and pushed beyond what you thought you were physically capable of is the point behind the military training concept.

You are forced to learn how to take that negative energy, and harness it to so you can perform at the same level of the group. To put it plainly you have to be capable of walking long distances with weight and shooting a guy in the face; and then after spending hours on the scene of the fight, walk your ass the 5 miles back to base.

As you might imagine, that takes a lot of drive. That drive comes from mostly the fear of not being socially reprimanded by your peers that you have come to respect. You definitely do not do that shit, by “thinking positive”.

However, now of days, that’s not how things are turning out. Now, as I am older in the military, I am responsible for training new individuals. Which reminds me of your MLM story. Instead of me being allowed to “break them down” and learn how to harness that negative energy into something positive that will help them stay alive. I have to coddle them. Which is why I’m out. That’s pretty much bullshit if you ask me. I don’t believe in abuse of another person, but I promise you this, the last place you want to learn how to deal negative shit and harness it into laser guided focus to staying alive is when you are already in a War Zone.

I haven’t started my entrepreneurship or “antipreneurship” path yet. I’m plaining and learning now. I’ve spent a better part of the last year and some change looking at other individuals out there and figuring out what I want to do.

I’m not sure if email marketing only is the path I’d like to go. I’ve thought about it. I’m also not going to fill you full of shit and tell you I will join your email players list. Not that I don’t think you have value or insight. Just not sure it’s the route I want to go yet. Plus, personally, my financial house is not the in right order to do so. I’ve been bitten by a few “sabertooth tigers” and “sharks” the last year as well. Great learning lesson.

I do appreciate your show though, sometimes just listening to someone that shares a similar outlook on life, especially someone that is successful outside of the military, is very helpful.

I can assure you of one thing. My driver, getting up every day, isn’t positive thinking. It’s the fear of being a failure, it’s the determination to show others where I am at now, that learning how to be successful isn’t a fools task. It’s the possibility of being able to rub in their face when I do achieve the success I’m looking for.

Sure, I realize that to achieve that I have to be an honest and helpful person. But that “positive energy” isn’t what gets me out of bed a 5 am ready to take on the world.

Thanks again for a realistic approach and honesty.

Dan

(NOTE: Last name withheld by request for obvious reasons)

That’s all I’m sayin’.

If you want to hear the show he talks about, go here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/itunes

Go to episode #20.

(titled “BSA 20”)

Angrily yours,
Ben Settle

Let’s rap about the Bible.

I diggeth the stories, lessons and history inside.

And, I loooove on Jesus’ iconoclastic style.

(Cue up the lone mindless whiner on my list living in his mom’s basement, keyboard keys orange from eating Cheetos all day, now idiotically thinking I’m pushing religion down his throat…)

But also, from an email point of view, I like the language.

Like the figures of speech.

The authoritative phrasing.

And, the endlessly swipeable analogies.

Like the term:

“uncovering your father’s nakedness” — which means having sex with your father’s wife (i.e. your mom, step mom, etc).

This happens all the time online.

No, obviously not in a sleeping with fathers’ wives kinda way.

Talking about the incestuous aspect of online marketing.

Dan Kennedy describes it like this:

You go to conventions, meetings, and conferences organized by, put on for, put on by, and attended by people in your same business. If you go to a strange town, you look in the yellow pages in your section to see whatever body else in your business is doing. You read books by people in your business. We have a technical term for this. It’s called ‘marketing incest’, because it works just like real incest in a short of time everybody seems to get dumber and dumber and dumber until the whole thing just grinds to a creaking halt.

I remember this in the self defense niche.

I once wrote a ton of ads for the then leader in the market.

And, at the time, there were certain companies that *seemed* to be doing extremely well on the surface.

(But, in reality, they weren’t.)

As a result, all our competition was copying them.

Swiping their ads.

Using their USP’s and appeals and language and vernacular.

Even stealing copy from each other.

What did we do?

We didn’t care what they were doing.

Didn’t care what their ads said.

Didn’t even care to be on their lists.

What we did was do an intense study not just of the market… but of my client’s buyers list — the people actually buying his products. Turns out they were nothing like the guys buying from Blackbelt Magazine ads, etc.

Our market was almost the opposite.

With different desires.

Different fears.

And, different motivations.

Anyway, the point?

Beware copying what your competition is doing.

Or what your favorite goo-roo is doing.

Or, really, what anyone is doing.

Go ahead and learn what you can from them.

But, don’t go blindly and mindlessly copying them.

Don’t uncover their nakedness, babycakes.

Or, like Ham who uncovered his father Noah’s nakedness… you’ll just end up with a nasty curse.

(On your marketing).

Awright, on to bid’niz:

The July “Email Players” issue goes to print in 2 weeks.

If you want in in time go ye here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

“Email Players” subscriber Simon Payn says…

I’ve been a subscriber for about six months and have been sending daily emails pretty much since then.

It’s hard to say exactly how much sales have improved (as I do lots of other stuff too which is having an impact), but I would estimate that sales are about 20% higher because of them. That’s significant.

We often get new clients who say something like this, an email I got today: “I signed up to get your product Simon and must tell you it was mostly because of these emails.”

Although I had a few hiccups getting going, now that I have got into the stride of writing daily emails, it is getting quite easy – topics come quickly and the emails write themselves in about 20 minutes. Then I get someone on my team to do all the boring stuff of actually sending them.

What’s more, it’s quite fun. It has made me more creative generally because I am forced to make connections between pretty random things.

Anyway, thanks for what you do. It is making me money.

Word up, amigo.

There are so many benefits to using my methods.

Yeah, there’s the increased sales.

But, also, it’s just fart out fun.

Sometimes colleagues will email me things like “Ben, you really do have a blast writing those emails don’t you?”

And I’m always like:

Yep.

I HAVE to do it these days.

It’s fun.

It’s profitable.

And, it’s even kinda therapeutic.

If you want to learn the mysterious secrets of the Settle way of writing emails people look forward to reading and buying from, check out the “Email Players” newsletter.

It’s a print publication — sent by snail mail.

(No pdfs).

It’s also expensive.

And, it requires work, implementation, commitment, and a long-term “investor” mindset (not an opportunity-minded approach).

If you don’t have those attributes?

Then it ain’t for you, Bub.

Nor will it do you any good.

(So save your money.)

Anyway, next issue:

I reveal (amongst other things) a secret “buyer psychology” trick that sometimes nabs me more sales in a single day than I usually get in an entire month.

It took me years to figure this out.

And, so far I’ve been shocked by how well it works.

If you want in, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

There’s this interesting (and, in my experience, accurate) formula I heard the “founding father” of Internet marketing Ken McCarthy teach in his copywriting course many years ago.

It goes like this:

50% of any market will never buy via direct response.

Doesn’t matter how great your copy is.

How hot your offer is.

Or, how “irresistible” your guarantee.

They simply won’t buy from direct response of any kind. (Online, offline or on the sidelines.)

On other hand…

5% of your market buys everything.

They are the rabid hyper buyers.

They are like fish so ravenously hungry, they will attack a bare gleaming hook when dropped in front of them and let you scoop them up into the boat without effort.

And then there’s another 10%-20%:

The skeptics.

They want what you have.

They have money to spend.

They have no problem buying via direct response.

But, they need to be convinced and won over with a well crafted pitch (one of the reasons why consistently emailing day in, and day out, works so well, btw) that is full of proof, credibility and clarity.

This last group is who I primarily target.

(They’re 2-5 times more potential buyers than the rabid portion.)

But, that doesn’t mean I ignore the 5%.

Which is where the blatant pitch email comes in.

Unlike a lot of email marketers, I don’t fear using blatant pitch emails — where I just come out and trumpet I’m selling something throughout the email and even in the subject line!

