Ben Settle

Even though I find all-things Darwin to have about as much basis in reality as Narnia, there is a sort of “Darwinian” aspect to my business methodologies I cannot deny.

Take, for example, this email I got from an “Email Players” subscriber:

(Regarding this month’s issue about how to create your own marketing “universe.”)

I agree with Stephen’s comment beginning the last newsletter, “it’s to advanced for me” but I’m not quitting.

To tell you the truth I felt like a high school student reading something from a Phd level course.

But I took a different approach.

First I read the newsletter, then I read it again. The third time I start taking notes, then I read it a fourth time looking for something I understand. I then do my homework (watch the movies you recommend, read the books, etc). My level of understanding is growing.

I feel like my knowledge has brought me to an undergrad level

Thank You for making me smarter.

And, I daresay, stronger, too.

He “gets” it, and will become a helluva lot better at marketing as a result by default.

Most who have trouble with it won’t, and will wisely find greener pastures.

A fun fact that may or may not matter to you one way or the other:

Starting with last year’s April 2019 “Email Players” issue I made the decision to stop futzing around with giving people what they wanted (i.e., email swipe file material, hacks, tactics, tricks, etc) and talk more about what they needed:

Going deeper into marketing, psychology, selling, and copywriting.

A lot of this was because the former bored me.

While the latter excited me — and still does.

I knew it’d cause some heartburn amongst a few members of my Hairy Horde. But it was telling how so many of the confirmed low IQ marketers I know (not necessarily low IQ people, let me be clear about that, probably a lot of them are very smart otherwise, but just not all that bright or deep thinking when it comes to marketing specifically) on my list — some who’d been customers for years, who I’d had many interactions with, including seeing the shallowness of their questions and thought processes — were outright offended by that issue.

It was like I’d blasphemed their marketing religion in some ways.

Not because there was anything offensive in it.

But because they clearly wanted more swipes and tactics and “sell me the dream so I can continue to do nothing” type info.

It’s been a while, but from what I remember:

The ones complaining did NOT want to have to think beyond a checklist telling them what to do.

They abhorred me (gasp!) putting the blatant advertising in that issue I did.

And, they especially had trouble placing the information in any kind of context they could use — even though the info was universally applicable to literally any kind of business, in any kind of market/niche, and in any kind of product category.

Frankly, it wasn’t even an original concept I taught.

It was just my unique spin & applications on something that’d changed my entire business around.

But the low IQ marketers weren’t having any of it.

They basically said “I didn’t sign up for this!” and off they went.

While the higher IQ marketers, on the other hand — including a few especially brilliant marketers I’ve been studying for almost 20 years — loved every word of it, couldn’t get enough of it, and demanded more.

Short story long:

That reaction meant I was on the right track, and I’ve done many more such issues ever since.

And I’ve noticed the same reaction in a lot of them:

The info was either revered or reviled.

Incidentally, this has been especially true of this month’s October issue — which is currently getting almost exact equal parts lovin’ & leavin’. I have not run the numbers, but my guess is I have not gotten both this many raving testimonials about a single issue and how it’s changing their businesses along with this many cancellations in a single month since the April 2019 issue.

Of course, the next issue will have the same complexity.

And it’ll continue to be the same going forward as it has been since April 2019.

That way, over time, if all goes the way it’s been going… the passive sellers, the small thinking, and the low IQ marketers who can’t think past checklists & swipe files will continue to find somewhere else to learn from, that is more at their learning speed & level. While the aggressive sellers, the bigger thinking, and the high IQ marketers will continue to enjoy it.

This is the sweet spot I believe every marketer should be striving for:

Absolute polarity.

But not just for the long term sales, higher quality customers, and other obvious benefits.

It’s also because you are doing your market a real service, too.

After all, just as it does a 4th grade child struggling to read no good to put him in the advanced reading class, slowing learning down for his peers and further frustrating him, it does no good to put their equivalent in your own market into any kind of advanced training in whatever it is you teach — regardless of market, niche, or product category.

Yes, I know this might sound cruel & condescending to the sob sisters.

Probably even shamelessly arrogant.

But it’s anything but cruel & condescending or arrogant — it’s merciful.

After all, it saves people money, time, and frustration. And if you’re like me where you prefer having 4 shiny & new quarters in your pocket instead of 100 sticky & decrepit pennies, you’re being merciful to your own peace of mind too.

Again, I don’t know who this helps or not on my list.

But it is a demonstration of how I use email to do customer curation.

It’s also a warning of sorts:

My upcoming new book “elBenbo Press” about my high-ticket book & newsletter publishing model has this kind of inner game and way of thinking about customer curation embedded throughout it.

So if this email revolts you, then that book certainly will.

And, thus, you’re better off not getting it if that is the case.

More next week when it launches to my main list.

For now, if the “Email Players” newsletter sounds like your speed, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Well, maybe not technically “emails.”

But, the late, great Mad Man advertiser Leo Burnett (who opened his now-world famous agency in the depths of the Great Depression…) gave the best case for daily email contact back in 1960 in a piece he wrote for an organization called “Outdoor Report.”

Here is what the great Chicago advertising genius said:

“… the No. 1 factor in building confidence is the plain old-fashioned matter of friendly familiarity. You simply can’t have one without the other…When you meet a man on the same street corner every morning and learn to like the way he smiles, the way he dresses, and the way he conducts himself you are much more likely to be a prospect for the automobile or the insurance policy he may sometime want to sell you than you are for that of a stranger.”

What better way to do that today than daily email…

He continues with another zinger…

“I have sometimes felt that some of the early great commercial reputations in this country were due more to the fact that Cyrus H. K. Curtis made the advertisers buy a minimum number of insertions in The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies’ Home Journal at regular intervals than to the type of copy employed.”

What’s that?

Structure (regular & consistent contact) is more important than creative?

You don’t say…

Please, tell us more, Master Burnett:

“The same was true of network radio in its earlier days with its built-in requirement of continuity; and certainly the TV advertisers who have reaped the greatest rewards from this medium were those who have used it with the greatest consistency.”

Translation for the goo-roo fanboy:

Your holy “internet” ain’t any different than other media that came before.

The laws of direct response marketing transcend media.

And, they always will.

Things ain’t “different” online, they’re only faster & cheaper.

Finally:

“Attitudes and convictions about products and companies do not spring into your mind full-blown, no matter what the stimulus. They grow.”

More translation:

One email per month, per week, or whenever you “feel” like it ain’t gonna cut it.

That is, if you want an ever-strengthening relationship with your list.

So much wisdom.

All ignored by the social media-addicted masses.

To start applying these principles to your business, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A while back, I was informed about yet another gaggle of goo-roo chasers on social media proclaiming email is…

“DEAD!!!”

Now, I don’t know if they are doing this for shock effect. Or because they are simply devoid of ideas and see everyone else using a “death of” theme in their headlines and subject lines and titles. Or because they can’t get off the social media crack pipe and need to believe email is dead to stop the maddening cognitive dissonance haunting their dreams of being Flakebook millionaires. My favorite boogyman like this I heard about was a year or so ago, and something about Google and Apple changing the way people can opt in using a “ghost” email address or something.

“Ghost email.”

How Halloween…

And how ironic, too.

Especially since I hear tell major email platforms like aweber, for example, are prepping to make it even harder to opt in to lists by banning role email addresses (i.e., “lists@…”, or “admin@…”, or “help@…”, etc email addresses).

Something I’m happily looking forward to.

In fact, I’ll be even more aggressively than that blocking fake and “throw away” email addresses to my own opt-in process soon, to coincide with the launch of my new & improved free Ben Settle mobile app.

More on that in the very near future.

Whatever the case:

Email ain’t dead yet.

And I doubt it’s going anywhere any time soon, either.

But, even if it did, so what?

Writing emails will sharpen (like a stake!) your other communication skills (speaking, writing, editing, etc). Every email you write, makes you better, even if incrementally, until, over time, your abilities compound on themselves and your competition is still running around playing with the newest bright shiny object they saw in a flakebook ad.

So you win either way, Count Chokula.

But, I would not fret about it.

Email supposedly “dies” all the time.

Been hearing about its impending demise since the early 2000’s. But until it’s been staked, beheaded, its mouth stuffed with garlic, and the ground around it heavily salted, it’ll just keep coming back anyway…

So go forth and profit from email.

It’s free to use (basically).

Works FAST.

And, you can learn how it’s done at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

P.S. Another thing that is supposedly dead is print books & print newsletters. Something I prove nearly every day is a silly assertion, and a complete & utter lie.

And to prove it, I am launching my newest book later this month to the public:

“elBenbo Press”

It is my entire high-end book & newsletter publishing model on a plate. And naturally, I’ll be sending a lot of emails about it when it happens.

All of which will further prove the reports about the death of this great marketing media are greatly exaggerated.

Last year I got a question that comes in many sizes, shapes, and guises:

I write for marketers + have my SEO, consulting, and copywriting clients…

…and then I write a lot about spiritual growth stuff and Christianity.

I even go the lengths of keeping my discuss + gravatar stuff generic so people can’t track back to either one.

I’m not feeling great about this. But I take some controversial stands and I worry about alienating people from one audience to the next.

Thoughts?

Read & apply the following at your own risk.

Especially with all the cancel culture cowards afoot.

But I’ll just say this:

I once heard the great Dan Kennedy talking about his friend, the late Zig Ziglar, and how Zig did a very “bad” thing (according to conventional wisdom) as a speaker.

Something Zig did in every speech.

In fact, as Dan put it, “you couldn’t get him not to do it.”

What did Zig do?

He gave his Biblical testimony.

According to Dan Kennedy, he lost count of how many people told Zig when he started speaking that took him aside and said, “Zig you can’t be doing that. You’re going to offend a lot of people. You’re not going to get a lot of corporate gigs.”

Well, guess what?

For four decades Zig was the single most successful motivational speaker in history.

Does this mean go out there and let it all hang out as a cheap tactic?

No.

People see right through that.

The point is, Zig only cared about what the people who responded to him thought, and not what the easily-offended Facebook proles, internet trolls, or some wound-up heathen who gets acid reflux when wished a Merry Christmas at Walmart thought.

Do with this info what you want.

But, I will say this:

This goes double for emails.

My Email Players methodology not only allows for you being “you”, without apology, pause, or excuse, but tends to work more the less you’re worried about what the wagging tongues of the world think.

It’s a funny thing about the internet:

It gives everyone a chance to speak their mind.

Yet, most minds never speak.

Bah!

What a boring way to live.

If you want to both make a living being *you*, and also have a blast doing it, check out my “Email Players” newsletter.

The October 2020 issue is especially useful for this, in my biased opinion.

More on that soon.

In the meantime, here’s the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Mark in Texas chimes in:

Hi Ben.

I want to thank you for turning me on to Ken McCarthy. I mean your stuff is good, but that guy is absolutely brilliant! Sorry, I shouldn’t have written that like that.

As tempted as I am to ask people like you and Ray [Edwards] and Ken for help, I know the most important part of me becoming a great copywriter/marketer – or whatever the hell it is I’m dying to be – is the part of me you can’t help with. The seat-in-chair-pen-on-paper part.

Nevertheless, I’m glad people like you are so willing to help with the other stuff. It’s generous and it really matters. I’m sure there are many more like me that appreciate it too.

Thanks for that…

You are most welcome, Mark in Texas.

Speaking of Texas:

When looking at the “Email Players” list last month, I noticed there is an unusually large number of Email Players of the Horde in Texas.

Shout out to my Texas customers…

All right, on to the business.

If you want to hear an interview the aforementioned Ken McCarthy & I did recently, it’s the first audio at the top, titled “Greatest Copy Never Told”, in the Ben Settle mobile app in the “Acoustic Settle” channel.

If you don’t have the app, that’s not against the law even in Texas.

All you have to is opt in to the free email list on this site.

Then, follow the instructions in the welcome email you will get on how to get the app.

Ben Settle

A reader “Sam” asks why I don’t publicly count my money:

Ben,

i really like your candor.

You are one of tne ONLY people that actually acknowledge gross and not net earnings but what does it matter if you gross 1 million but net 10K for the year or even negative 10K.

So why don’t you be open and share your net because essentially that’s all that matters.

The main reason I haven’t yet subscribed to your newsletter is I’m not a copywriter and don’t know if I am skilled or motivated to be one and

2. I travel a bit (sometimes for months at a time) and would like to read something so valuable in a timely manner, meaning online

Irony:

For tax purposes, I am told by people much more savvy about things as I am that ideally my net would be zero or even show a loss.

Do you think that would impress him?

Somehow, I doubt it would.

Nor would it be very impressive to the plaintive hordes of biz-opp minded goo-roo fanboys who require a photoshopped screenshot of a bank account to make a buying decision.

As for his other two points:

1. “Email Players” is not exclusively for “copywriters.” It’s not billed that way, described that way, or marketed/advertised that way. The deck copy in the sales letter spells out who it is for.

2. As far as him being a world traveler:

It’s a non-issue to anyone who wants it bad enough.

We get the newsletter to people wherever they may roam, as long as USPS or FedEx can get it there, and as long as the country in question allows it.

The internet truly has made a lot of people intellectually lazy.

As well as taking away their imagination.

Awright, enough of this.

More info on the newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Some months back, I got this email from a good old boy:

(Replying to an email when I launched Brand Barbarian)

Ben, you may be correct! You make several interesting points.

I’m not from Missouri – I don’t believe everything I hear and half of what I see. And I was born, but not yesterday!

So, why should I purchase your book and your program? Anyone, including me can put anything on the internet.

Are you a “sheep in wolves’ clothing?” Why should I trust you and believe you?

Credibility, integrity, and honesty are at a premium everywhere from everyone including the politicans on both sides of the isle. I see the lack of these attributes present in almost all occupations, not just politicans.

I can postulate many reasons, in my opinion, as to why the United States is in this situation. One of which is the fault of parents not practicing these attributes and teaching their children to learn these traits from the actions of the parents!

Have a great day!

I think a better question is:

Why would I want to sell anything to him?

He has demonstrated he’d be a complete and utter pain in the arse. I can just imagine this guy’s stupid questions rolling in each day crouched in some kind of rhetoric he thinks is clever, not bothering to read anything he’s even asking about, telling me irrelevant stories about his Great Aunt Martha making soap in the grove back in 1734 to make some kind of point that has nothing to do with what he’s even asking about, and wanting me to constantly prove myself to him to be worthy of getting his business, etc.

I’ve sold to enough of these types to know how they behave.

Their profile almost always looks like this:

Broken, defeated man whose wife sometimes lets him hold the remote control just long enough to feel like he has some control in his life before she seizes it back to watch the Lifetime movie she’s interested in.

He probably tells kids he walked to school in 6 feet of snow, too.

It’s all rather exhausting dealing with these types.

Thus, I not only never sell to them, I kick them off the list.

Yes, there is a lesson here.

And that lesson is this:

When someone like this asks you to give them their own special sales presentation, just for them, so they can finally have some control over something, refuse to sell to them.

Or, even better:

Tell ‘em, “Yes, you are right. You should buy from ___ instead.”

Then send them to a known con artist in your market.

To learn more about my sheep in wolves’ clothing email ways, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A newbie chick once asked Yours Gracious a question as a perk of being an “Email Players” subscriber, I told her what to do, then she replied with:

“A little disappointed in your answers to my questions. One of my primary reasons for subscribing.”

I have no doubt about her being sincerely disappointed, too.

Why?

She was looking for some kind of checklist or instructions of things to do that only learning & applying the fundamentals of marketing would give her. Fundamentals which took all of one or two sentences for me to deliver.

Think your humble narrator here is being too harsh?

Here were her questions:

“What is your best recommendation for someone marketing more than one product or program of which one is a network marketing opportunity without using paid ads?”

and…

“When do you know you can add other niches as you have done?”

Not “bad” questions, necessarily.

But they showed zero grasp of the basics of marketing.

Thus, my answers were essentially telling her to do some very basic things.

The point:

People like this disappointed in & eschewing the fundamentals really should stay far away from me.

I have little or nothing to offer them.

Nor do I pander to them.

Like dealing with them.

Or even want them subscribing at all.

If someone isn’t educated on the basics of direct response marketing, and especially if they don’t realize there is no “check list” of tips that will ever replace getting out there, mailing your list each day, receiving & interpreting the information you get back, and gaining experience… they will be a lot happier chasing “hacks” than paying me to basically tell them to learn how to properly punch before even thinking about how to do the 5 point palm exploding heart technique.

New product junkies & goo-roo fanboys probably bristled reading this.

Hopefully it exploded their newbie hopes & dreams of making learning all the advanced info without putting in the time and grind of learning the basics.

But if I reached one or two grownups, then my job here is done.

More about the newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Once upon a time, an “Email Players” subscriber replied to one of my shopping cart auto-generated emails saying he needed to update his credit card and be quick about it or would miss out on the next issue..

“This doesn’t make you look good,” he said.

His reasoning?

He subscribed on December 31, 2017 the prior year. And here he was, being billed on December 26th the next year, and assumed I was billing him 5 days earlier than when it was supposed to.

What’s going on here?

It’s like I told him:

When you subscribe to “Email Players” it bills you every 30 days, not the exact same day each month. That means just as it says: it does not bill you on the exact same day each month. If every month was a 30-day month, maybe that’d be different. But, some months are 31 days, some are 30 days, once per year there are two 31 day months in a row, and we even have a 28 day month. That naturally shifts billing dates around so things won’t fall on the exact same date a year later.

I always assumed this was common sense.

But it is also true common sense ain’t common.

Here’s something else I should add while I am at it:

Every single month, I manually cancel subscriptions with credit cards that have not been updated. Yes, I could chase these people down and tell them to update them. But I don’t have time for so-called “business” people who have the decision-making ability of small children where they can’t even figure their credit cards out, or keep me in the loop ahead of time if something gets hacked, and just switch it out with a card that does work (like they no doubt do with their cell phone bill, cable bill, internet bill, and all their entertainment-related bills), and then switch it to the new card when it arrives later, etc.

We’re not talking rocket science here.

But to these boys & ghouls, I might as well be.

And, because I don’t chase people down with this, and because it is a huge pain in the gluteus assimus to keep track of who is up to date and who isn’t after I send the list to the printer, I cancel those who haven’t heeded the shopping cart-generated reminder emails by the first of the month, and don’t allow them back.

This probably doesn’t apply to but a scant few people reading this.

But, since I was on the subject, I figured what the hay.

All right, on to business:

If you are a responsible grownup who takes business more seriously than an 8-year old child running a lemonade stand, and are interested in learning more about the Email Players newsletter, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle