Ben Settle

Whoda’ thunk it?

Yesterday’s John Caples email about misleading ads hit a nerve.

And so today I want to tell you another story about how marketing deceit hurts (and not helps) sales.

Here’s the scoop:

A while back, I read a goo-roo’s account of how someone got swindled by some convenience store owner out of something like 30 cents.

It was by one of those loaded choices like:

“Buy one for 30 cents or 3 for a dollar.”

And like most people, the “mark” grabbed the 3 for a dollar option without thinking about it.

Okay, so what?

Well, this goo-roo thought that was pretty cool since it wasn’t lying, just playing into peoples’ lack of thinking (something like that).

And hey, it worked, right?

The store got 10 cents richer, and probably made a lot more than that when you multiplied this by thousands of others falling for the same gag.

But you know what I think?

I think it literally robs stores like that of sales.

Why?

Because (and this is the case with a LOT of people), later on, the sucker who got taken realized he’d been “had.”

No… 10 cents isn’t going to break anyone.

But it made him kind of mad when he thought about it.

And that means, he probably NEVER went back. Which means he probably never spent money there again. And for all we know, he may have even told other people not to go there, too — potentially taking away future sales from other potential customers.

Who knows how much one angry customer costs?

Which is why smart selling is not about tricks and gimmicks.

It’s about serving customers — finding out what they want and need, and then offering it to them in a way that gives them a good, warm, positive experience so they:

1. Eagerly WANT to come back again.

2. Enthusiastically TELL everyone else they know about you.

Not exactly “sexy”, is it?

Mayhaps not.

But in the end, you will make far more sales if you concentrate on “serving” people… instead of “tricking” them.

Ben Settle

P.S. Speaking of selling without tricks…

My Crackerjack Selling Secrets book reveals 101 ways to sell more products and services without selling your soul to some goo-roo.

It should be ready for re-release next week.

Last week, my friend Ryan Healy blogged an interesting question.

It was about misleading people in advertising.

And how far is “too far” when telling stories in sales letters, where it goes from a perfectly ethical and legal sales tool to a blatant and misleading lie?

One of his examples was the famous John Caples ad:

Very successful ad.

But, IMHO, misleading.

In fact, here’s what I wrote on Ryan’s blog about it:

Anyway, just one man’s opinion.

To judge for yourself, you can grab the ad here.

And if you’d like to chime in on this, click here.

Ben Settle

P.S. Last week I killed The Crackerjack Selling CD Club.

I’ll explain why in the world I’d end a program which did almost twice as well as expected soon. But for now, I’d like to give a heads-up to those who originally wanted the “Crackerjack Selling Secrets” book without being forced to join the continuity.

It’ll be available as a stand alone product probably next week.

Please let me know if you joined the Crackerjack Selling CD Club and did NOT get my special announcement sent to the customers last week.

Got a snazzy little Twitter tip for you today.

But first, my standard disclaimer:

I am NOT a Twitter expert in any way, shape or form whatsoever. I never will be one, either. So take the following with a big ol’ fatty grain of salt.

Anyway, here’s the tip:

Remember yesterday’s email about “Obvious Adams”?

Well, to further illustrate its timeless wisdom, one of the stories it tells is about how ol’ “Obvious” solved an advertising problem that plagued his boss, their agency’s client and everyone else involved with the project.

The exact problem isn’t really important here.

What is important was the solution — which was (and I quote):

Got a lot of that on Twitter, don’t we?

By the way, I know some of the social media goo-roos will freak out at the mere use of “Twitter” and “selling” in the same sentence. After all, it’s a SOCIAL medium, dang nab it! Not a platform for selling!

Which, IMHO, shows they don’t really know what “selling” is.

Let’s take all these teeth whitening tweets for example.

You can see these all the time when someone tweets something like, “Do Not Pay For Teeth Whitening” or whatever.

Pretty obnoxious stuff, isn’t it?

Now, again, I’m no Twitter goo-roo.

But here’s how I’d sell a thinga-ma-ding like this on Twitter:

First, I sure as heck wouldn’t advertise it on there.

That only annoys people.

And, in a lot of ways, turns off good prospects.

No… what I’d do is create a new Twitter account and start following and attracting people who are complaining about their white teeth problem… and engage them.

No selling or pitching, either.

Just yapping away about the PROBLEM.

And during some of this yapping, I’d mention a free ezine on the subject and plug THAT. Then, in the ezine, to my friendly group of people desperate to get rid of the problem they hate so much, I’d plug the product.

That, in my opinion, is how to sell with Twitter.

And you know what?

I think Obvious Adams would agree with me.

So there.

Ben Settle

P.S. For another Twitter brain fart like this, check out:

Got a cool (but kinda strange) writing tip for you today.

And, if you are someone who finds writing hard and painful, I suspect you’ll find it especially useful.

Check this out:

Recently, when rapping with my bud Rich Bryda (I’ll tell you more about him later), he told me about a way to make your concentration when writing SUPER focused.

Rich, by the way, is no dummie.

He’s written thousands of ezine articles in an ultra-competitive market, and what he told me is probably the best writing tip I’ve ever heard.

What did he say?

Just that, when writing, he puts a Mozart song on “repeat” so it loops over and over.

Does it work?

You bet your under-roos it does.

In fact, I’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now, and it’s done miracles for my concentration and attention span when writing.

The key is to pick songs that “rev” you up.

For example, here are a few songs from my “play list”:

• Clubbed To Death (From “The Matrix” Soundtrack)
• Driving With The Top Down (Iron Man Soundtrack)
• Fire Man (Iron Man Soundtrack)
• Rescue Mission (Watchmen Soundtrack)
• New Divide (Transformers 2 Soundtrack)
• Jamie (Weezer — no idea why this song works for me, whatever)

Anyway, those are just a few.

And what you do is, you pick a song and let it loop for 33.33 minutes (ala Eugene Schwarz’s classic “egg timer” teaching) while writing.

Do you need to listen to the same music I do?

No way, Jose.

I listen to action movie soundtracks cuz that’s what floats my boat.

But what you want to do is make YOUR own playlist, put one of the songs on “repeat” mode (you can do this in iTunes) and let the words fly.

Won’t this get boring?

Or even annoying listening to the same song over and over?

Surprisingly, no.

But it does focus your mind like nothing else.

And hey, who knows?

You may just have yourself a bit of fun to boot.

Ben Settle

P.S. Once you get your own play list, jam over to www.CopywritingGrabBag.com for 122+ ways to write your ads, emails and sales letters used by some of the best copywriters on the planet.

Recently, I had a chat with a marketing friend about goo-roos.

And he was telling me about this marketer he knows who’s just really, really (REALLY) arrogant.

On an “arrogance scale” of 1-10, he’s a solid 17.

Now, neither of us was judging this guy.

Frankly, the dude seems to WANT to be seen as arrogant. Probably as part of his positioning or brand or whatever. Which is perfectly fine — I mean, the way I see it, if someone wants to live in sweet, blissful arrogance who am I to stand in their way?

But here’s the problem:

There are thousands of brand new marketers popping up on the scene every day.

And many times all they are seeing is one arrogant goo-roo after another exaggerating, hyping and even lying through their teeth.

Like, for example, about inflated sales letter response rates.

Or how many people are on their list.

Or how much moola they made (funny how they usually only mention gross sales, and not net profit…)

And so on, and so forth.

My point?

Lots (too many) of people are thinking they need to do the same thing — to brag and be “cool” like the goo-roos so they can impress their customers with their wonderfulness.

But you know what?

The real experts don’t just talk about their successes.

They brag about heir FAILURES, too.

In fact, sometimes they brag MORE about their failures than their successes. Because usually the bigger the failure, the bigger the discovery they made that lead to their big success in the first place.

So anyhoo, just something to think about.

Next time you see some arrogant goo-roo strutting around like a miserly peacock counting its money, you may want to take what they say with a grain of salt.

This may not be true all the time.

But if they’re strutting, they could very well be struggling, too.

Ben Settle

P.S. You can learn from all kinds of non-arrogant, “for real” marketing geniuses in the appendixes inside “The Copywriting Grab Bag”:

Earlier this year, I took “inventory” of my schedule.

I’d been working from home full time for over 4 years so far, and yet, for some reason, I was still finding myself having a hard time getting everything done.

Know what I discovered?

I was (shock!) wasting lots and Lots and LOTS of time.

And all this time wasting tomfoolery was crushing my bottom line, making me more stressed and sending me merrily on my way towards total burnout.

So I said screw that — time to get ruthless with my time.

And the first step was making a list of all my time-sucking habits.

Here’s what the list looked like:

• Answering hate mail or some loser’s snarky comments
• Hanging out in forums
• Social media
• Reading the news
• Obsessing over every google brain fart
• Being a perfectionist
• Keeping the email program on when working
• Yapping away on the phone
• Fulfilling my own physical products

Anyway, I still struggle with some of these things at times.

So this ain’t me preaching.

Think of it as a “public service announcement.”

In fact, here’s something to ponder:

If you are indulging in any of these things several times per day (at the expense of doing something productive), I hereby challenge you to cut your time down doing these things by half for the next 30 days (one measly month), and see what happens to your income, your stress levels and even your peace of mind.

If you’re like me, the difference will be night and day.

Laters.

Ben Settle

P.S. For 101 “timeless” persuasion secrets used by some of history’s most successful sales, marketing and advertising pros, check out:

Right now, I’m blessed to be in two different mastermind groups.

There’s lots of smart folks in them both.

And one ’em includes a guy name Mike Dolpies.

Mike who?

Mike Dolpies.

Mike is one of my favorite “under the radar” business experts who is also a public speaker, author, and radio show host with a “knack” for helping people squash the stresses and pressures of business. (He’s pretty much got it down to a science.)

And while he may not be a goo-roo, he’s no “fluke”.

For one thing, he generated his first 7 figures BEFORE age 24 (in a real, “brick and mortar” business, not the overnight affiliate-‘n-hype driven Internet marketing arena). And he’s gotten praise from guys like Ben Gay III (from the “Closers” series) and Brian Tracey.

Anyway, below is an interview I did with him.

It’s got a little bit of everything – including tips for beating procrastination, getting referrals, persuasion, turning ideas into profit centers, melting away “price resistance” — the whole kitten kaboodle.

Here goes…

BEN: You preach motion before motivation, what’s that all about?

MIKE: Years ago a smart fella at Harvard said;

“We are more likely to act our way into feeling than feel our way into action.”

What this is all about is not waiting for inspiration or motivation in the “rah-rah, I feel great” sense of motivation. But simply using real authentic motivation, the kind that only comes from taking action.

That’s “Motion Before Motivation!”

BEN: What are some good ways to get rid of procrastination?

MIKE: Ben, I know one good way.

Although I’m sure there a lot of “procrastination goo-roos out there. That one way is to eliminate perfectionism in your life.

And I’m not talking about the OCD, go see the guy who sits on the couch perfectionism. I’m talking about the perfectionism that holds us all back. And that’s the perfectionism caused by us second guessing our work as “not perfect enough” to get it out there and start selling it.

Of course don’t produce crap, but get your stuff done.

My book is not perfect, but a lot of the folks who have read it, loved it. I was at an event and a woman who sells MaryKay for a living came up and gave me a huge hug thanking me for the book. What you think is not perfect is actually perfect for someone else.

BEN: Lots of sales, marketing and copywriting people are partnering with other businesses. What is the big lesson you learned about business partners.

MIKE: I was blessed that I had one amazing partnership for eight years. I was too young and stupid to realize how rare that really was. And after being naive enough to think that every partnership can work great I was introduced to reality when I got in business with some people who really did not have my best interest at heart. The lesson is that good partnerships leverage strengths. Most bad ones are simply formed out of weakness or greed. Trust your gut and sometimes listen to your attorney!

BEN: What’s the secret of getting ahead in your job or business regardless of your age, IQ or natural talents?

MIKE: Be an implementer. In a big company maybe it can be risky. But everyone likes the guy or girl who gets it done. In your own business-same thing, no one will make it happen but you.

BEN: A lot of us get ideas every day of the week we never bother implementing. What are a few ways to turn our ideas into profits?

MIKE: I have found that if you just take the first step (any step), the next step, while maybe more challenging, is certainly a little smoother. After you’ve been in business for a while maybe you’ve built up a list of customers or clients. So what you do is run the idea by them to see if they like it.

Does it solve a problem?

Does the idea produce a result?

If so, you got something. If you are into copywriting and online marketing take some time to write the sales letter or sales story so you can dump those key benefits out and practice communicating them. From there you just never know where it could go.

BEN: What’s a good way to beat stress? Especially for people who are really getting pounded by the economy and just barely surviving?

MIKE: The best way to tell that is to tell you a story…

There were two attorneys coming out of a downtown office building. They both witnessed a terrible accident. A man they both knew was hit by a bus and killed instantly!

One of the attorneys quickly became upset, angry, panicked and stressed. The other said, “That’s sad” and then went about his business.

The man that was hit by the bus was a witness in the case they were both working on. The attorney who became instantly stressed was the prosecutor. The one who really could care less was the defense attorney!

You might be laughing or you may think I’m crazy, but that story illustrates what stress is. Stress is simply a reaction to stimuli.

In the above example both these men were acted upon by the exact same stimuli, but their reactions were totally different. Stress was necessary to our survival thousands of years ago.

I am neither a psychologist nor a medical doctor, and I have never played one on TV. However, I am smart enough to know that most of the stress in people’s lives is brought about by no one other than themselves!

Yes, I know, “Other people cause you stress!” – Your kids, your co-workers, your spouse, your employees and don’t forget your in-laws. It’s sad how many of the people in your life that cause you stress have the same last name as you too!

I’m not one of these guys who walks around singing quotes but this one is good for dealing with stress.

“You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.” (Chinese Proverb)

BEN: What’s referral marketing and what’s a good way someone can use it to make more sales?

MIKE: I’ll keep this short since you can do a whole seminar on it.

When operating or working with clients that have “brick and mortar” stores I like to stimulate referrals by doing fun and informative events.

When I had my martial arts studios I’d have holiday parties and everyone would come to watch and bring their friends because “we heard” Santa was coming and was gonna try to break a board.

In more direct forms of networking you really have to let your network parters know how to refer you and WHO is a good referral for you.

BEN: How can we defeat price resistance?

MIKE: I learned that the most resistance comes from within our own head. But as you know, good marketing, positioning and over-all paying attention to details really helps.

And the truth is that most people either have a knee-jerk, “That’s too high” response or are conditioned to negotiate. There are a myriad of ethical ways to build value into your offering. You really have to be for real about the value and be sold yourself or it won’t work.

BEN: What is “informational persuasion” and how can people online use it?

MIKE: I originally came up with this when the Governor of Nevada really got pissed at the president for carelessly saying; “No going to Las Vegas on corporate jets.”

Amazingly companies canceled Las Vegas events and it really hurt the city. Without even knowing it (or maybe he did) the president simply persuaded people with his “information.”

Business owners can use it in a good way too.

We can get info out there to help our prospects make a decision about us. It’s sort of under the radar. When people read one of my books and then hire me to speak or consult with them. That is really informational persuasion at work. I am not afraid to admit that!

BEN: Speaking of your book, tell us about it and how it can help people who are in marketing and business.

MIKE: It will remind them to take action every day. It will help them harness the power of real authentic motivation, not just “feel good warm and fuzziness.”

The book is a fun read and it is not based on any theory just practical school of hard-knocks life-lessons.

The best thing for people to do is go to:

www.MotionBeforeMotivation.com

They can find out about the book and see there’s a whole lot of cool bonuses being given out today, November 10th. We’re on a mission to crack the best-seller rankings on amazon, so I really appreciate coming on and sharing!

# # #

That’s a wrap for today.

Tomorrow, something shorter…

Ben Settle

Got the bug to yap about sales letters today.

Specifically, 5 “classic blunders” that, if you are doing them, could be causing you to leave some serious smackola on ye olde table.

Here goes…

1. Removing The Proof

Once upon a time I wrote an ad for a product created by a young marketing whiz chock-full of credibility, proof and reasons to buy.

Yet, when the ad ran, the client gutted all the proof.

Why?

I have no idea.

And while we’ll never know for sure, I’d bet they got a small fraction of the response they would have had they kept the proof in there.

Way I see it, if you must cut, cut the hype, not the credibility.

2. Shorten For Sake Of Shortening

Another classic blunder.

Case in point:

While back I wrote a sales letter over 16 pages long. A few of those pages were story copy I thought maybe didn’t reeeeaaaally need to be there.

So we tested.

The result?

Let’s just say it was a very “short” test…

3. Assuming Other Tests Apply To You

Here’s a big no-no.

Just because (for example) a certain order button kicks buttocks for Marketer A, that doesn’t mean it’ll do diddly-squat for Marketer B’s unique product, prospects and other market-timing peculiarities.

4. Thinking Writing Is Most Important

It’s not.

That’s kind of a bummer for some people (it always was for me), but that’s just the way it is.

5. Listening To “Advertising Critics”

I don’t show my ads to a lot of copywriters or marketers.

Why?

Because to me, advertising critics are like movie critics.

And most movies that make a lot of moola tend to get ripped apart by the critics… while many movies that are slobbered over by critics are lucky to break even.

In fact, want to know something funny?

My longest running headline is FAR from “sexy.”

It sure as heck doesn’t look “cool”.

And yet, it’s been cleaning up for over a year — including as a stand-alone banner ad headline on super competitive sites like Drudge, NewsMax, WorldNetDaily, etc.

So be careful of advertising critics.

Including yours truly 😉

Anyway, those are 5 ways to ruin a perfectly good sales letter. For 122+ ways to instead BEEF UP your ads, pop on over to:

Ben Settle

Recently, someone asked me about Google “Sidewiki.”

What do I think about it?

And, how can we keep it from hurting our businesses?

Before I give my solution (and Sidewiki is a problem for ALL Internet marketers), let me ‘splain what it is real quick.

Here’s the low down:

Sidewiki is basically a “frame” Google puts around any website (if you’re logged into Google) so it LOOKS like you’re on a particular site. But, in reality, it’s Google, which lets readers do fun things like say nasty stuff about your product (or you), plug affiliate links and do all kinds of hip “social” stuff like that on the side right next to your content.

Some say it’s like the Internet equivalent of graffiti.

Anyway, so that’s the problem in a nutshell.

What’s the solution?

Drum roll please…

Email.

Yep… plain old 1990’s “retro” email.

Unless I’m wrong, Sidewiki can’t touch your private emails.

Which means, if you start learning how to do most of your selling by email (and not relying mostly on websites) you’ll be WAY less effected.

I’m not saying Sidewiki doesn’t still suck.

And I’m not saying email is the end-all-be-all, either.

But when you understand how to use email so it does most of the “heavy lifting” for you, it blunts the effect of all these cyber punks spraying graffiti on your sites.

I’ll see ya next week.

Ben Settle

P.S. I’m thinking of doing a long, “reveal all” lesson on email writing and marketing early next year.

Not sure exactly when it’ll be.

But I do know it’ll give “my guys” (and gals) a HUGE advantage online.