No content.

No teaching.

No real substance.

Just a blatant “naked” pitch.

The result?

Well, if you do it right, lots and lots of sales.

It’s all about timing.

Specifically, doing it at the right time…

In the right way…

And, with the right offer…

Do it right, and it can make you more sales in a day than you ordinarily get in a month (at least, that has been my experience over the past few months). Do it wrong and your list will treat you like a leper (like they do most emails they reflexively delete on sight).

And guess what?

I teach how to do blatant pitches in the July “Email Players” issue.

Yes, my little droogie, this is powerful stuff.

Profitable stuff.

And, proven stuff.

It also includes another goodie:

A bonus training with the master of using solo ads to build a fat list of eager-to-buy subscribers Igor Kheifets.

Lotza value packed inside.

But, the hour grows late.

Subscribe to get it in time here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Recently, I received an amusing complaint.

Basically, the unhappy person doesn’t like that I don’t give away even more free information and I should take things more seriously in my emails or… or… she’ll unsubscribe from my free daily emails.

Gasp!!!

Whatever shall I do???

I tell ya, I get such a kick out of complaints like that.

Why?

Because they’re toothless.

I simply don’t grant people the kind of power over me where I need them to be on my list, nor care if they go, stay, lay or pray. It simply doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.

It’s like when my mom whacked me with a wooden spoon as a child.

I don’t remember what I did, exactly.

But, whatever it was, my mom decided to discipline Child Ben by spanking me on the ass with a giant wooden spoon.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

Over and over and over, until…

The wooden spoon broke on my butt!

And, I started laughing.

Which, no doubt, probably irritated my mom even more.

And so it is with the website subscribers complaining about free information who “threaten” to unsubscribe. I laugh at their punishment as cheerfully as I laughed off the wooden spoon breaking over my butt.

Anyway, there’s a lesson here.

And, that is:

Don’t give anyone power over you.

Not customers.

Not clients.

And, definitely not people you send free stuff to.

Lose a big customer?

Go out and get 5 new ones.

A client decide to drop you?

Go ye and find a bigger, better client.

Someone threaten to unsubscribe from your email list?

Do it for them.

Scroll down and click that unsubscribe link for ’em.

Listen up, listen good, and never forget this:

If you are good at what you do… if you provide exceptional service… if you excel at whatever it is you teach/do/produce… there is far less supply of “you” than there are customers and clients who need what you offer.

In other words…

You’re the prize.

You’re the one who can pick and choose.

And, yes, you’re the one in control.

This is the essence of my “Email Players” methodolgy, too.

And you know what?

It leads to happier free website subscribers.

Happier paying customers/clients.

And, yes, a happier You.

Check out the “Email Players” newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Check this out:

A couple weeks ago I got the following email from a WSO (Warrior Forum Special Offer) addict after I refused to let him buy my “Copywriting Grab Bag” product.

Anyway, here’s his message:

Subject: Why Ben Settle is a FAG

Message Body:

Freakin a Genius!

Because you made me feel like a girl who just got dumped at prom, I want to share my story…

I signed up for the Email Players Club in late March and couldn’t wait to get started. I had my website up for almost a year and a half, but I wasn’t making a fucking dime.

I was the guy, WSO’s marketing guru’s love, easy prey just walking blindly hoping this next $ product was going to be my salvation, but that all changed….here’s how…

* When I signed up for your email players club in late March, I was excited to see what you offered, and then it happened..

My site crashed, lost every picture because my web developer accidentally deleted a file, and I was left with 1400 picture to replace, because my external hard drive was broke by my 3 year old, and I was dead in the water ready to quit.

So, I cancelled every freaking subscription and said its time to get a real job, but something I didn’t expect rolled into my lap.

Like the dumbass I am, I “adderalled” my pictures back in place and started to Patrice O’neal my customers, and even discovered the secret to testimonials…best part-neither had anything to do with soliciting them off Craigslist and it didn’t require a rest area.

Because I used the tips I found in the Email Players Club (Issue No. 33, page 1-2 and p. 15), I doubled my yearly sales on one freaking sales page, and I did nothing but follow the 3 c’s of successful bullets!

That’s when I was hooked and I couldn’t help but tell my other marketing friends about this guy who went against everything I was being told, but soon after, my world came crashing yet again…

Just yesterday, a good friend of mine (Whom owns 3 websites and successfully sold a startup for several hundred thousand) told me he followed up with Ben Settle about a special event, that only allows 8 people, and asked if I was intererested in joining him.

Hell yeah, and that’s when I took 1/20th of my profits I had made from this “anti-guru” expert, and attempted to purchase his product that would be my salvation, but it didn’t happen. Do you know why?

Because he pulled the biggest dick move I’ve ever witnessed, he destroyed my confidence, and made me fell like a prom date that was left to dance to MC Hammer alone, AND I LOVED IT!!!

Now that you know my story, I’m asking for forgiveness, I cancelled your Email Players Club and now I”m back where I started, lonely and depressed, listening to John Denver as I read old Ben Settle emails, thinking about our time together.

If you would allow me back in the Club, and allow me to purchase the Copywriting Grab Bag, I gladly agree to weekly urinalysis tests, to show I’m WSO free and to let you know how serious I am, plus-I will never cancel again, even if my site crashes and my daughter needs $97 to get a marriage certificate at the county clerk’s office.

Either way, you’re stuff is phenomenal, its exactly what I’ve been looking for, and to actually block someone from buying your product is the biggest DICK move, (Maybe you learned it at the old Checkers club in Carbondale, I don’t know) but my respect for what you do…exceeded levels, blew recipricocity shit out of the water and leaves me willing to douse my genitals in hot sauce, just to get another opportunity.

Whether I’m allowed back in or not, (it sucks) but…you’ve got a fan for life!

Anyway, I got a kick out of that.

And it’s proof you don’t necessarily “lose” sales by sticking to your guns — in my experience, sales go up, as does the quality of customer you attract.

Anyway, time to sell something.

So here goes…

The July “Email Players” includes a special bonus interview with “Email Players” subscriber and one of the world’s top geniuses on how to explode the size of your list using solo ads — Igor Kheifets.

Everyone asks about list building.

About traffic.

And, about having a huge audience.

Well, guess what?

Solo ads can do all those things.

And, fast.

Especially with Igor’s methods.

Anyway, get your “Email Players” fix here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

On today’s “anger packed” Ben Settle Show podcast…

• How I “harness” negative thoughts and emotions to accomplish far more than I ever would by thinking positively. (The great late night talk show host Johnny Carson did this, too, and soared to the top of his game — with everyone *still* trying to catch up to him decades after he went off the air.)

• How the positive thinking nazis keep people broke.

• Why it’s dumb to fake thinking positively.

• Why holding on to anger is GOOD (no matter what the feel-good mush cookies tell you — never let go of anger, use it, like I explain in the show).

• The Mr. Rogers secret to using negative emotions to accomplish your goals. (Yes, this is an honest-to-goodness negative thinking tip from the peaceful & positive Mr. Rogers.)

• How I wrote my “Zombie Cop” novel in just a few weeks, instead of months or years. (And how to use this secret to write all the profitable emails you want for your business).

• Why people who hate reading fiction (and especially horror books) are LOVING “Zombie Cop” — and reading the entire 200+ page book in 2 or 3 sittings.

• Why writing daily emails is the best “therapist” you can ever have (and instead of paying for the therapy, you make sales from it…)

• Why Anthony Robbins is dead wrong about how to manage negative feelings, experiences and thoughts.

• And more…

In many ways, this is our best show yet.

And, easily the most valuable.

(If you aren’t afraid to use the info, at least.)

Download it here:

www.BenSettleShow.com/itunes

Ben Settle