Ben Settle

Lately, I’ve been getting lots of email client inquiries.

By that I mean, someone wants to hire me to write their emails, autoresponders, etc, on a fee basis, just like I would write an ad for a client.

So far, I have turned them all down.

Even for quality products.

And even for clients willing to pay a boatload of green stuff.

In fact, other than a client who has me on retainer right now (where I do all sorts of copywriting — ads, squeeze pages, emails, video scripts, etc) I only do emails for my own sites. And the reason why is because when I do the math, it seems I would make FAR more than whatever fee someone would reasonably be expected to pay for writing 50 or 100 emails (whatever the number is) by writing them for one of my own sites, instead of theirs.

So what would be the point?

However, recently I started re-thinking this.

I might make an exception.

And that is if the client:

1. Hired me on retainer – to do daily emails
2. Is willing to pay a small % of royalties on gross sales

If someone offered that, I might do it.

Maybe.

For one thing, the retainer fee would be high.

Secondly, it’d have to be for a market I’m comfortable writing to.

And finally, they’d have to have the right kind of business (not a newbie operation), with a big, responsive list. For a business with all the above in place, plus a good back end set up, it’d be a total no-brainer for them.

However, there ain’t many biz’s like that.

And many aren’t set up for it.

Plus, I trust precious few people anymore.

So they’d have to give me unfettered access to sales stats, and pay promptly. In addition, they’d have to “license” the emails from me — meaning, I own the emails I write and they can use them for as long as they’re complying with the terms of the agreement.

Again, not too many businesses would do this.

And maybe I can’t blame them?

So instead I write emails for myself only.

In those cases, I don’t have to worry about being paid on time, or getting screwed out of royalties, or having to filter perfectly good emails through 17 idiots who never test and wouldn’t know a good email if it fell out of the sky, landed on their faces, and took a leak.

Sounds almost cynical, doesn’t it?

Maybe so.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 24 months it’s (if you’re a freelancer) you are always your own best client. And if you are not a freelancer but simply know email, you’re your own best copywriter, too.

IMHO, it’s the #1 most profitable skill.

At least, it has been for me.

And it has been for lots of Street Smart Email customers, too.

You can learn how it’s done at:

Ben Settle

You know what the trouble with business is today?

Most people value intelligence over wisdom.

Big mistake, too.

That’s not to say intelligence isn’t important. But it’s like when I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid. When you created a character on paper you rolled dice to decide your character’s attributes — like strength, charisma, constitution (i.e. health & vitality), intelligence and, yes, wisdom.

What was the difference between intelligence and wisdom?

Aren’t they the same?

Not even close.

You can get intelligence doing “safe” activities — like reading books. Wisdom comes from experience, pain and failure. The D&D books put it like this: “intelligence tells you it’s raining, and wisdom tells you to get out of the rain if you want to stay dry.”

So for example…

Intelligence says to write an ad.

But wisdom says to place your ad in front of what the late, great Gary Halbert called “the starving crowd.”

Like intelligence, the ad by itself is useless.

The starving crowd is where the money is.

That’s wisdom, baby.

And some ways to get it are by experience.

Painful mistakes.

And, yes, humiliating failure.

Anyway, what’s the point?

Get busy failing.

Even if it stings, a bit.

It’s the intelligent thing to do.

Ben Settle

P.S. Of course, you can also gain wisdom from OTHER peoples’ failures, too. In the next Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue, I’m handing subscribers two email sales “templates” that are easily adapted for almost any offer, that I learned partly via painful trial & error. Just take my examples, switch in your product details and testimonials (you’ll need testimonials for this) and that’s it.

No uber-intelligence is required.

Just copy, paste, adapt and push “send.”

Subscription info at:

Once upon a time I got in a “tiff” about email.

I was working with an Internet marketer on a client project, and we got into a bit of a… disagreement… about how best to sell with email. It was his contention you should never sell to new subscribers off the bat.

The reasoning went a bit like this:

Let them “incubate” first.

Then, after you’ve gained trust, show them your product.

Make sense?

Not to me it doesn’t.

In fact, I think it’s crazy, completely unnecessary and does nothing but hurt the people on your list in the long run (not to mention your sales).

How?

Well, let’s put it this way:

Imagine someone with a urinary tract infection.

It hurts like hell just to pee.

Nothing he’s been prescribed works, but you have a product that solves that problem quickly and naturally, without spending very much money at all.

Are you going to make him friggin’ “incubate”?

Or show him what he WANTS?

And by the way, pain takes all kinds of forms — could be a physical pain or just a desire to have something they don’t yet have (money, knowledge, a spouse, whatever).

Plus, here’s something else to ponder:

You may only have one shot to make the sale.

Real life DOES happen.

Spam filters kick in.

People’s webmail gets full (so emails can’t make it through).

Or their ISP zaps your emails.

If your life depended on it… if your prospect’s life depended on it… would you risk trying to “incubate” them for a week or whatever… or at the very least show ’em what you got right off the bat?

I’m not saying to be pushy about it.

Or even blatant.

But withholding your product is unethical.

Now, here’s the good news:

There are ways to email so you both get sales and build trust — including ways to sell where people don’t mind at all.

(They even look forward to it!)

Yes, this is possible.

And I can show you how at:

Ben Settle

OK, so here’s the deal.

There are several people I know of (and maybe more I don’t know of) who are on the “fence” about buying the Street Smart Email course.

And who can blame them?

It’s a big investment.

And since there is no guarantee, it’s difficult for someone who’s not totally sold on whether or not I can live up to the promises of the product to just dive in head first.

If that’s you, mayhaps this’ll help:

Copywriter Jon McCulloch recently submitted this unsolicited comment to the private Crypto Marketing Newsletter forum:

Peeps,

I was going to do a full 30 days’ review, but I think this is good enough for now.

Sarah started using the thing on 9th April.

She’s been mailing every day.

Yesterday, as I predicted, SSE paid for itself, and plus $80 or so extra. This is selling an ebook at $37 (plus the option for the MP3s at $47; she also sells some other MP3s for $17. Average sale is around $33 for this period).

Moreover, sales are up 92.3% on the same ten-day period last month.

Seems like a no brainer to me, chaps.

Don’t tell me you “can’t afford it”.

Ben — fire me over that Affiliate link, would you?

I want to promote this to my list.

Warmly,

Jon

So anyway, that’s it for today.

Get your email on here:

Ben Settle

Well, that was interesting.

My little expose of why moving the free line is not the sales panacea certain goo-roos would have you think it is poked a few soft spots. And I totally get it, too. When you’ve spent a ton of money learning that moving the free line is the best way to sell online and then someone comes along and says it’s not, cognitive dissonance sets in and you now have to mentally justify the large purchase and why its teachings are true.

(Probably the only useful thing I learned in college.)

Anyhoo… I got to thinking about this.

The following is not a “scientific” example.

But it does illustrate why selling is FAR more profitable than being a give-away artist.

Recently I did a couple JV’s.

Both were selling my products to others’ lists.

JV #1 has a bigger list than JV #2.

And, JV #2 was selling a product that is more than twice as expensive (almost $1000) as the product JV #1 was selling.

Both have similar relationships with their lists.

And both are awesome copywriters.

So what happened?

JV #1 sold the product via my (not-so-brilliant) idea where I’d write a bunch of content for his list (moving the free line, in a sense).

And JV #2… did zero teaching at all.

Just selling (via the lowly email).

The result?

JV #1 got only 1 sale.

And JV #2?

A whopping 7 sales!

Again, even though JV #2 has a tiny list and was selling a near-$1,000 priced product.

Now, there are many factors at play.

So I cannot say it’s ALL free line vs selling.

But it did not surprise me one bit.

(And I owe JV #1 an apology!)

Anyway, that’s that.

If you want the next Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue before it mails out, subscribe today, by Monday it’ll be too late:

Ben Settle