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:

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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:

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Ben Settle

A woo-woo coach who teaches about attracting the guardian of your soul (or some creepy shyt like that) insists:

“You really should keep politics out of your messaging unless you’re a politician. Too bad. I really thought you were someone I could learn from. I guess I learned what NOT to do. Don’t worry. I’ve already unsubscribed from your list.”

Even though my list ain’t an airport (no need to announce departure) I’m glad she did.

Otherwise, I never would have known.

And while I try my hardest to gird up my loins, pick up the broken pieces of my shattered & broken soul, and somehow move on without her haunting my list from the astral plane anymore… her comment was very useful in this case.

Like, for example:

The email she was complaining about (one of the promos selling Jon Buchan’s cold email product last month) was one of the most responsive and profitable emails of the entire campaign, that also happened to be the most amusing for people going by the feedback.

Another reason:

It’s related to the evils and dangers of bending over for the “DEI” shtick that is destroying not only a rising number of failing corporations out there, but also infecting a rising number of email broadcasting/autoresponder platforms, too. And with but ten minutes of research on Google you can see for yourself how the “corporate cancer” (as Vox Day writes in his excellent book on the subject) of DEI infects, metastases, and ultimately destroys the hosts of all it enters. In some cases it happens fast (Budweiser), and in some cases it takes a decade or more (the current Marvel and Star Wars movies’ plunging box office gross receipts with every new movie or tv show).

In a few cases, businesses are reversing course.

Like, for example, Victoria’s Secret.

I’d even argue Basecamp falls into this category, last I checked.

A couple years ago they (wisely imo) fired all the political (i.e., social) activists at their company.

But in far too many cases, a lot of these companies don’t even know they’re sick yet, still feel great, and have no clue that anything is amiss inside, even as the very forces that are bringing other companies down are starting to multiply, spread, and soon display symptoms in their host bodies.

It always starts out the same:

* Business is created to serve a customer need/demand

* Business does well, grows, needs more people to keep growing

* A social activist or two gets in, usually to Human Resources

* Social activists hires more of their own, while firing those they hate

* While founders and managers are distracted or scared of being called names, social activists start working their way into management and leadership roles

* Eventually, they are making rules, policies, & demands

* The focus of the company radically shifts from serving the customer and making a profit to serving the social activists agenda(s), with profit & survival of said business taking a back seat & even outright deliberately sabotaged

* Business starts to waste away until it no longer can serve its original purpose

This is why logical, normal people get so surprised by it happening. They assume that the business will eventually course correct when the bean counters look at the numbers. But what they don’t understand is it is not about that anymore for the company. It’s about serving the social cause(s) until, eventually, the host dies while taking everyone down with it.

None of this is controversial for those who look into it.

Often it’s not even done in secret — it’s literally mandated.

In fact, here’s something to think about:

If a company takes any kind of corporate, banking, or other big funding, it is almost certainly all but mandated. And yes, this includes email platforms. Do your own research on this. Look up the bigger ones. See which ones have whole pages on their sites and programs dedicated specifically to DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion) .

Sounds so nice and good and wholesome doesn’t it?

So spiritual even, no?

The Yellowstone meme boomers tend to love it.

Well, take a look at who’s doing the training and do a little research on some of their backgrounds and the creepy things they publicly say about children, especially. And while you are at it, look at their price increases (especially after taking corporate funding), their customer service approach, the increasingly complex and/or bloated software, and, yes, who is most likely to engage in cancel culture for those daring to engage in wrong think… including wrong think that has already been proven to be correct think.

Maybe you will look into it on your own and maybe you won’t.

And even if you do, maybe you will not see what I am talking about.

Or maybe you will see, but still won’t care because you agree with it or think it won’t affect you.

But I can assure you, the cancer has already worked its way into a lot of companies — in a lot of niches and industries. And in the email world, it’s astounding to me how many supposed and self-identifying “conservatives” and “Republicans” and “non-woke” and even firebreathing MAGA email marketers are not only using  and simping for but are also shilling as affiliates for platforms that actively and vocally hate everything they stand for, believe in, vote on – thinking they will not be jettisoned at some point because they think they make that company so much money the powers that be running it wouldn’t dare.

But it ain’t about profit for that company.

YouTube proved that when it de-platformed creators making them millions per month.

Profit ain’t the motive only their Cause is.

I’ll probably talk more about this in the coming months.

Especially when the mass de-platformings begin anew leading up to the 2024 election.

Until then?

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Ben Settle

Maybe it’s time to switch up my email game?

Ben, I found you lately and been loving the paradigm shift around daily e-mails.

Here’s my skepticism about using it in my business:

You’re selling the strategy of selling daily emails by sending daily emails.

It’s like the marketers selling marketing tactics. Yes we gobble them up, but it’s ok for you to sound really salesy because we know you’re selling.

In my business, I don’t want to sound overly salesy in my emails because I think it will turn off a lot of my audience. I have 50,000 YT subscribers and a 5000 person list. 

Trying to think through how to do this.

I guess what I’m saying, is you can get away with more because you’re treating your business like a direct response marketer. 

I don’t want to build a business where I just burn through leads and don’t care about my reputation. I want to be for the people. Does that make sense?

Anyways I love you dude, listening to podcasts of yours on YT all the time and already have been sharing your stuff with friends of mine.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the question.

It’s the same question/assumption online marketers have had since 1993.

But in his case, I’m pretty sure his 50k subscribers who do not enjoy being forced to sit through multiple 15-second unskippable ads that blatantly sell them crap they don’t want or need and adds literally nothing to their lives appreciate him being “for the people” and not selling them.

The question is not unreasonable, though.

And I understand why people ask it, don’t get me wrong.

But these guys always think “they’re” business is different.

That they need to be seen as nice guys who don’t just want to sell.

That they are somehow “above” it all.

And it’s all pure, unadulterated self-projection and, I would add, self-delusion.

It reminds me of a question the late, great “World’s Most Feared Negotiator” Jim Camp got from someone on a call once, asking how, as a consultant when he’s prospecting, he can do it in a way where he doesn’t come off as a greedy vulture who just wants to get inside the client’s wallet and squeeze out profits?

Mr. Camp’s retort?

“I think, unfortunately, the real problem there is the person that sees himself as just the consultant squeezing out profits. That’s not a problem that the vendors have; that’s a problem the consultant has.”

And so it is with the boys & ghouls worrying about these things.

They’re problem isn’t daily email, or selling, or whatever. It’s getting out of their own heads, and thinking in such a way where selling is not only the right thing to be doing but the only thing you can do to truly help someone with whatever problem your offer sells.

In order to do that you have to use the R-Word:

Relationships.

You don’t build relationships by giving stuff away free. All you do is build entitlement, get zero consumption of whatever it is you are generously giving away to play Mr. Nice Guy, and, eventually, earning lots of resentment when you DO finally sell something.

Real life story about that:

I learned this lesson the hard way in 2006.

My list was small, and I bought into what Gary Halbert taught that you don’t sell anything online very often unless you really have something to sell, yada yada yada. He also said phone ordering ONLY does better than a link with an online sales page. Go ahead and do that if you want. Let me know what happens… Anyway, so I did that and used to get lots of praise, lots of people thanking me, and lots of people saying how I had the best list, the best info, the best this, that, or the other, thinking I was on to something.

But then… I sold my first affiliate offer.

It was for a course for freelance copywriters.

Extremely valuable, too.

And I was excited to mail about it.

So I did the PLF emails my buddy who was selling the course gave me where you give stuff away free, don’t sell, then, eventually send an actual pitch.

When I got to the pitch?

Bam!

F-bombs.

Insults.

Cursing.

Accusations of being a “list pimp”, and all that.

I learned real quick that if you do nothing but give stuff away free, become known as the guy who gives all the stuff away free, never sell anything except once in a while, and do the “moving the freeline” dance you get (1) LESS customers (2) a smaller business and (3) you attract nothing but the worst of humanity who will absolutely turn on you when you do any actual selling.

It’s probably not as bad these days.

(I like to think I have helped at least play a small part in breaking the selling “taboo” over the years)

But that entitlement attitude those who are used to free stuff foster and hamster spin in their heads is always there, and always will be there, because that is just how humans are. And even if you do just give free stuff away, you’re not really doing them any good anyway since they’re never going to value what you give them.

And certainly not as much as if they pay for it.

And, especially, if they pay a lot for it.

The best relationships I have, with my best customers (and I am NOT unique with this, this is something anyone who does any significant numbers over 10+ years straight knows is true) is with those who have bought, consumed, and used what I sell.

This goes beyond “my” niche.

I saw it first hand when I co-owned a weight loss biz too.

And when I worked in the golf niche.

And the self-defense niche, prostate problem niche, dating niche, and the list goes on.

B2B or B2C — I don’t care who you’re selling to or what you sell:

If you want to build a strong relationship, genuinely improve lives, and solve real problems then you can’t pussy-foot around trying to sell without selling and dishonestly acting like you don’t really want to make any money in your business by pretending to be the nice guy.

A servant is always worthy of his hire.

And the more you serve, the more you get hired.

But you can’t serve if they don’t appreciate.

And they won’t appreciate without skin in the game.

An attitude that is required to embrace if you want to use what I teach in the paid Email Players newsletter.

Something you can get more info on here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Came a question:

“Ben, I hope you are doing well. Is copywriting agency something you would make if you are beginner?”

My answer:

A couple years ago I was interviewed by a digital agency owner talking about email and using it with agencies, and how agency owners can use email, benefit from email, profit from email, get clients from email, and all that jazz.

And during the call I kept hearing a lot of ignorance.

By that I mean not in skill or marketing, but ignorance of their own industry (agencies).

And eventually I asked:

“Haven’t you guys studied Ogilvy, Burnett, Foote/Cone/Belding, Thompson, Norman, Barton, or any of the old school agency guys who literally build the modern marketing world as we know it?”

“…”

Yeesh.

If anything qualifies as what Email Players subscriber and the man universally known as the World’s Greatest Living Copywriter Gary Bencivenga describes as “Marketing Malpractice” that does.

It reminds me of this professor I had in college.

401-level class in radio/tv major.

Last day of the semester, and all of us graduating, and someone asked what the difference between AM and FM was! The professor — who was no mere professor, he owned several radio and TV stations, I always respected him — asked:

“How can you people accept a diploma from this university and not know the difference between am and fm?”

A good question.

And I would ask today’s digital agency guys the same thing:

How do they expect to make any real money, grow any kind of immortal brand, make any kind of real impact in their industry without studying the old school ad men (and Mad Men) whose names are STILL on the buildings of the companies they founded nearly 100 years ago?

It’s all rather amazing to me.

Whatever the case, for more info on the Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

Let me tell you a story about fapGPT:

Several months ago on Twitter, everyone was yapping about AI this, and fapGPT that, and it’s going to change the game, and if you aren’t using AI in your sales copy you’re going to be left behind (or, as the broccoli headed ones like to say: “NGMI”), and a bunch of other nonsense many times most aggressively spread by people selling offers about AI, from what I could tell.

Well guess what?

Almost a year later I hardly see any of these people singing this tune anymore.

Even the ones whose only reply whenever I questioned it was:

“give it two years, bro.”

It’s almost like even a lot of them have given up on their predictions of becoming junior masters of the universe using fapGPT in all its glory. In fact, around that time I publicly asked, several times, for someone to show me just one example of competent AI-written sales copy that didn’t read like a robot randomly cutting & pasting from multiple swipe file ads.

I assumed these guys knew something I don’t.

Only one person answered my request.

I won’t name him (he’s an Email Players subscriber, but I don’t want to give up his “cover” — as he sent it to me in confidence, from a private membership site he probably was not supposed to share info from. And so it goes with my righteous Spy Network. Daddy has eyes on a lot of places he’s not supposed to…)

And what happened was this:

He sent me a private email where he copied and pasted some AI-generated sales copy from this private membership site where copywriters were all fapping to AI.

The offer was for dog owners.

And it sounded like you’d expect machine-generated copy to sound:

awkward, choppy, totally not human.

Which, admittedly, whoever the guy was who shared it came clean to, and said a good copywriter could smooth it out, etc. Just like I keep hearing other copywriters fapping in the AI sock saying, as well as email platforms all hopping in the AI game talking about.

Back to the copy:

It just listed a bunch of benefits, awkwardly, while trying to sound fancy. But really, it sounded like Data from Star Trek reading off a bunch swipe file copy from random ads in the same niche, without context or depth or humanity, from his memory banks.

That is the best description I can think of for it.

Realize, I was quite connected to that market at the time, as I had just lost my own dog a couple months earlier after 15+ years having her, with her last year being extremely difficult watching her waste away day-by-day, cleaning up poops tracked all over since she was blind and walked in it, and the smell of “sickness” all over the downstairs wing of the house (which she had all to herself the last 9 months of her life). I spent several months trying like hell to give her as good a quality of life as I possibly could after giving me 15+ years of the best times I have ever had in my entire life, before putting her down.

And I can tell you:

That AI-generated copy sounded not just stupid and cold — but had zero empathy.

And even borderline insulting in some ways.

My Email Players subscriber showed me a few paragraphs from a discussion about the copy.

And they all thought it was “cool!”

One guy said it made him cry about his dog.

Which I call bull sheee-yat on.

No real dog owner who loves their dog, has a bond with their dog, and has a strong relationship with their dog would think that copy was anything but nonsensical. And that is what I told my Email Players subscriber: it was “functionally” correct with benefits, certain words dog owners use (although awkwardly stated), no doubt pulled from dog related sources.

But it was also clearly not written by a dog owner.

Or, at least, not with one with more than a shallow, cartoonish relationship with his pet.

And no “smoothing” it over would change that. Back when I would do “rewrites” of ads it was clear it was very rarely easy to “smooth” out shyt copy. It always required a total rewrite, as it goes beyond words and stacking benefit. It’s about relationships, connecting with another human, and solving that person’s problems. AI is just a tool — a machine — and a tool/machine cannot create a relationship with another human being for you any more than your calculator can help you create a relationship with your accountant.

AI is probably going to be a very powerful tool for some things.

(I agree with the AI crowd that in 5 years, for example, it will do all the menial ticky-tac stuff like balancing checkbooks, etc and save people loads of time).

But it won’t build, strengthen, or solidify relationships in a vacuum.

It won’t solve serious customer service problems.

It won’t conduct important negotiations where the stakes are high.

And it won’t “write” copy that connects with people with humanity.

That’s my opinion.

And you know what?

So far I’ve been proven correct on this..

More on the Email Players newsletter here:

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Ben Settle

One of my favorite marketing & merchandising case studies is Christian Louboutin.

I write a lot about it in my Markauteur book (not currently available for sale) especially.

But basically:

Stefania (who has a background in fashion, and saw all this first hand) was telling me how this French designer’s shoes are so horrifyingly painful to wear that customers sometimes have to literally get liposuction surgery on their feet to wear them.

This is no joke either.

They even have a name for it:

“Cinderella Surgery”

And yet, these prohibitively expensive (they ain’t cheap), “feet-mangling” shoes sell out the same day they drop — with people even getting depressed if they aren’t invited to the company’s sample sale, shoving matches & fights happening in line over who can buy them first, and thieves routinely stealing these bizarrely designed shoes out of other customers’ shopping bags while on the way to the counter to pay for them. Certain A-list celebrities have even been known to pay through the nose just to put a special kind of Botox on the balls of their feet, so they can more comfortably stand in this brand’s stilettos on the red carpet.

Very strange.

Not being a “shoe” guy, it’s all rather bizarre to me.

But what is not bizarre is all the Chinese factory pirates who take advantage of the demand, ripping off the design, and hawking them in the typical mass produced, shoddy fashion Chinese factory pirates are known for doing — all the way down to finding the same shade of red paint for the bottoms.

And what is also not bizarre is those shoes don’t fetch nearly as much money.

If anything, they are balked at by the high roller customers.

And they don’t make anywhere near the $50 million ol’ CL’s company gets last I checked.

The reason:

Nobody finds rip-offs as valuable as the real thing.

Which brings me to AI:

I have read all about how AI is going to radically change everything in marketing & copywriting — from content to design to marketing to copywriting to emails to everything in between. The broccoli heads on Twitter have been insisting ever since I hopped back on the platform in February that those who don’t use AI (like fapGPT) are “not gonna make it” or whatever.

And it’s all pure, unadulterated nonsense.

Just another “mad dash” as the great Dan Kennedy recently wrote.

The gullible will eat it up (and they are).

While the craftsman at the game will profit immensely from it.

No, the craftsmen will not profit necessarily by using it.

They will profit from it by continuing to be craftsmen at what they do selling the genuine thing instead of the cheap, Chinese pirate factory content that AI can only produce – where even if it looks and behaves in a passable way, it still won’t be the same thing, generate the same engagement, make the same kind of money, or create the same kind of raving fanbase companies like Christian Louboutin do in the fashion world.

I kinda wish AI would hurry up and do what all the AI shills keeps saying it can but clearly can’t.

It’ll only make those of us writing our own copy, our own emails, our own content that much more valuable, that much more of a novelty, and, yes, that much more money.

I’m always amused by the AI bois.

They really do live in an alternate reality — it’s like they literally live on the internet.

And it’s even more than amusing how they are always the ones to tell people to touch grass when they haunt social media 24/7, in echo chambers of other AI bois, all high on their own hopium and copium that AI will liberate them from this dirty, nasty thing called…

Work.

It reminds me of another story about this.

Back in July 2020 when Stefania was pregnant with Willis, we sallied forth down to the DMV. Me to renew my drivers license and her to get her Oregon license. And due to the idiotic covid rules (that, admittedly, worked in my favor as a recluse…) the DMV was appointment-only.

That meant we were the ONLY two people there.

With no lines or having to take a number.

And with the place sparkling clean.

I mean, you could practically eat off the counter, that’s how clean it was.

And the service?

Like I told people after:

The only thing that would have made the DMV more pleasant (again, the DMV!) would be if they had served refreshments. I mean, the employees there were not rushed or stressed, and were so pleasant we almost didn’t even want to leave.

In fact:

Stefania had some trouble with her social security number which they had to change after we got married. And the DMV employee, without being asked, spent over an hour on the phone dealing with the state to help expedite and get the problem sorted that ordinarily would have taken something like 6 weeks or longer, especially at that time when all the state agencies were backed up.

But not for Stefania.

She didn’t wait six weeks — she had her license when we left the DMV that day.

Now, do you really think AI or some automated process could have done that?

Of course not.

It would have coldly dealt with it, with zero humanity, because it’s not human.

It can’t negotiate or do anything it’s not programmed to.

That lack of humanity means there’s no relationship.

The only people who have a relationship with AI are deviants who molest sex robots.

I bring all this up not to cause a fight or piss off the AI bois, although I have no doubt this email will have done that in some cases. No, I bring this up because they are clear examples of how what is not human, what can only copy & mimic humanity, can never really have humanity any more than a sociopath can have a real connection with another human even if they intellectually wish to.

And that means opportunity for the rest of us.

That opportunity being:

Relationships will be an even far more valuable new coin of the realm.

I will happily go on record (not that this is a unique take, it’s not) right now and predict as AI gets more adopted, used, relied upon by businesses for writing ads, content, emails, whatever… the more in-demand, the more valued, and the more money will be made by those who don’t use it for those purposes, and give that human connection that can only be given by someone creating content of any kind with genuine humanity — flaws and all.

There are already agencies now using this to their advantage.

Literally saying they do NOT use AI in their marketing, to stand out.

Something to think about.

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www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Exactly 13 years ago in 2010 during the week between Christmas and New Years, I decided I’d had enough of client work.

I was doing a lot of copywriting for others at the time.

But I grew tired of it and wanted to be my own client.

So I sat down during that week and hammered out a detailed business plan to build out a business selling info products and supplements to a male health-related niche. The plan heavily involved following what a guy at the time showed me for how he built a $70k per year weight loss business doing literally nothing all day except answering a few customer service questions and playing with his kids.

A $70k business may not sound like much.

But his entire operation was:

1. Almost 2,000 articles on various article directories (SEO-driven, no longer viable)

2. Which drove traffic to his opt-in page

3. Then email to sell a $19 eBook via PayPal

And that was it.

That was his entire business — no affiliates, no funnel, no back end sales, no joint ventures, no nothing else but that. And I remember thinking if a guy like that could do $70k per year doing almost nothing, imagine what someone who does know copywriting, who does know how to create a back end, and who does understand how to build out a funnel could do?

And so I got to work.

And I spent the next month and a half following his protocols:

* Writing nearly 1,000 key word optimized unique articles for article directories

* Writing nearly 500 key word optimized unique blog posts

* Writing the eBook, the sales page, and a 101-email sequence (overkill in hindsight..)

Plus, I was on retainer with a client at the time writing all their emails, sales pages, webinar scripts, squeeze pages, and other advertising — not to mention writing all my own stuff selling a print newsletter (no longer published called The Crypto Marketing Newsletter), daily emails, etc.

That was a lot of writing.

Probably around 3 novels’ worth of writing by sheer volume.

And I distinctly remember getting so little sleep during that month and a half that I was just sort of existing in a haze, like a waking dream state, where I couldn’t tell you anything about my life during that time other than I was just always writing, Writing, WRITING… often only sleeping for an hour or two, and probably putting my health at risk in ways I shudder to think about now.

But I got the work done.

And I then took a much-needed road trip to see my dad.

During that road trip I watched as my little fledgling operation started paying off. I wasn’t making a fortune. But I was starting to get 2 or 3 sales of my own little $19 offer coming in, and then increasing to 4 and 5 sales per day, all automated (me doing nothing at that point) and it was looking like it’d keep going up with very little upkeep on my part.

Daddy was pretty proud himself that day.

Then, out of the blue:

Half way through the vacation… Google decided to ‘slap’ article directories.

All my page one content got zapped to page whatever.

The sales all dried up immediately.

And all that work was in vain.

Or was it?

Because a strange thing happened after that.

After all those words and sentences and pages… after all that writing and not sleeping… after all that work and effort… I found sitting down to write just ONE email per day so easy, it was almost laughable. Banging out sales pages took probably half the time, and I was already really fast at it following what later became my Copy Slacker methodology. And what used to take an hour or two would be done in 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes — max. To this day, writing “a” email is so simple and routine to me, I genuinely get irritated at people who whine to me about how hard and inconvenient and frustrating writing just one email per day is for them.

I simply can’t relate to those kinds of boys & ghouls.

And it’s one reason I actively try to dissuade lazy people from buying anything from me.

I don’t want to hear their stupid lazy “oh woe is me!” nonsense.

Now, fast forward about 5 years later after that.

I’m sitting at one of the Oceans 4 Masterminds I co-hosted with Andre Chaperon, Ryan Levesque, and Jack Born. And one of the clients at one of the Vegas ones was Mike Lovitch. And during one of the sessions he said his supplement business imposed MORE strict standards and more strict rules on their copywriters than the actual FTC laws required. He said that helped keep them off the radars and less likely to get messed with by the alphabet agencies.

Fast forward a couple more years after that.

I had written a sales letter for a nearly $1,000 book.

And I decided to hire internet marketing attorney and Email Players subscriber Mike Young to review it. And after getting his review, I implemented everything which, like with Lovitch, meant holding my copy to a higher standard than the government’s rules, only to find that it made all my copy more believable and credible and better.

Anyway, I am not sure where I’m going with this.

Other than I was reminded of these above three situations recently.

Specifically, when I read how Mike Tyson used to train so hard as a professional boxer that he considered the fight days themselves to be just “light” workouts.

A non-athlete would say that’s because he knocked people out so fast.

But it goes beyond that.

Any real athlete knows exactly what I speak of.

And it’s the heavyweight champion of the world of success hacks.

All right, that’ll do it for today.

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Ben Settle

Recently, I was asked on this on Twitter:

“Yo Ben random question, do you think it’s still feasible for someone to get into a crazy hot niche like email marketing / direct response services and actually go and ramp up to like $30k/m within a year if you’re completely new with no connections and experience ?”

My response:

1. Email is very trendy – where it’s big and cool for a few years, then the next bright shiny object tool comes along and everyone grifts to that and says email is dead, nobody reads emails, email is worthless, none of them get delivered… the usual nonsense.

Offering email services is just a bubble right now in my opinion, ripe for the popping.

Just like it’s done multiple times in the last almost 30 years.

2. If you want to sell direct response-related services, email or anything else, best way to do it is you go find a niche you’re passionate about (outside of teaching anything marketing-related, which you’re not ready for anyway if you’re asking this), grow your own list, sell it offers with email and sales copy you write, create, while working a 9-5 job to pay your bills.

Takes very little start up investment to do this.

All you really require is an email platform. If you use our BerserkerMail platform we will even host your opt-in page. What that means is, technically you don’t even really need a website at first. Just send people to your opt-in page hosted on our services and you’ll grow that righteous list of yours.

I realize nobody wants to hear any of this advice about getting a job.

They want the $100k business right out of school.

I mean, who doesn’t?

I was just reading about a poll saying zoomers all plan to retire at 56 years old or something.

Good luck with that, boys & ghouls..

Something else:

Worst thing you can do is market any kind of service when your broke, needy, and/or hungry.

Dig ditches or work at McDonalds (everyone’s hiring right now).

Or, better yet, find a helpdesk job for a SaaS company.

You’ll probably learn more about service and customer psychology doing that than probably any other method, and very quickly, and while getting paid. Frankly, if I was just getting started I’d get such a job. And thenI’d work my direct response business on the side, network my gluteous assimus off, make deals, and avoid clients until I had a business selling my own offers making enough where I don’t need clients.

At that point clients are optional.

Even better:

At that point if you still want to grace customers with your presence, you’ll come from a position of strength, expertise, and knowledge, and can charge far more, get far more compliance, and have far less headaches. Of course, if you do build your own thing and if you do become your own client, you will probably come to the conclusion I did many years ago:

Why bother with clients?

Why give other businesses the best of what you have to offer and the bulk of your time and the depths of your creativity & passion & knowledge building a lifestyle for that client and his family, when you can keep all the sales for yourself, control your own destiny, and create a lifestyle for yourself and your own family?

I say all this as someone who hates dealing with clients.

So I am obviously biased.

There are people who genuinely like dealing with clients.

And God bless ’em, someone has to I suppose.

But even if you want to lick client boots for the rest of your life, I’d still recommend getting a job, working your own direct response biz on the side selling your own offers to your own list first before finding any clients, relying on any clients, putting up with any clients.

All right ’nuff said.

Only other thing I will say about this is, when one is ready with a list and an offer and an eagerness to grow, Email Players newsletter could be the right move.

But until then?

Best stay way.

Otherwise, here is the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle