Ben Settle

Here’s a story for you:

In the book “Backstory 2” (interviews with old timey screenwriters) there is a part that talks about how in the early days of the business, when Germany was being hammered by withering inflation there was one group of people who made it through those times more or less unscathed.

According to the book:

“Motion picture workers were unaffected because—and this was a great piquancy of the history of motion pictures (I hate to say it, but that’s the way it was)—the worse the economy became, the better it was for motion picture people. Those without jobs hated staying home and listening to their wives complaining, so they went to motion pictures.”

This was true in America too during the Great Depression.

Rich people loved their entertainment.

And broke people needed to self-medicate.

The way both got what they wanted:

The movies.

Which provided… entertainment.

People have historically always paid for entertainment.

Entertainment keeps people sane.

Probably even keeps them from committing crimes, in some cases.

And, can even give them hope to hold on to during dark times.

Combine that entertainment with information — truly useful and relevant that solves their problems — and you almost can’t lose up in this business in my humble, but accurate, opinion.

With the shyt storm coming on the horizon now it’ll be even more potent.

And I predict the few businesses that truly get how to use and harness Infotainment — and not just talk about it, but know how to do it, and rarely do the two meet — will have not only a much easier time weathering the storm… but be doing their market, customers, clients a true service — mentally and emotionally — that goes way beyond just “give value.”

This includes in your marketing itself.

Everything can and should be infotainment.

Not just your emails, but your sales copy, your content, your offers, and even your customer service and at every other point your customers or clients interact with your business directly or indirectly.

Think long and hard about this.

Especially as Clown World continues to destroy the economy.

It could save your business…

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

When I say orc, I am talking about online trolls.

The way social media, anon posting, etc has grown, you almost have more trolls than normal people roaming the internet at this point. And this is especially the case if you have any kind of presence. If you don’t deal with them now, you will, and it’s just a matter of time.

Some of them are extremely nasty too.

If you’re lucky they’ll merely slander or flame you.

But more and more… and this especially true of political trolls… the favored method of choice is becoming to dox, swat, cancel, or, in some cases… even try to kill you or your family.

The best course of action is to usually ignore them.

The troll pathology is as such where they need to feed.

And if you don’t feed them (with your attention) they eventually move on.

But, in some cases, ignoring ain’t enough. And, yes, police reports have to be filed. Those are the extreme ones of course and a small minority of trolls. And you’re better off talking to a lawyer or your local police about them.

But the rest?

The 80+ percent of trolls?

The ones who are otherwise harmless & toothless?

Why, they were put on this earth for your business to profit from, in my opinion.

My motto is never to look a gift troll in the mouth.

One ankle-biting troll, for example, has resulted in a huge uptick in new BerserkerMail clients after blatantly lying about us on social media last year — not just in direct sales (gave me a whole week’s worth of email fodder to promote the platform)… but one of the emails I wrote dispelling this dork’s lies about us led directly to being invited to speak to the great Brian Kurtz’s mastermind not long after (which has led to multiple new Email Players, BerserkerMail, and other customers)… and, most recently, turned into an idea for an entire course we’ll be selling, that can lead to many more BerserkerMail clients over time, not to mention more sales, more influence, more affiliates wanting to work with us (which can lead to a ho’ bunch more sales, influence, etc), and more engagement with the platform.

Trolls are truly a gift if you know how to exploit their low IQ attacks.

And the worst thing you can do is try to make friends with them or get them to “like” you.

They won’t.

I would argue they can’t, even if they wanted to.

After all, they don’t even like themselves.

If they did, they’d focus on their own businesses instead of trolling.

The pathology of the troll is something I’ll be going deep into next year, as I have been coming up with all kinds of new ways (beyond even the ways I teach in my Copy Troll book) and using them to make all kinds of new sales for your business.

In the meantime, realize this:

The age of the troll is a boon if you know what you’re doing.

And, one reason they’re so useful is:

Email.

Publicly spanking trolls, profiting from trolls, mocking trolls in email… can be pure fun for you.

And it’s also good sport for your list.

Plus, it’s good business for your accountant and banker.

I have lost track of all the sales — direct and indirect — I’ve made from these idiots.

All right enough.

More here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Following is admittedly a hair-raising idea for freelancers and for clients who hire them.

Most will never do it.

I’d have been too chicken to do it myself in my early freelance days when I didn’t have a pot to pizz in or a window to throw it out.

But, I’m gonna share it anyway.

Here goes:

I was reading a book called Backstory 2 (interviews with old timey day screenwriters) a few months ago, and one of the interviews (with screenwriter Stewart Stern) talked about how Marlon Brando — often considered the single best method actor who ever lived — once started arguing with the screenwriter over a scene.

Originally, Brando approved the scene.

Then, suddenly, he hated and despised it.

The screenwriter tried calling Brando out about having approved it:

“We worked on this. You said it was great and everything had been cured.”

To which Brando replied:

“Well, it hasn’t. I looked at it again and it doesn’t work.”

