Ben Settle

True story #1:

While I was on his podcast last year, “Email Players” subscriber Vance Morris — who spent 10 years working for Walt Disney World and now teaches others how to “Disnify” their businesses — told me:

“Everything at Disney has an origin story.”

And I do mean everything.

Every employee (cast member), every statue, every picture on a ceiling, and even the tiniest details 90% of customers will never see has a story behind it.

The effect:

Depth.

Lots of Depth — and certainly far more Depth than Six Flags and other parks.

Which brings me to…

True story #2:

Before writing his scripts, Quentin Tarantino writes long, detailed origin stories for his characters — even when he doesn’t include those stories in his movies. Take, for example, his last movie “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” — where he wrote 5 full length TV episode scripts about the TV character played by the main character in the movie (a movie star in westerns), even down to who the directors, writers, casting directors, etc of those episodes were.

None of that made it into the movie.

But it added to the movie’s Depth.

And that Depth no doubt added many more dollars to the movie’s box office gross.

Which brings me to the lesson:

Depth in emails & copywriting.

Depth helps create engagement with your reader.

Depth helps forge a strong intellectual & emotional bond with your reader.

And, best of all, Depth helps build a deeper & more fanatical (if you do it right) relationship with your reader — where your reader may very well buy even if they didn’t know who you were or that your offer existed at all just 10 minutes earlier.

A good asset to have in your corner.

One that can be especially valuable when combined with what I teach in Email Players especially.

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Ben Settle

Several years ago, I had one of my sales letters reviewed for legal compliance by “Email Players” subscriber Mike Young.

It was quite the education, too.

In fact, while I am certainly no expert on the subject, and I very well may be wrong… going by what he told me, it’s rather astounding how many sales letters — even by so-called world class copywriters with legal departments reviewing their copy — look like gigantic “fed bait” targets to me now.

Anyway, I quickly went to work fixing the compliance “holes” in that ad.

And, soon after that, I ran it.

Then something interesting happened.

Even though I thought for sure the changes I made to my sales letter to make it more compliant with claims, etc would have made its response significantly weaker… just the opposite happened.

Response, engagement, and sales were way higher than expected.

The quality of customer was way higher than expected.

And my knowledge of copywriting soared higher than expected.

The reason?

The more compliant my sales copy, the more believable it is.

The more believable it is, the more likely it’ll sell the skeptics.

And the more it sells the skeptics, the more sales I get — probably because skeptics are often a 2-5 x’s bigger market segment than the hyper buyers attracted to the screaming claim & exclamation mark-ridden copy are. In fact, it was such a valuable experience I invested a pretty penny in having a bunch of my other various companies’ sales letter analyzed a few months ago.

A thought:

It could be the greatest copywriting “hack” is having it legally compliant…

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Ben Settle

An opinion:

The most valuable gold in the late Gene Schwartz’s magnificent “Breakthrough Advertising” book ain’t the main content where it drills deep into the gold mines of headlines, market/product awareness & sophistication, image-building, verbally creating credibility for your offers, and all the other ingenious information inside.

I’d argue it’s in the preface & introduction.

Specifically, the 3 gleaming gems below.

On vision:

“This book is not about building better mousetraps. It is…about building larger mice, and then building terrifying fear of them into your customers.”

On swiping:

“That’s why memorizing theories won’t make you a market wizard, or rewriting somebody else’s headlines won’t make you a copy writer.”

And on… thinking:

“The correct solution, the right headline, the perfect ad lies buried in the problem itself. It has never been written before. It cannot be produced by rote, carbon copying or mutations. But it can be sprung to the surface — automatically — by asking the right question.”

Each one of those gems is worthy of hours of examination.

And of thinking deeply about how to apply them to your business.

Here’s another thought:

Thinking is practically discouraged in copywriting these days.

Something about creativity being bad, the pioneers go home full of arrows, and other one-liners almost always being pushed on people who oh-so-ironically use creativity to the max and are often pioneers.

Thus, the rise in copywriting sex robots.

(i.e., software that supposedly writes copy for you)

Goo-roo fanboys blatantly swiping everything in sight.

And direct response copywriters so ignorant of their own industry they think split testing was invented on Facebook.

Whatever the case, here’s the point:

The one thing that separates the men from the boys when it comes to copywriting ain’t swipe file content, NLP wizardry, 90-year old headline formulas, or hacks.

It’s thinking.

He or she who thinks & solves problems hardest wins.

All right, ‘nuff said.

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Ben Settle

I’ve mentioned this magnificent Robert Greene book before:

“The 33 Strategies of War”

Most people I know in business talk up Greene’s 48 Laws of Power.

But in my opinion 33 Strategies of War is far more useful.

It’s simply chock-full of great business advice.

Including advice about copywriting, marketing, selling, influence, persuasion, customer service, negotiation, dealing with (and profiting from) trolls, building out email campaigns, hiring employees or team members, building a company, outselling your competition, seizing market share, list curation, acquiring new clients, making more sales, and the list goes on.

None of these lessons are checklist “do this, this, and this…” style.

And you have to be looking for the lessons.

But they are all throughout the book.

Take this part about content creation:

(Context: Publisher Samuel Adams’ campaign to turn the colonists against the English)

“The colonists had had a high opinion of the English, but not after Adams’s relentless campaign. To succeed, Adams had to resort to exaggeration, picking out and emphasizing the cases in which the English were heavy-handed. His was not a balanced picture; he ignored the ways in which the English had treated the colonies rather well. His goal was not to be fair but to spark a war, and he knew that the colonists would not fight unless they saw the war as just and the British as evil. In working to spoil your enemy’s moral reputation, do not be subtle. Make your language and distinctions of good and evil as strong as possible; speak in terms of black and white. It is hard to get people to fight for a gray area.”

There is literally centuries of wisdom in that for the content creator.

Literally nobody cares about much less remembers “fair & balanced.”

Yes, they may emotionally respond to the term.

(i.e., Fox News, which like all news is neither fair or balanced.)

But fair & balanced content = boring content.

Boring content = little or no engagement with your content.

Little or no engagement with your content = little Tommy can’t get that Playstation for Christmas.

Something else to think about:

There’s no passion in fair & balanced.

And, I would argue such content is inherently dishonest anyway.

At the very best you’ll be ignored.

At the worst your enemies will simply use it against you.

Whatever the case:

A lot of content creation comes down to something one of my favorite marketing teachers Sean D’Souza has been teaching for years about consumption. Everyone teaches attraction & conversion. Hardly anyone teaches — much less practices — the importance of consumption of content. Without that consumption you get a sale which I suppose is nice. But without consumption — and eager consumption at that — you’re not really building a relationship. You’re not making the next sale in advance. And you’re not really adding anything to anyone’s life, including your own, as that one-time sales will be pissed away before you know it.

All of this is especially true when it comes to high ticket content.

i.e., the kind of content people pay you hundreds or even thousands for.

And so it goes…

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Ben Settle

A bloke in France once asked why I don’t use a printer in Europe.

Specifically, for European subscribers to cut costs and (I quote) –

“protect planet earth a bit in terms of carbon footprint.”

My answer at the time:

If anything my righteous carbon footprint is way too small. Especially since I haven’t flown anywhere since Fall of 2018 when I spoke at a couple events on the East coast, and my contempt for travel reached its boiling point.

Thus my carbon footprint is truly rookie numbers.

Daddy’s gotta pump that carbon footprint size back up.

I shall NOT rest until the world is turned into Mordor…

That said, I am a big fan of recycling.

At least, when it comes to emails.

Enter another question at around the same tie about the idea of “recycling” emails that I do all the time, oftentimes making more sales the second, third, or fourth time I use an email than the first time I use it.

Yes, AOC, it’s true.

When it comes to making your bank account greener, recycling those evil emails is just fine.

In fact, here’s another amusing thought:

The cold, hard numbers over the past close to 20 years since I started doing this have proven that if I only reused the ones that “wOrKeD!” the first time I’d be killing my own sales. Especially since, so many of my most profitable emails did bupkis the first time I used them, but pulled all kinds of new business when recycling them later.

Which is why I told him:

Yes, by all means recycle good emails.

It can do wonders for your bank account’s environment.

Of course, to write recyclable emails, you gotta learn how to write them in the first place.

And that is a job for “Email Players.”

More info on the newsletter here:

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Ben Settle

Reader MV once asked:

Hey Ben,

Im a “short” time reader and hap-hazzard follower.

Just a quick observation from your emailings…Ive noticed you regularly refer to Copywriting/Marketing experts as “the late great” so ‘n so…

My question is why?

Youve been around long enough, done the work and obviously have a solid reputation so…

Why do you feel the need to refer to them in every email?

Just a question. No agenda. No hate. Just Curious….

My first thought is:

Why wouldn’t you want to give reverence to those who paved the way for your own successes and triumphs? In fact, the more successful I get at this game, the more appreciative I am of the great men of business & marketing I’ve learned from over the years – the Matt Fureys, the Gary Bencivengas, the Dan Kennedys, the Ken McCarthys, and Gary Halberts, Gene Schwartzs, Jim Camps, Sean D’Souzas, Stan Billues, Paul Hartunians, Barry Mahers, Joe Girards, John Carltons, Leo Burnetts, and the list goes on.

And everyone else I mention in my works.

Look ’em up, buy everything they sell.

I couldn’t NOT give them their well-deserved props.

It would be too… strange.

Another thought on this:

Back in my Flakebook days, this not sourcing and giving credit was so rampant it was borderline criminal. Especially, for example, the gaggle of secret gurus who would pass around a checklist the great Dan Kennedy wrote for his “Ultimate Sales Letter” book, that he originally only gave to attendees of high ticket seminars, about researching a market, without giving any credit to Dan. In some cases, these blue flame specials doing it would even imply they created the list, and not the man who’s been at this game since before they were tugging on the teet.

More still:

If you truly want the best for your audience why keep your influences a secret?

You think those customers will defect and leave you, Spanky?

First off, that’s probably not going to happen.

And secondly, if they do, so what?

There are millions of potential customers even in super obscure niches.

If someone leaves, who cares?

Let ‘em go.

If your business & marketing game are both tight, they’ll be replaced with someone better soon enough. But, the reality is, if you fear these things, then that means your marketing game is weak and you got bigger problems than some customers fleeing. Plus, that way of thinking shows a naiveté about how buyer psychology works that’s holding you back in ways you can’t even fathom.

If this sounds cryptic, let me put it to you this way:

Summer of 2018 I did a series of shows on my old podcast, each featuring someone on my “Mount Rushmore” (hat tip to the great Brian Kurtz for that analogy…) of favorite marketing teachers. I not only talked about all the cool things I learned from them, but I shamelessly promoted them, their sites, their products, etc. And during that time I didn’t see a single customer “defect” and got as much, if not more, new business during that time as usual. The best buyers — the serious students, not the contemptible new product junkies and small-thinking types who chase loose change on the sticky floor of the goo-roo casino — appreciate being told about some tip, some secret, some teacher who will give them an edge. It only makes the best customers bond with you more, trust you more, and want to do business with you more.

Finally:

Not giving credit when one should is pure, unadulterated Neediness.

There is no other explanation.

And nothing will destroy your influence like Neediness. People smell it a mile away. And if you have this dreadful disease of the psyche it’ll seep out in subtle ways in your writing, in your videos, in the way you move, behave, and react to questions/objections/trolling, etc.

Neediness is the deal-destroyer.

It destroys brands, reputations, and entire businesses.

On the other hand, being secure enough in yourself to admit you learned something from someone else, and letting everyone know it when relevant, opens the mind to doing more business with you.

Anyway, bottom line:

I’m not saying to be paranoid about this.

Sometimes you have knowledge that is bubbling up in your mind and you really don’t remember where it all came from, or it’s a combo of multiple sources + experience + your own unique application of whatever it is, and so on.

I ain’t talking about that.

I’m simply saying don’t be shy about giving props when the opportunity arises.

Because that’s what it is:

An opportunity —

To share a resource you benefited from.

To display your respect for those who you learned from.

And, yes, to demonstrate your non-Neediness.

All of which’ll do more for your business than keeping people a secret.

Okay, enough of this clacking.

I often talk about my influences in “Email Players.”

More info here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Came a question about coming up with email ideas:

All right man, when are you going to write the report “elBenbo’s guide to coming up with interesting topics to write about every single day”?

I’d pay $20 tonight for that.

In fact, maybe I’ll reverse engineer your plethora of emails, see if I can pull patterns out, write the report for you, and we can see how it sells.

Just a thought.

Just $20?

The Cheapskate is strong with this one.

Whatever the case, I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news first:

I do teach this in my “Email Players Skh?ma Book”

The bad news:

It’s not $20.

It’s something I only give to new paying “Email Players” subscribers.

More bad news:

To extract the lesson you have to think.

There is no “do this, and this, and this” checklist.

The subject line chapter, for example, shows 13 ways to come up with subject line topics. There are thousands of ways to do it beyond that. But I show 13 tried-and-true ways. And they can all help you come up with ideas & topics by forcing you to think. Appendix 2 even has 21 real-life examples of how to create email hooks & stories. I originally wrote it after a former business partner came at me out of the blue with 21 different every day, “ordinary” scenarios… and challenged me to attach each to a random product someone might sell. He wanted to see if I could turn them into email hooks and stories.

And I did.

But it’s more of a “here’s how to think about it” lesson than a checklist.

You know what the best way to get topics is?

It’s not by pretending you’re the guy in A Beautiful Mind looking for patterns and then trying to “reverse engineer” others’ emails. That’s how mediocre hack email writers do things. And I suppose if one wants to be a mediocre hack email writer who nobody outside of other mediocre hack writers on social media takes seriously that is fine.

Otherwise it’s far better to get ideas & topics by paying attention to life.

Not going to explain further.

You either get it or you don’t.

If you do, and want to subscribe to “Email Players” go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Last month I was asked by an “Email Players” subscriber:

“When selling your products to customers in Europe, do you use an intermediary to collect the VAT (Value Added Tax)? If so, can you provide their contact details?”

Take this for what it is.

I admittedly know very little about it.

And what I do makes me not want anything more to do with it.

But, the way my printer described it recently, the EU has a system called the IOSS, where you can pay the fees for the end recipient and just collect it for them. Apparently (have not checked, and do not care enough to) you can even apply the IOSS number into your shopping cart so it will apply these fees when a customer buys a product so you are covered.

I don’t bother though.

Not going to be a tax collector for a foreign government.

Thus, I let the customer deal with it.

Admittedly, that has irritated certain EU customers.

And my indifference to this has caused some EU customers to quit Email Players.

Especially since some have been getting nailed with VAT taxes they weren’t before, and it’s getting to be more expensive to simply receive my books and newsletters due to factors completely out of my control, even if I did make a covenant with the EU and used their IOSS shtick.

Apparently my paying those customers’ shipping ain’t enough.

Thus when they get nailed with these fees and tell me about it?

I say (verbatim):

“I suggest canceling if the extra 80 cents per day or whatever it adds up to doesn’t fit your budget or if the info isn’t paying for itself enough to justify the investment.”

So far, nobody has bailed due to that answer…

If anything, it’s been a good way to separate the men from the boys in business.

Maybe I should thank the EU?

So that’s my take on all that.

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Ben Settle

One book I highly recommend for writers is called:

“Bandersnach”

It’s mostly about J.R.R. Tolkien & C.S. Lewis and their time in the writers group they founded called The Inklings that met for some 20 years. It talks about some of the other members, too. But the spotlight is mostly on Tolkien and Lewis — which is what I like about it, personally, having grown up on Lord of the Rings & Narnia.

Lots of good advice inside for writers.

Including copywriters.

There’s also some insights for community-building.

For example:

The inklings was like a mastermind but was also a community.

And without it the Lord of the Rings especially would be quite different.

In fact, Tolkien fans can thank C.S. Lewis for it being written at all.

Lewis basically had to nag Tolkien into finishing it.

Yet, Tolkien had an extreme… dislike… for Lewis’ Narnia books.

And so there was certainly some conflict there.

But what there was NOT between them was contempt. It was always mutual respect, with an “iron sharpening iron” effect, and the two helped each other in so many ways I am not even sure there is a book that could possibly cover every single way they did so without it being probably a 2,000 page book of its own. All the Inklings had this dynamic to some degree. And it wasn’t until the conflict started turning into contempt when the group broke up.

By contempt I mean not honest disagreement.

I am talking about literally trying to shut someone down altogether.

It’s a very insidious effect.

And I would not be shocked if that is how many masterminds end.

Certainly a lot of social media platforms encourage it. Not only by the nature of what the bigger platforms do to some people, but the very rules and biases of some of these platforms feed into it, shutting whole discussions, posts, and even entire accounts down instead of letting natural and healthy conflict arise, sharpen, repel, strengthen, and humble as it should, often due to a shrieking SJW who doesn’t want its feelings hurt.

Bottom line:

Conflict in a community is usually good.

Contempt?

Not so much.

All right, on to the business.

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Ben Settle