Ben Settle

Let me be perfectly blunt:

I honestly have no clue what you can expect in 2010.

I’m the last person to ask about such things.

And, frankly, even if I had some kind of magical “crystal ball”, I wouldn’t be too confident in my ability to accurately interpret whatever I saw.

Even so, there is ONE thing I will predict.

Something that can possibly make your 2010 extremely profitable — whether you’re a raw, “wriggling” newbie marketer or a seasoned “battle tested” entrepreneur.

And here it is:

I believe it’ll be more important to know how to SELL in 2010 — online, direct mail, phone, email, in person, however you do it — than ever before.

Methinks it’ll be FAR more important than in 2009.

And certainly more important than it was in the economic “sugar high” that ended in 2008 — when everyone was buzzing on credit and loans, with money burning holes in their pockets and even crappy products sold like hot cakes.

Remember that?

You didn’t have to be particularly bright to sell then.

And you could get away with doing a lot of things that simply don’t work very well anymore (like pouring on the hype, fabricating social proof, bragging, etc — pretty much what some of the goo-roos now in hiding or retired did).

Yes… I know that’s not a very “sexy” prediction.

But remember this:

As Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus once said:

And hey, let’s face it:

There are a lot of “blind” marketers running around still trying to get away with “killer” marketing instead of principled based selling.

Which leaves a lot of opportunity for everyone else.

Anyway, have a safe and happy New Year, my friend.

And I’ll see ya on the other side.

Ben Settle

P.S. My book Crackerjack Selling Secrets contains 101 easy, ethical and 100% “painless” ways to sell (online or offline) used by some of history’s most persuasive marketers.

You can get your copy for 2010 here:

Grab it today and I’ll even pay your shipping.

If you use AdWords, then today’s email will be like solid gold.

Especially if you’re nervous about Google’s freaky new changes and are not sure what to do, where to turn or who to trust.

Anyway, here’s the scoop:

One of the marketers I have the privilege to “mastermind” with is a computer scientist and AdWords guru (not a goo-roo) named Jim Yaghi. A few years ago (while studying to get his PhD in computer science), Jim discovered a secret way of using Google AdWords to get all the traffic he could handle — and for just pennies per click (even in hyper competitive niches where PPC traffic is extremely expensive).

But here’s the thing:

Jim hardly ever teaches his AdWords strategies publicly.

They’re just too valuable.

And like most of the “for real” pros, Jim has found he makes far more moola by using his strategies for his own businesses than by teaching them to others (who then become his rivals).

But, he still sneaks in a training or two sometimes.

And below is an intense Q&A I did with him about all the recent Google changes going on — where even seasoned AdWords marketers are getting their heads handed to them and (in some cases) even being BANNED by Google forever.

Anyway, here goes…

BEN: Jim, you can’t swing a bat anymore without hitting yet another “PPC expert”. And most just teach the same tired stuff they heard from some other guru who heard it from some other guru, etc.

Tell us a little about how you got into PPC and your background.

What makes your take on this unique?

JIM YAGHI: I started my first Adwords account in October 2006.

Things were different back then, they were easier. After only a little learning curve I got the hang of it.

I knew I’d stumbled on a really effective way to advertise.

I could put up an offer and send traffic to it within 15 minutes flat. I would sit there and refresh my account to see where I was getting impressions and clicks. I could instantly test an ad and see whether it worked or not.

Eventually, I got to a point where I was single-handedly generating over 1,000 leads every day in a very competitive “home business opportunity” niche. When my friends discovered I was getting my leads at an average of $2.31 and making back over $4 in profit per lead, they were amazed. Keep in mind, people are spending at least $5 per lead in this market.

A few of them hired me and others had me train their people.

But over time, the Adwords platform got more difficult.

New advertisers kept coming; Google became stricter, and brought new challenges. Since traffic was my livelihood, I had to be in the trenches all the time, making discoveries and learning new things.

Being a scientist by training, I used science in PPC too.

I crunched numbers, ran statistical analyses, and created experiments to understand the challenges and to overcome them.

Until recently, that worked.

I never experienced the difficulties of quality score drops, slaps, and bans that my students were facing when using Google Adwords.

Then one day, my business–and income–came to a total stop.

Google refused to send me any more traffic.

My quality scores went from 10 all the way down to 1 overnight.

I was upset. This sorta thing happened to other people, not me.

But I figured it was a learning opportunity. And it would make me a better trainer–because I could finally understand my students’ frustration.

So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

I bought a new domain, changed my keywords, my ads, and my landing pages…and I got back on for a few weeks. Then just when I thought I was safe and traffic was rolling in again, my quality scores would plummet and I’d be back at square one.

This happened to me, over and over.

And it got really frustrating and somewhat embarrassing. Because my lead cost was becoming prohibitive. I tried everything…and when I thought things couldn’t get worse….

One of my most productive accounts was suspended and banned permanently. I’d spent nearly 200,000 dollars in that account alone.

Why would Google fire such a big spender as I was?

I was devastated.

Nothing in the world could be worse than being rejected by Google.

It was time for some drastic changes. I got in touch with my friend Cherie who is just as much of an analyst as I am. And discovered I wasn’t alone–we had similar troubles.

Over the past few years, she managed many accounts in the same niche as mine. And between all those accounts, she pulled a total of over 400,000 leads. But very recently, all of that came to a screeching halt as she realised many of the campaigns she managed were being slapped silly.

She was frustrated like I was.

We pooled our discoveries together, discussed the mistakes we’d made, and talked extensively about how we would address each problem. As it turns out, our biggest enemy was NOT Google.

It was us.

Yep, we were killing ourselves.

We had to come up with a formula that would save us being in this position again. It wasn’t enough to just get unbanned or “unslapped” if that meant we’d get banned again a few weeks later. We really had to change our entire approach and go to the heart of the problem.

The steps we came up with saved us.

They aren’t based on some guru’s theories. They’re ones we invented as a result of our methodical experiments. And what’s more is we’re applying them successfully right now.

You asked me what makes what I’m sharing special…two things:

1. It’s not a temporary solution that will get you unslapped today and banned tomorrow. That’s what most of the gurus are teaching; ways to game Google and get back on. It doesn’t work anymore because they’re smarter now and more brutal. Real human reviewers are going into our campaigns and putting a stop to bad behaviour.

2. This information is extremely current and comes direct from my trenches. We paid for this knowledge–with our money, our sweat, and our tears.

BEN: Google seems to be freaking a lot of people out right now. You said you are zeroing in on 6 specific “land mines” in your own campaigns. What are they?

JIM YAGHI: Alright. I know that most Adwords advertisers are making at least 4 of these 6 mistakes. And they’re a little surprising and might upset people because the mistakes are things we used to think were good behavior.

So here it is, without censorship:

Mistake #1: Using public tools to choose keywords

Mistake #2: Bidding for lower positions to qualify traffic

Mistake #3: Split-testing ad copy to improve CTR (this is screwing their quality score)

Mistake #4: Listening to the gurus about landing page “guidelines” for Quality Score (their advice is based on theory alone, and it’s getting people banned)

Mistake #5: Over-confidence in Google PPC

Mistake #6: Relying exclusively on Google for traffic

BEN: Let’s start with choosing keywords with public tools. What’s a public tool and why is using it bad?

JIM YAGHI: A public keyword research tool is any tool that you use to get keyword suggestions and the suggestions are publicly accessible to everyone.

Examples are Wordtracker, the Google Sandbox, and so on.

Back in the old days, that’s how I used to discover keyword opportunities. I’d just whip up my favourite tool, type a general keyword, submit…and then I’d get back a bunch of derivative suggestions with some stats about how many people search for that phrase and how competitive it is.

The trouble is that more and more advertisers have access to the same tools. And the suggestions given by that tool to YOU are also going to be given to anyone else who has a similar business.

When you use public tools to find new keyword opportunities, you’re always going into an adspace already full of competition. And in time, more competition will pursue you.

The reason it used to work before was far fewer advertisers used Adwords. But as more people came in, the competition for the same keywords became more intense.

We’re all trying to find the most frequently searched keywords with the least competition. But I’m sure we’ve all noticed how even the lower frequency keywords are still prohibitively costly.

Many badly behaved advertisers with poor quality ads are taking over. And the increase in competition pushes prices up…but that isn’t enough to deter those bad guys. I think there’s lots of money in scamming people, so they could afford to spend a bit more than the average advertiser.

Google started to police any overly-demanded terms.

Ads were disapproved, campaigns were slapped, and accounts were eventually banned. It got to a point you didn’t have to be a “scammer” to get policed…just being in those ad territories put Google’s eye on you.

When we realised that our keywords choices were sitting us right in front of the muzzle of Google’s gun…we knew we had to slide over.

We tried to run creative keyword ideas, but even those came from suspect categories.

Our keyword intelligence had to evolve to private sources. Those keywords from our private data are only accessible to us and no one else. Only by doing that were we able to ensure that no one would ever target all the same keywords as ours.

And by stepping away from public data, we created our own adspace, almost immune to competition.

BEN: What about qualifying traffic by using a lower bid. How is that a problem? Don’t you want to have better quality traffic, especially if you’re paying for it?

JIM YAGHI: Of course you want quality traffic.

But most people aren’t really bidding for lower positions because of quality. It’s really about fear.

Fear of spending.

Like us, for example, we were just nervous about paying for expensive clicks we couldn’t convert. That’s why we didn’t want to be at the top.

Look, people figured out a while back that the closer to the top your ad is, the more “impulse” clicks you get. While lower down the page, you’ll get less clicks–but they’ll be better quality people whose click is a conscious decision.

We used to bid low and aim for the #6 position.

That cost a fraction of what position #1 did. It got less traffic, but it converted more. Our bad assumption was that Google would recognize we had a really good ad and reward us by moving us up in rank without spending more. So in reality, we wanted the top positions because they got more traffic, but we didn’t want to spend the money to be there. When Cherie and I compared notes on this, we found that we’d NEVER got that reduction in price or increase in position.

If anything, our position dropped over time!

Our reduced click-thru-rate actually made it impossible to move up or get better quality score.

That silly “trick” doesn’t work anymore.

Searchers today are very impatient.

They want to see a relevant answer to their query right at the top, preferably without having to scroll.

And if your ad isn’t where it’s going to be seen, then the searcher will either click someone else’s relevant ad that appears before yours–or they’ll see the top couple of results aren’t what they’re looking for and requery.

Yeah, that means they prefer to update their search and run it again than to scroll down and look for you five positions down.

So what happens is that even if your ad is really relevant and it’s underneath irrelevant ads, it will accumulate impressions without being seen. And that lowers click-thru. Reducing perceived relevance not only to Google, but the user too.

It’s guilt by association.

If you’re lower down, the user assumes you cannot possibly be relevant. They trust Google’s choice.That creates a domino effect, and Google assumes you irrelevant. They drop your ad position and ultimately slap your campaign.

But you don’t want to go bidding some ridiculous amount for the #1 spot and expect it to work just because you bid more.

Because you’re likely to end up accumulating the cost of impulse clicks without converting those clicks. And that’s why we were scared. We suspected our higher bid wouldn’t allow us to recover the expensive cost of the extra clicks we got.

After we discovered how to convert the higher position’s clicks into sales, we had nothing to worry about. We could bid confidently for top spots, prove to Google we deserved the position, and we’d enjoy much more traffic.

BEN: You mentioned split-testing adcopy was a mistake. Why’s that? Isn’t split-testing a pillar of good advertising?

JIM YAGHI: Yes, you should always split-test–with the right goal.

Here’s what I mean.

We used to want to create adcopy that attracted clicks. Especially since we were bidding in lower positions, we needed to make our ads more attractive to the fewer people who scrolled down.

So our split-testing goal was to maximize the attractiveness of our ad. That way, it would be clicked more frequently. And CTR would increase.

But we were fighting a losing battle.

Our frustration was that no matter what we did with our copy, the test ads either got very few clicks to test with, or they’d have plenty of clicks that didn’t convert.

Either way, that dropped our quality score.

But now that we were bidding for a higher position, the problem changed. We had a lot of expensive clicks and many wouldn’t convert. So while this point may seem counter-intuitive, we actually had to split-test ads to repel clicks from unqualified searchers. And that was our split-testing goal–to lower CTR and hide our ads.

Doing this actually improved our quality score.

Because we pulled out of all the searches we didn’t really belong in, instead of waiting for Google to kick us off. And we saved money because we repelled the clicks that would’ve never made us sales.

BEN: The 4th “pitfall”, you said is listening to the gurus about quality score guidelines. I know a lot of heavy PPC users put a lot of stock in those new guidelines…so tell us why that’s wrong.

JIM YAGHI: Ben, I actually got really angry about this one.

Because every time I would go out and buy a new domain, I’d spend weeks building the site, copy over my campaigns, and start improving my quality scores. Then out of the blue, as soon as I got my impressions back to normal, manual reviewers would strike my account again.

I bought all kinds of products from people who claimed to know how to get good quality scores.

I followed their advice religiously…

I substituted my shallow squeeze page sites for blogs. I added more relevant content. I played with my meta-tags. I added images. I placed navigation links on the page. Hell, I even gave up on converting my traffic. Google’s quality score was my only concern. My lead-cost would escalate to $20, $30, even $50 a lead. And after thousands of dollars spent on testing all these theories, I’d get slapped and have to start over.

Honestly, I became very pessimistic about anyone who claimed to know how to improve quality score. All their tricks did was to give me a temporary score and it wouldn’t last.

I started to suspect that Google was doing more than reviewing my landing page. At the very least, they were crawling my entire site. And that was disturbing. Then my suspicions were confirmed by Cherie who had insider information from her ad rep that their human reviewers were conducting extremely invasive reviews.

They were reading my testimonials, reading my sales letters, watching my autoresponder messages, and verifying my testimonials. Any claims they found to be exaggerated and not-representative of the common perception of reality were flagged.

Being aware of the extent of Google’s watchfulness, I knew what to do.

It wasn’t about just creating unique offers.

I had to regain my customer’s trust.

I couldn’t just game an adbot any more.

Everything we do now is subject to scrutiny by humans. People who can see through all the tricks the gurus are teaching. You have to really create trustworthy content that creates happy buyers.

That’s it.

BEN: How is being too confident in Adwords hurting advertisers? Is Google the enemy? Do they just have a grudge against certain industries or is it something else?

JIM YAGHI: Well, when marketers started having great results with PPC, they put all their faith in it. Like I said earlier, we are all a little overwhelmed by how much instant traffic we’re able to generate with such little work.

It’s enough to make anyone get a big head if they know how to get results with Google.

And I think that was our downfall.

We trusted Google so much as a traffic source that we overlooked the fact that only 20% of searchers are even looking over at the sponsored links.

On the left side of the page, where organic search results show up is where most people are looking. And by not being listed there, we were missing out on about 5 times as much traffic as we had before.

The reason we didn’t care about SEO before, though, is that it seemed so much more difficult. With Adwords we could just pay our way to the top and enjoy enough traffic to be profitable.

It was hard to accept that Google would never be the same again.

It’s now increasingly difficult to squeeze as much traffic as before from relevant terms alone. The new quality guidelines were wrecking us.

That’s why we had to diversify our traffic to include the left side of the page too. It would give us authority in the eyes of both the searcher and Google if they see us frequently on both sides of the page.

Now I don’t claim to be some kind of SEO expert.

But we discovered a strategy using PPC data that would have us almost immediately ranked for otherwise very competitive terms. By adding SEO to our strategy, we dominated the entire page of Google results and had access to 5 times the traffic using only basic knowledge of SEO.

And most of it was free.

BEN: Let me ask you about relying just on Google for traffic. What’s the deal there? Google has billions of searchers, isn’t that enough?

JIM YAGHI: Once we got to thinking about diversification, we knew Google wasn’t going to be enough. The adspace there is only going to get more competitive and expensive.

But it’s not like we didn’t try advertising on Yahoo and Bing before.

In fact, we tried a lot of different engines with very similar PPC programs. And we found out the traffic there was far too little to be worth the effort.

What little we got rarely converted.

For example, my own Yahoo campaign until a few months ago was only generating 20 leads a week for over $6 each.

Only occasionally did those leads turn into customers.

Here’s the thing that I came to realise–many of those search engines have been around for a long time. They make billions in profit. So clearly, the traffic has always been there.

I just didn’t know how to get it.

That’s why most advertisers who move from Google to Yahoo or Bing aren’t able to get much traffic. We wrongly assume that all searchers behave alike.

But that’s not true–we just use those PPC programs wrongly.

Interestingly enough, someone who use Yahoo to search doesn’t use Google. And that person is inaccessible to us if we use Adwords exclusively.

So Cherie and I conducted a study to see who uses each search engine. When we had this information, we were able to target searchers properly and enjoy traffic from multiple engines.

Not only did that give me access to searchers I couldn’t reach before, but it also was far less competitive, cheaper, and easier to advertise profitably. And though I can tell you, I didn’t stop my Google traffic, because I’m absolutely in love with Google.

It’s just that now I can sleep easy at night in the knowledge that the next time Google makes a drastic update to their policies, I know my businesses wouldn’t starve for traffic.

And I can simply let go if necessary.

BEN: Tell us about the free training you are doing covering these 6 Google bombshells, and what are you going to teach on it?

JIM YAGHI: Alright. On December 8th, we received a disturbing news bulletin from Google saying that they were out for the blood of “make money from home” advertisers. The FTC had a choke-hold on them, and they had to take drastic measures to clean up the ad space.

Unlike in the past, if you misbehave on Adwords, you’re looking at more dire consequences than a little account ban.

You could be defending yourself in front of a jury in a criminal courtroom!

At first, because of the nature of our information, we wanted to hold it close to our chests. We had worked so hard to find a way to eliminate competition and pull out of all the dirty dog-fights work from home advertisers were engaging in.

But our students came to us in a panic and asked for help.

I hope you don’t mind my honesty here…because our reason for sharing is a little selfish.

Both Cherie and I have a reputation for solving Google mysteries and sharing our results. So if we didn’t say something on such a huge matter it would make our expertise suspect in front of potential clients.

In fact, one of my own clients was in a panic until I told him some of what I was doing to protect his business.

Only then would he relax.

So it’s really a matter of our own survival.

Our 6-step formula is both valuable and powerful.

We asked ourselves, can we share this information and ensure our own safety for the long-run? After much debate back and forth, we decided to release our discoveries to a handful of people on a webinar.

300 to be exact.

That’s all the seats our virtual-classroom can take for the moment.

We are confident that our technique is so effective at eliminating the chaos created by bad competition–that we can afford to do this.

So if you’d like to attend, you can register at:

BEN: Is it just going to be a thinly disguised sales pitch, or are people going to find real solutions if they take the time to listen?

JIM YAGHI: If you’re asking if we will be selling something on the preview webinar, then the answer is yes. This information is too valuable to our own business to give away for free.

In fact, we’re taking a huge risk sharing it.

But we’ll first give everyone who attends the webinar at www.jimyaghi.com a proper understanding of the reasons they’re struggling with Adwords.

You can certainly go out and use the information presented…even in this interview…to save your business from the wrath of Google. I’ve actually given away a lot of hints and at the very least you’ll know what activities you’re engaging in that are quickly leading you to your own suicide on Adwords.

If you want detailed step-by-step instructions of what we’ve been doing and save your business, you’ll want to buy the full training when it goes live in early January.

BEN: Do you have anything else you want to add?

JIM YAGHI: I just want to say thank you for your patience listening to me. I know you’re sharing this information with your subscribers without a financial agenda.

And I hope they’ll appreciate that.

Whew!

That was an intense interview, wasn’t it?

And if you want to get even more training like this, here is the link to the free PPC training one more time:

Ben Settle

P.S. Also, just to be obnoxiously clear — I have NO affiliate or joint venture connection to this. However, I suspect this free call will have more “for real” AdWords info on it than most paid courses.

There’s my 2010 prediction for ya.

How’s that for a “transparent” headline?

And while this email does contain a sales pitch, the offer is so sugar-sweet (a $297 product for just $20) I’m actually kind of anxious to tell you about it.

Anyway, here’s the deal:

Once upon a time I wrote an ad for a “how to do joint ventures” product Michael Senoff put together that teaches people how to contact other marketers and do things like:

1. Sell your stuff to their list

2. Sell their stuff to your list

3. Find two (or more) people who SHOULD be doing business together, hook ’em up, and take a cut of the profits from THEIR joint ventures (you would get paid for basically making a few phone calls or sending a few emails)

Pretty decent course, too.

And I’ve used a lot of the info in it to help kickstart a few projects.

But here’s the thing:

This course (“Joint Venture Magic”) normally costs $297.

However, Michael Senoff is doing a super-offer on it right now, and has agreed to let my friends and subscribers have it for a mere $20 and nothing else. (A 93% discount.)

A $297 for $20?

What’s the catch?

I don’t know.

What I DO know is this is a STEAL of a deal — and it lays out several ways to do simple JV’s quickly, easily and smoothly. (And not just the “usual suspect” ways people talk about on forums and in free ezines, either.)

If you’re interested, the details are at:

And yes, this is an “affiliate” link.

But, if you would like to bypass using my link, just contact Michael at michael (at) michaelsenoff.com and he will give you a different link where you can order it directly from him.

Either way, a $297 product for $20 is a great deal.

And I wanted to let you know about it.

Ben Settle

P.S. One last thing —

If you buy from the above link, and then email me your receipt after purchasing, I will give you a valuable bonus joint venture lesson found in my $137.00 “Copywriting Grab Bag” product.

Here are a few of the secrets inside:

• How to use the “bandwagon effect” to joint venture with millionaires, celebrities and other movers-and-shakers in your world. (No butt-kissing or shmoozing required.)

• A clever (and very “sneaky”) way of using simple YouTube videos to connect with business and marketing “gurus” in your industry.

• A “magic bullet” way for getting people to almost instantly like and trust you — even if you never actually meet them in person!

• A secret, “introvert-proof” way of setting up joint ventures with business and marketing leaders with big lists of customers.

• The easiest known way to “pre-sell” yourself to potential joint venture partners… before you even talk to them! (Works even if you’re a total business “newbie” now.)

• How to set up profitable online joint ventures–even if you live in a cave with no friends, contacts or business connections whatsoever.

This interview with David Dutton (who has been called “the joint venture man” and “the most connected man on the Internet”) is yours, free, when you buy Michael Senoff’s “Joint Venture Magic” course for just $20 at this exact link and email me your PayPal receipt:

I once heard a success goo-roo preaching thinking BIG.

He went on and on about how all successful people have big goals, big dreams and big plans. And how all success is about thinking big, Big, BIG!

I don’t know about that.

I mean, I get what he was saying.

But there’s tremendous power in thinking small, too. Especially when goal setting — by making goals so ridiculously small, it’s harder NOT to do them than TO do them.

Take for example:

• Writing ads
  

  Kinda hard to have “writers block” if your ONLY goal when sitting down is to write one single word. Or capitalize the first word of each paragraph. Or make sure there’s a period after your sentences, etc.

• Learning new info
  

  Got one of those big tomes about marketing to read through? Client toss a giant new product file in your lap? Gotta learn a new language? Try one SMALL goal just to get started — like turning on your computer, reading ONE page, or sitting down at your desk.

  Small goals easily “snowball” into getting lots of work done.

• Finding bigger clients
  

  As “A List” copywriter David Deutsch revealed in The Copywriting Grab Bag — to get a big fish client, offer to do something small to get in the door.

  Like by offering to write an “about us” page, for example.

• Setting up joint ventures
  

  If you want to JV with someone with a fat list, don’t waste time pitching a big launch goo-roo. Instead, JV with someone with a SMALL list, first.

  Then, as your list (and influence) grows, work your way up.

• Exercise
  

  This works even for getting lean and mean, baby.

  I remember this one guy hitting the gym for the first time. His buddy asked what he wanted to do. The guy’s answer? “My goal was just SHOWING UP. I’ll probably watch TV.” Soon he was bored and hit a few weights, tread mill, etc.

Hey, laugh all you want.

But small thinking like this gets ACTION.

And action gets things done.

I know some of the success goo-roos may not agree — but even the goo-rooest of goo-roos had to start somewhere, right?

And it was probably one small step at a time.

Ben Settle

I’ll make this one a “quickie” today:

Crackerjack Selling Secrets is now available and, if you grab your copy today, you can get it for $20 off:

Here’s what a few other top marketers have said about it:

“Excellent book”

– Ken McCarthy (quoted from his blog)
Internet marketing pioneer
And consultant

---

Hey Ben,

Yesterday I used tip #6 to make 1 small, quick change to my website and sales immediately went up. It was crazy. I didn’t do anything different except that change.

As you know, I WANTED to give your book negative feedback for ripping my sales letter to shreds recently, but I really can’t. It’s perfect for someone like me. I was going to critique it, but instead got into it… so that says something!

– Rich Bryda
Top Article Marketer &
Internet Entrepreneur

---

Hi Ben,

Bloody brilliant! Dude, I learned so much from Crackerjack Selling Secrets and I want to use some of this stuff in my landing pages to try and increase optin-rates.

-Jim Yaghi
Computer Scientist &
World’s #1 Google AdWords Marketer
In The Home Business Industry

---

Ben,

Wow! I LOVE your Cracker Jack Selling Secrets book, and as always, I learned some new things – some of which I never put my finger on before.

My favorite was #25, which I will consciously use now.

One particular ‘guru’ could have used it on me and easily earned my $6,000 and respect, instead of my disgust and lost business.

– Gina Parris
Professional Speaker &
Peak Performance Coach
To Pro Athletes, Market Traders
And Entrepreneurs

---

Ben,

I enjoyed your book a LOT.

Short, easy lessons…I have absolutely NO critical suggestions and that is rare for me who sticks my nose in people’s writing often when not even asked.

I think the wisest was using skepticism to our advantage.

I bet my eBay listings will be better now that I understand that.

Greg Perry
eBay Powerseller &
World’s Most Published
Author Of Computer Books

---

Anyway, you can get your copy today at a $20 discount here:

Ben Settle

Not long ago I was on a rather interesting consulting call.

It was interesting for lots of reasons.

For example, Terry Dean was also on the call and I ALWAYS have my “antenna” up whenever he talks. It was also interesting because Terry and I were helping a marketer who’s in a niche I really dig selling to already.

But you know what the most fascinating part was?

It was the “synergy” of the call.

There’s just nothing like 3 or 4 people on a call hashing it out like that — letting the ideas fly with reckless abandon and finding real solutions to tough problems in 30 minutes or less.

Very cool.

Anyway, here’s the point:

If you have a tough marketing, copywriting or sales problem driving you bananas… and you just don’t know what to do or where to turn… gather ye together a roundtable of other people and watch what happens.

They don’t even have to be “marketing” people, either.

In fact, I suspect you’d get all kinds of ideas for solving your biggest “nightmare” marketing problems by casually rapping with someone in your market than you would from some highfalutin’ consultant, anyway.

Be worth trying it one day and seeing what happens.

After all, what have you got to lose?

Especially since consulting your market is free.

Ben Settle

P.S. Something else kinda weird happened on that call.

I realized I didn’t despise consulting as much as I thought.

You see, up until then, I kind of dreaded doing consulting because usually I get pretty drained when on the phone like that. It’s like having my blood sucked out by leaches. But this time was different because it was for a niche I already enjoy working with and with people who were a joy to talk to.

So I’m hereby hanging out my consulting “shingle.”

And if you happen to sell something I’m not “in” to, I’ll let you know up front and probably be able to refer you to someone who can help.

I want to try something different today.

A “Do’s and Don’ts” list (about email marketing) — this’ll be fun for me to try this new email format, and hopefully you will be able to pick a few tips out of it.

Sound fair?

OK then, let’s boogie.

Your results may be different, but I am finding when it comes to email marketing, it’s best if you…

DO: Mail often (even every day).

DON’T: Only mail when you have something to sell.

DO: Be yourself — “warts” and all.

DON’T: Try to ape your favorite goo-oo.

DO: Give good information.

DON’T: Bore people with that good information.

DO: Plug something in every email.

DON’T: Cater to freebie seekers.

DO: Use controversy (if relevant).

DON’T: Let anyone who whines about it suck up your time.

DO: Keep your emails pithy.

DON’T: Think that longer emails can’t work, too.

Whew!

I’m getting dizzy writing in this “DO — DON’T” format.

Anyway, that’s all I know today.

If you want a more detailed email marketing lesson (by one of the Internet’s top email copywriters) check out The Affiliate Trump Card

Ben Settle

Once in a while I get asked about my favorite gurus.

No… not goo-roos.

I mean gurus — with a “u” instead of an “oo”.

There is a difference, ya know.

In my way of thinking, goo-roos are not the same as gurus.

That’s why you will often see me say “goo-roo” when pointing out something I believe you should probably NOT do, or a type of marketer whose claims and business practices I believe you should be skeptical of.

But it’s the exact opposite with “guru”.

Anyway, today I thought it’d be cool to list the “gurus” who I believe you can get mucho value from listening to.

This is all just my opinion, by the way.

Always do your homework before buying someone’s products or services (mine or anyone else’s).

I suspect one person’s guru is another’s goo-roo.

(And vice versa.)

Also, as a side note — I PURPOSELY omitted friends, mastermind members, etc to make this objective. I do not personally know most of the people on the following list and some are dead. But I am acquainted with a few of them (like Ken McCarthy, Terry Dean and Doug D’Anna, for example).

Ready?

OK, here goes… some of my favorite gurus:

• Gary Halbert
• John Caples
• Gary Bencivenga
• Terry Dean
• Jim Camp
• Doug D’Anna
• Paul Hartunian
• Ken McCarthy
• Eugene Schwartz
• Bruce Barton
• Michel Fortin
• John Carlton
• Jim Straw
• Dr. Glenn Livingston

There are more, but this should do for now.

These are some marketers who have A+ info and have never done me wrong on subjects like selling, marketing, copywriting and overall business success.

I suggest checking them all out (just google ’em).

You won’t be sorry.

Ben Settle

P.S. A quick update:

My books The Copywriting Grab Bag and Crackerjack Selling Secrets are still out of stock. Some people think I’m purposely not selling them to create “scarcity.”

Once again, my marketing just ain’t that sexy.

I’m simply in between printers right now and making sure the proofs are up to my standards before releasing the “hounds.”

Let’s have some fun today, shall we?

A little dissection of words even the marketing ex-spurts fear:

1. Work

Many marketers are terrified of admitting there might be work involved in using their product. And yet, I bet few (if any) have ever tested, you know, telling the TRUTH about their super duper way of making money or whatever they sell.

If they did, they may be surprised by the response.

2. Hard

As much as I despise the gummint mafia testimonial rules, I’m digging the way some people can’t just slap testimonials up of their bought-and-paid-for buddies saying how easy and effortless making a gazillion buckeroos is with their product.

It’s kind of amusing.

3. Expensive

I sometimes admit products are expensive up front in ads.

Why?

Because (A) it’s usually true.

And (2), saying it EARLY in the ad removes the objection later.

In the end, it often gets buyers who are “doers” and lovers of quality, instead of price shoppers always looking for cheap.

4. Don’t

Someone once said you should not use “negatives.”

Such as not saying stuff like, “Don’t Do XYZ” in a headline.

Is that true?

Maybe in some cases — but definitely not all of them. There have been many responsive headlines that were pure negative statements. Guess the copywriters writing those successful negative statement headlines never got the “memo.”

5. Effort

Ditto #1

6. Need

Lots of people say never to sell “needs”, just wants.

I don’t know about that.

When my car engine imploded a couple years ago, I NEEDED another car — and fast. I did not “want” one. In fact, I’d have been quite happy to not have had to think about it.

Needs vs wants is just semantics.

OK, so there they are — the 6 “Lord Voldemort” words even the ex-spurts dare not speaketh.

See?

They’re not so scary after all, are they?

Ben Settle