Ben Settle

Came a drive-by comment from a grammar nazi:

(totally unedited, exactly how it showed in my inbox)

You really ought to fix the little error in your text…

“…emails now they see so lame in comparison”

Should be…

“…emails now, They seem so lame in comparison”

Sheer perfection.

The irony of his grammar nazi’s advice to edit a testimonial Ken McCarthy sent me, while the grammar nazi literally capitalized a letter after a comma in his grammar lesson to me, literally writes itself. No other commentary is probably necessary about how grammar nazi’ism is a literal mental disorder on the level of pronouns in the bio. But still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t add how it was recently shown that bad grammar causes actual, physical distress in certain people.

Now, think on that a minute:

They don’t just get annoyed.

Or just irritated.

No, these schlubs get legitimate physical distress.

In my (correct) way of thinking, they have a mental disorder over bad grammar.

And just like people with pronouns in their bios, they are all but begging to be mocked, marginalized, and then ignored by the rest of us — which, if you understand the part of the human brain that ignoring someone wrenches on, causes them even more stress.

We used to treat the mentally ill with compassion.

Now?

We let them type on the internet..

What’s the world coming to?

Anyway, the above will sound “mean!” to some people.

Probably it amused others.

And maybe it even offended (hopefully) a lot more who shouldn’t even be on my list anyway like the dingbat who was offended because I used the word “chick” last week, much less clicking any links I include in my emails.

All right, that’s enough fun for today.

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Ben Settle

Mostly I refer to copywriting clients.

But, really, this could apply to most any other service too.

Or can be adapted as such.

Anyway, here’s the whole “secret” —

1. Make list of companies whose products you already use & who already hire direct response copywriters (i.e., sell to buyers)

2. Contact them

3. Ask who to talk to about writing copy for them

4. Take it from there

Will this work 100% of the time? Will you get a client with every try? Will someone always even get back to you? Will this be the secret sauce you use forever, and that you can now go around re-teaching to the masses as if it’s new even though it’s just basic marketing 101?

No.

What the above does is get you in the game.

Gets you meeting, making connections, and ideally interacting with someone (or several someones) passionately about their offers, as not just a copywriter but a consumer of what they sell.

More:

The above is just step one.

And step #4 “Take it from there” is obviously very obscure, because there are millions of things that can happen — more often than not totally unpredictable — from there. And that’s where having the right approach to not just freelancing… but business and even life itself (how you approach all your relationships) comes into play.

From there is it 99% relationships.

To learn more about email for your business go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Once in a while, some eager beaver soul will ask if I have an affiliate program — especially for Email Players or any of my other higher ticket books.

And the answer has always been no.

A few (not all) of the reasons include:

* Physical products are a pain in the arse to sell via affiliates

* FTC rules mean me having to “police” what affiliates say

* I am a awful money manager and don’t want to deal with paying affiliates

* I preach to the already-initiated, and never the uninitiated in my advertising, and my offers are not-at-all unsuitable for anyone not already on my list, sold “on” me, and who does not know me or is at least somewhat familiar with how I operate, think, and do things

So those are a few reasons.

I may license (to qualified businesses) certain of my books out some day.

But I doubt I’ll ever have an actual affiliate program.

That said:

The software company I co-own does have such a program.

One of the offers is BerserkerMail which is a great subscription offer upon which a cunning marketer could back end sell other offers, coaching, services, be a one-man cottage industry leader to. And the other is Learnistic Pro (our mobile app platform) which pays out extremely high commissions to the point where a marketer with his act together could probably turn it into a 6 and maybe even possibly a 7-figure operation over time, especially if one was to approach is shrewdly, and is a good salesman.

Most affiliate marketers don’t think very big though.

So neither of the above will likely appeal to them.

But for the cunning & ambitious business owner?

Maybe one or both offers would be worth looking at selling.

If you are interested in one or the other or both… reply back to this email and tell me why you want to be an affiliate for us. You don’t have to give me your life story or impress me. I just want to see if what you’re doing is compatible or not, to save us both time.

If I think you are compatible?

I’ll forward your request to our COO Nicole English who will further “vet” you.

And then from there we’ll see what happens.

To read more about my monthly paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

Reader JD observes:

(re: the intro to the BerserkerMail podcast)

the girl introducing the podcast calls Troy the “navy new-cue-ler engineer turned email software developer…” Point being it kinda undercuts the prestige you’re building with the whole “former nuclear engineer” moniker.

You know, maybe he has a point?

Let’s take a look and see:

1. The announcer girl is not a New-cue-ler engineer — she’s an entertainer. And the entire intro is just pure entertainment. Admittedly, I assumed that was obvious to anyone listening. But I can assure you, when Troy is yelling at the software team in those intro clips he wasn’t exactly reading out of an English text book, either.

2. I don’t think I’ve ever met a truly brilliant man or woman (150+ IQ) including scientists and engineers who didn’t butcher the English language in some way, whether verbally or in writing (or both), to the point where it’s almost a trope.

3. Caring about a word that not 1 in 1,000+ people would even notice, much less reply guy’ing about, is the epitome of majoring in the minors.

Something else to think about:

When I assembled that intro from some audios of Troy chewing out the old software team (long since fired for not paying attention to details) no mispronunciations were intended or considered either way.

I didn’t even notice it when I heard it myself.

Nor did a single other person we showed it to.

Take, for example:

Troy told me that when he asked the great “King of Email” himself Matt Furey to listen to it for his opinion (Troy was a tad hesitant to run it at first) he said Matt liked it and even urged him to use it.

So I don’t know what else to tell these reply guys.

Other than maybe this:

As much as they might not take Troy seriously now due to what the paid announcer girl entertainer said, I suspect Troy doesn’t take these reply guys majoring in the minors seriously either.

I guess that means they’re both disappointed..

All the above goes for Email Players as well.

I’m far from being a best-speller, and care far more about being a best-seller. And rarely do the twain meet…

More here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A while back I read an interview with old school screenwriter Curt Siodmak who wrote a lot of the scripts for the old timey day monster movies everyone has heard of, if not seen. And in his interview (inside the book “Backstory 2”) he told the story about how he got the idea for a movie that, if you adjust for inflation, sequels, longevity, reboots, merchandising, conventions, books, comics, spin-offs… has been probably worth billions collectively.

An idea that came about, quite frankly, as a joke.

What happened was this:

He was sitting at the Universal commissary (back during WW2) with a friend who was drafted and wanted to sell his car. Apparently, back then, you really couldn’t get a car since car companies only churned out war material. So this was a chance to get a car during a time when cars were not easy to get.

The problem?

He didn’t have the money.

But, what he did have was a sense of humor.

And he made a joke to another guy at the table (a movie producer):

“Frankenstein Wolfs the Meat Man, I mean, Meets the Wolf Man.”

His friend (the producer) didn’t laugh.

Instead, the guy came back to Curt’s office a couple days later and asked Curt if he’d bought the car. Curt said he’d need another job to pay for it. And the Producer said, “you have a job, ‘Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.’ You have two hours to accept.”

Personally, I love hearing stories like that.

It’s also why I tell anyone who will listen:

Write ALL ideas down and be obnoxiously paranoid about it.

Great ideas can be extremely fragile and fleeting.

And it only takes one to change the trajectory of your business and life.

Do what you will with that.

In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the monthly paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

Here’s a fantastical story about writing ridiculously profitable ads for you:

Many years ago Michael Senoff interviewed a guy (Michael Samonek) about his insanely popular (promoted all over the Food Network at the time) book about special effects recipes that move, and smoke, and do crazy stuff, that he sold primarily via direct response and media publicity.

And, at the start he talked about his main copywriting inspiration:

Comicbooks.

He said he just got fascinated by how the ads in those comics (pre 1990’s, when they were all direct response, before they started accepting boring corporate advertising) got into his soul and knew exactly what he wanted, even if he didn’t even know it at the time.

I suspect a lot of old school comicbook fans can relate.

Those ads were sometimes BETTER than the content around them — more fascinating, more exciting, and more interesting.

Mail-order millionaires were sometimes made from a single ad at the time.

But, you may wonder, exactly how did they crawl right into your soul?

Well, it went way beyond just “copywriting.”

In fact, the writing isn’t even all that great in a lot of them.

Look at the ridiculously popular Sea-Monkeys ads.

We ain’t exactly talking Caples, Halbert, or Bencivenga-level copy.

To understand what they were doing, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the average comic book reader at the time: introverted & awkward teenager who is an outcast and total “girl repellant” — scrawny, bullied, lived in his own head, thinks of himself as the damned amongst his peers going on dates and getting girlfriends… and using comicbooks as escapism to experience what it was like to be tall, powerful, and superhuman, and not so timid, awkeward, and afraid of his own shadow.

So he’s reading these comicbooks about people with superpowers.

And amongst these stories about people with super powers are ads.

But these ads did not just promise “bEnEFiTs!” like lesser copy solely focuses on. No, these ads promised something quite different. Something far better. Something literally irresistible no matter how bull shyt the ads sounded.

And what these ads promised the tortured, scrawny, “girl-repellant” yutes was:

Super powers!

* X-ray vision (like Superman!) glasses.

* Skinny-to-muscular (like the Hulk!) overnight programs.

* Long-lost ancient secrets from the Orient (like Iron Fist!) to kick ass.

* How to grow taller (like Hank Pym!)

* Pets (Sea-Monkeys!) that live in a little underwater magical kingdom.

* How to impress people with magic (Dr. Strange!) tricks.

* And even how to control other peoples’ minds (like Professor X!), become a “rockstar-level” guitarist (like KISS!) in 7-days, perform strong man stunts (like The Thing!), become rich (like Bruce Wayne!) selling newspapers… to becoming a secret agent with a spy camera (like James Bond!) – and all for just a postage stamp plus $1.00 for shipping!

Totally irresistible.

Anyway, they make great case studies for marketers.

Dan Kennedy ain’t just whistlin’ dixie when he says:

“What works to sell the incredible, sells even better to sell the credible.”

Powerful advice.

And often used by those who write powerful ads, emails, sales copy.

For more on the Email Players Newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

The Tolkien fanboys get grumpy when I talk about this.

But, at least according to the book “Bandersnatch” (about the Inklings group C.S. Lewis and Tolkien belonged to) probably Lord of the Rings never would have been written if not for C.S. Lewis. And, even if it had been written, it would have been a completely boring, snooze fest just about hobbits sitting talking and eating and drinking and smoking or whatever.

Yes, originally, Tolkien didn’t write it as some kind of War of the Ring story.

In fact, The Ring had nothing to do with it.

(Add he had to retcon The Hobbit later as a result)

And if LOTR had been written at all, it’d been boring as hell.

With no Rings.

No Ringwraiths.

And no real adventure or anything worth reading.

There’d never even be a Lord of the Rings if left to Tolkien’s original ideas for the book. Not to mention no movies, no video games, no Amazon series (not that anyone cares about that show, but still…) and, basically, no multi-billion dollar franchise.

So how did Lewis save Tolkien from his boring ideas?

It’s quite simple, Frodo:

What Lewis told Tolkien was, yes, hobbits were interesting.

But, they were only interesting when they were out of their element and stood in CONTRAST to the other Middle Earth races — humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. It was only then that anyone cared about them. And, I will add, it was only then when the story started getting interesting, and ultimately turned into something people would grow to love and cherish as LOTR fans do.

More:

This advice applies to many beloved franchises.

It’s not unlike the blonde chick (Marilyn) in The Munsters. The Munsters would probably not have been as engaging and popular probably without a human in the mix. And so it was also with the Muppets. It was the human guest each show that made the Muppets stand out and be inherently more interesting. Same with Sesame Street, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, and many other beloved entertainment shows, movies, franchises.

Something to think about.

For something else to think about, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of the more fascinating bios I read this year is called:

“The Earl Nightingale Story”

About (in case this isn’t obvious) Earl Nightingale.

I had zero idea how fascinating and interesting this guy was until reading this book. He was far more than just the sort of father-figure and founder of modern info publishing as we know it.

He was also a brawler with violent anger issues & PTSD.

He was in constant pain from adult onset gigantism (applying his own teachings about having a good attitude to stay sane despite the constant pain)…

And was all but an “honorary” mafia wise guy from what I can tell.

For example:

When a kidnapping attempt was made on his kids, he got a mysterious phone call from the head of the Chicago mob telling him it would be “taken care of” if that tells you something… and often met with the guy at his home, played pool with him, they knew his kids, and one of the guy’s body guards even got one of Earl’s daughters out of some serious trouble once…

Extremely fascinating guy to say the least.

He was also the “founding father” of modern content creation in many ways.

Here’s what I mean:

One of the businesses Earl owned early in his career was an insurance agency. And he had a knack for inspiring his sales people in his talks to them, which he held every week or so to keep them motivated and selling.

But, one time, he was in a hurry about to go on vacation and couldn’t do the meeting.

So, instead, he recorded an 11-minute talk for them.

And then went with his family on a boat.

Totally out of communication for a few months.

During that time he was gone, his team listened to the recording, were absolutely blown away by it… and suddenly, someone said something to someone somewhere… and that person said something to someone… and then, eventually, everyone wanted to listen to it – with people calling the Chicago radio station Earl worked at for it, constantly pestering his secretary about it.

This was before it was cheap to make info products.

I can’t remember the exact numbers.

But Earl’s secretary had to make an executive decision (that she thought Earl would possibly fire her for when he found out) to have something like ten thousand cassettes of his talk duplicated, which was probably the minimum order.

No print-on-demand-like options back in them days.

The result?

The #1 selling spoken word album in history at the time.

And all with zero advertising, marketing, internet, social media.

Just pure word of mouth.

When Earl came back to the Florida pier to dock his boat after being out of communication for a few months, he saw a bunch of reporters and a huge crowed waiting for him and, assuming he was being arrested for some reason, offered to turn himself in!

Crazy times to say the least.

(And that ain’t even the most interesting part of this bio)

This 11-minute recording Earl dashed out literally created an entire genre.

Franky, if you are an independent content creator you can at least partially thank Earl Nightingale for paving the way, as nobody was doing this sort of thing before then, or even knew you could do it, or even thought it was worth doing, or would be something people would buy.

Some more fun facts about this short bit of content that changed the world:

* Had absolute crap “production values” — like scratches, pops, and no retakes, just quickly batted out, almost as an afterthought

* Zero marketing or fanfare — all word-of-mouth

* Created “off the cuff” — no planning or plotting it out, total stream of conscious

Today’s snobby content creators would surely balk if they heard it.

And yet how many millions of lives did that recording change — either directly, or via the endless number of other training Earl created afterwards because of it, not to mention all the people he influenced, and the people those guys then influenced…?

We’ll never know.

Point is this:

You just never know what content is going to change your entire business.

In my own business, it’s very often the content I put the LEAST amount of thought into, just do it off-the-cuff, and sometimes even forgetting about it, that tends to be the most valuable, most profitable, and most “viral” (amongst my boys & ghouls at least).

This is why the content game is won by speed & volume.

I’m not saying to create crap or half ass anything.

But it’s like I like to say:

“To make more money than you do now, simply create more content than you do now, faster than you do now.”

And then get it out there.

Like tentacles probing and invading the marketplace.

So simple.

So easy.

So pleasant… if you know what you’re doing.

And yes, I said “pleasant.”

If you understand how to approach email — especially the way I teach to Email Players subscribers — banging out emails that sell your offers does not have to be some droning chore you hate and avoid. It can be a fun, exciting adventure you look forward to… and then enjoy even more when you see the proceeds rolling in from such content, the lives changed, the way people thank you for selling it to the because of the way it solved whatever problem for them that your product is designed to help with.

More on the paid newsletter here:

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Ben Settle

The great comicbook writer Chuck Dixon recently dropped a magnificent quote.

It was about the difference between amateurs and professionals.

And that difference is:

“Amateurs do on accident, pros do on purpose.”

A very good distinction. It also dovetails with something I talk about at time inside Email Players – about the difference between a mere “content creator” and a Craftsman:

Content creators are a dime a dozen.

And the ones using AI are even cheaper.

But in both cases they create content as a means to an end. They may enjoy it, maybe. But everything they teach, talk about, create content about goes wide, and never deep. A Craftsman, on the other hand, has an undeniable — can’t be faked — “mad scientist”-like obsession with what they do/teach. They’re so irrational about excellence it almost makes people nervous to be around them.

They’re easy to spot these days since they’re so rare.

Takes Steve Jobs.

He wasn’t a computer guy, a software guy, or a tech guy.

He didn’t even know how to code.

(Which even Bill Gates mocked him for).

But he was a Craftsman, learned from his dad, who was a world class cabinet maker. Jobs was a notorious azzhole & narcissist. But I’d argue that was from being a Craftsman. He demanded such perfection “good enough” wasn’t even in his vocabulary. And while you’ll exhaust and sabotage yourself if you aren’t careful with this attitude (it helps to have a billion dollar budget & millions of customers, so blowing deadlines ain’t the end of the world like it is for those on a shoe string, for example — and probably even adds to the demand as people value what they wait for more than what comes fast…) it’s still the attitude to have with content creation.

If you’re writing, every word drips with depth.

If you’re making videos, every shift of body language has intensity.

If you’re doing audio, every inflection oozes passion.

Not on purpose, or as an act… but because you’re naturally so intense about your topic. That’s how you know you’re a Craftsman and not a mere content creator. The fact so many content creators need to motivate themselves, have “accountability partners”, need Facebook groups, seek constant validation from peers… shows how few content creators are truly Craftsmen at what they do/teach/create.

This is a small part of a much longer conversation.

And something I sometimes talk about in Email Players.

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Ben Settle