And then Brando started challenging Stern:

“[Brando] would stand up in his dressing-room trailer and glare right into my eyes and demand to know what the Communists were doing up on the northern border. Challenge me to respond. Force me to be the prime minister [character in the scene]. He was saying things like [in a loud, enraged shout] ‘I don’t care if I approved this scene before — I PISS ON IT!” And he would throw the script across the trailer. Then I would pick it up and throw it back. The heat of it, the emotion of it, got us both screaming at each other. One or two very good lines passed our lips in the course of this that we then sat down and talked about. I wish I could remember the specifics of it. But something was generated in me that ideas began to come, that I felt this flush of emotion. . .that I had to write down. So, I went back and wrote a new scene—really a brand-new scene and brought it to him.”

The result?

The new scene hit it right out of the park.

And the next day Brando laughed saying it was good to see Stern fight for how much it meant to him, and praised him etc.

I don’t know about you.

But I find this sort of thing extremely fascinating.

In fact, I sent the above to Brian Timoney (who is a world renown Method Acting actor, instructor, & author) and he said:

You gotta love Marlon. Very method approach. I’ve used this myself in class with students. With the right person at the right time, it can produce results they didn’t think they had in them. They forget themselves and stop trying to be polite and just do it.

What Marlon did was use a provocation technique. It was first established by a guy called Eugene Vakhtangov, a Russian at the Moscow Arts Theatre. . .He believed that you needed to provoke the inner psyche of the actor. He once told an actress he was directing before she went on stage that she was too plain looking to play the part, which of course, made her furious, and she went on stage and blew it away.

Immoral of the story?

If I was a copywriter or client, I’d be asking myself:

1. How much crap copy has been written because a client didn’t challenge the copywriter like this?

2. And how many crap products have been sold because a copywriter didn’t challenge the client’s weak product like this?

We’ll never know.

But copywriters who don’t do this to weak products ain’t doing their job.

And clients who don’t challenge their copywriters like this ain’t doing their job.

There is much you can learn from the old school method actors.

Something to think on.

In the meantime?

Go here next:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Recently on Twitter a guy named Billboard Chris posted:

It’s up to Gen-X to win the culture war.

We’re still in the workforce, and coming into dominant positions politically.

We’re the last link of humanity who grew up with life before the internet. We’ve lived through more change than any generation in mankind’s history, and we can see what’s happening to society with the proper perspective.

I hope we get some more Gen-X fighters in the arena.

I don’t know about that.

I’m GenX through-and-through.

And I think I speak on behalf of many in my obnoxiously apathetic generation when I say it’s doubtful GenX will win any culture wars. And I also believe that what Stephen (the insane Irishman in the movie Braveheart) tells William Wallace — as they’re hiding under their small wooden shields from hundreds of arrows raining down, with their friends’ eyeballs, butts, testicles, and skulls being pierced on both sides of them — sums up a lot of our attitude best:

“The Lord tells me he get me out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re fooked.”

That’s certainly my attitude when Millennials & Zoomers ask my opinions on culture.

They’re on their own far as I’m concerned.

Especially the ones naive enough to still live in big American cities.

And there’s a reason I moved 300+ miles from any big city to a totally homogeneous small town.

Those not following suit will find all this out the hard way.

Especially if they are in the marketing bid’niz and still do silly nonsense like rely on one platform (Twitter, Facebook, whatever), hide behind cartoon avatars building someone else’s brand instead of their own, and chase algorithms & bright shiny objects instead of focusing on the basics:

Build list, mail it daily, mail those buyers something else.

It’s not all apathy over here though.

I still want to help my customers.

Specifically, my Email Players subscribers..

Which is why many have noticed that this year I’ve been especially aggressive about overdelivering (or, as one guy put it: overwhelming) in sheer volume, with double sized issues, extra-sized issues, etc. Because far as I’m concerned this year, and especially 2024-2025, are going to be nothing short of insane.

If you don’t have your shyt together – business & personal – by then, you’re fooked.

Nobody wants to hear that while fapping to their false gods like fapGPT, crypto currency, etc.

But that makes it no less true.

It’s not all doom & gloom though.

Not if you know what you’re doing.

Especially with email.

More on that here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A timely question:

Yooo, Ben. Hope you are doing well. I wanted to ask you something and it’s like seriously bothering me. English is my second language and I have been studying copywriting for over a year now. But whenever I write, it always feels like I am short of words. It’s like I lack the wordplay that great writers have. It’s bland like chatgpt. I don’t know if that can be improved and if it can be. Then how?

First, it’s good he recognizes how bland fapGPT-created emails are.

Watching copywriters get morning wood over fapGPT is as amusing as it is astonishing.

Second:

If your writing is bland that’s not a writing problem that’s a “you” problem.

Meaning:

You’re probably not pouring “you” into it at all. It should be 100% you — not only the way you talk in real life to people but, if you want to take it even farther… your thought patterns. I invented a term for this that I wrote about in the February Email Players issue I call:

“Greasy voice writing”

So not only writing like you talk.

But also writing as you think.

i.e., your unique, peculiar thought patterns.

However words appear in your mind that’s how they appear on paper.

(Or on the screen, whatever)

They will be flawed, imperfect, full of adverbs (I love adverbs), passive voice, run-on sentences, and a whole bunch of other things that’ll drive writing snobs batty. But nobody should care what broke writing snobs think — only what works.

Try that and see what happens to your writing.

For more email writing and copywriting go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Not if you build yours right, at least:

Hi Ben,

I have a few questions. Hopefully you’ll answer all – or some. Fingers crossed.

I’ve read some of your blog articles, watched a few of your youtube videos and checked out your offerings on Amazon.

When you talk about clientless writing, selling through email & that beginners that take the time to concentrate & put in the effort will see results – How much of that basic start is dependent upon social media and building your personal brand through social media?

What knowledge of brand building does one need to accomplish this?

And- Your books on Amazon- do they explain your technique for building this type of business?

I’m accustomed to doing business face to face – I don’t mind the internet but the whole invest

2010% of your time in SM idea that the youngerlings believe in……well, it’s not quite my cup of tea.

So, I find your premise intriguing. Your FAQ page says you don’t engage in SM platforms (except 1).

I’d love to know more.

The answer:

None of the above starts with or is dependent upon creating or growing a brand.

The brand comes second.

Second after what, you may ask?

After doing the basics:

~ Opt-in page

~ Sales letter/offer

~ Relentless daily email to the sales letter/offer forever

Social media is not a requirement one way or the other.

And if you do the above right, you should start to have epiphanies, start seeing what people are responding to (or not responding to), questions asked, what triggers engagement, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, what your game is and what your game is not, and the list goes on. These are the seed germs of what will grow into a brand people immediately are attracted to or repelled by. Your peculiar communication style, philosophies, & methods of how you do things will also develop, express, and come through too.

But it starts with the basics.

The raw fundamentals.

And not whether you’re on social or not, or anything else.

For the fundamentals of Email go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Last month there was a news article headline that said:

“Henry Cavill says he prefers playing video games than hanging out with people.”

To which I quote Tweeted:

@stefaniasettle says it’s totally normal & not-at-all pathological that I go on walks 2 hours before sunrise to avoid the possibility of a friendly tourist waving good morning to me, interrupting my thoughts to wave back, then bitching about the intrusion for the rest of the week

Why do I bring this up?

Because my list is, by my estimation, mostly introverts.

I can tell by the lack of engagement I get from them on live calls (coaching, free, whatever) vs the engagement I get from them via email replies. It’s like trying to pull teeth getting them to engage on live calls, webinars, etc. But I never lack for engagement when they are replying to my daily emails, from the comfort of their little hobbit holes, by their warm hearths.

And it makes perfect sense too.

Email is a true introvert-friendly platform.

It doesn’t mean extroverts — with all their annoying character flaws — can’t use email.

But they tend to like nattering away on social media.

And that’s just how it is.

Introvert, extrovert, Email Players can work for all.

To learn more go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Came a rather timely… question:

Hi ben,

If I start from scratch with my biz the strategy Traffic > Optin > Email > Sales Letter still does it works in 2023? Or It’s better to add a for ex. a Fb Group to have more “Intimacy” with your new audience?

Thanks for your answer 🙂

True story about this:

Back in 2008 at one the founding father of online marketing (Ken McCarthy’s) System Seminars, he did a joint session with Lloyd Irvin (who was doing something like $15 million per year in the martial arts school market, I think), for newbies and beginners.

One of the questions was similar to the one above:

“Do I need to be using social media, YouTube, etc?”

Ken’s answer:

(paraphrased)

“Go ahead and use all that if you want. But realize the vast majority of the money in direct response on the internet is still made — and always has been made — with an opt in page, sales page, and relentless email followup.”

That was 2008.

And if anything, this is even more the case in 2023.

Especially with everyone diddling around on social media.

The irony:

What works in direct marketing in 2023 (build list and mail it) is exactly what worked just after 1903 when John E Kennedy told Albert Lasker (the two founders of direct response marketers as we know it) what the definition of advertising is.

I doubt 1 in 10,000 online marketers even know who those guys were.

Much less what they said.

Nor will they bother to look it up.

But this has got to be one major reason why a lot of younger people who I see up in this business are frustrated & broke. Why so many desperately chase clout on social media via trying to troll their intellectual & professional superiors. And why a lot of the more bitter ones I’ve seen are about as persuasive & engaging in their limp-wristed social media-dependent businesses as a mouth breather sending dick pics to women on dating sites.

Just the end result of growing up with participation trophies probably.

A plight neither I or anyone I deal with regularly was ever burdened with.

But it does seem to be a thing amongst a lot of the yutes.

Anyway, no need for anyone in that situation to stay that way.

Awareness is half the battle.

So anyway, build list, and mail it.

To learn how to write emails to mail that list go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle