Ben Settle

Not long ago, I was asked by a bloke in France why I don’t use a printer in Europe for European subscribers to cut costs and (I quote) “protect planet earth a bit in terms of carbon footprint.”

My answer:

If anything, due to my self-imposed airplane travel moratorium the past 12 months, my righteous carbon footprint is way too small.

True rookie numbers.

Gotta Bigfoot that carbon footprint up…

That said, I am a big fan of recycling.

At least, when it comes to emails.

Enter another question from new “Email Players” subscriber Tyler Stokes, when he asked me about the idea of “recycling” emails that I not only teach, but openly 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, Bernie, it’s true.

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

In fact, here’s another amusing thought:

If I wasted time A/B split testing emails and, even worse, being a mindless little goo-roo fanboy about the results by only reusing the ones that “worked!”… 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 months or years later.

Which is why I told him:

Yes, by all means recycle good emails.

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

But, there is one thing I did not tell him about recycling emails in my reply. Specifically, a way (and the exact time) I do it to make even more sales. And I talk about this way in glorious detail in the December “Email Players” issue on page 8.

To get this issue in time, go here immediately:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

I’m like the proverbial lone wolf howling in the cold wilderness about this.

But over the years, certain of my customers have admitted they have a hard time wrapping their heads around my policy of blocking people who quit your continuity programs, not letting them come back later when they think they are finally this time “ready!”, and exiling them forever into the Outer Darkness of your business, never to be allowed back.

The reasons for this are many and beyond the count of mockery.

But, following are 17 reasons I do so:

1. People who quit are reliably & consistently and often immediately replaced by better, higher quality, and less in need of hand holding & being coddled customers. It’s an almost eerily predictable phenomenon I see happen all the time, and twice just yesterday, in fact. This alone makes allowing people back completely counterproductive for my business.

2. If they cite money as having left when they try to come back, they are almost certainly not telling the truth, and it’s not a good idea to do business with such people. After all, even a street bum rattling a dirty coffee-stained cup full of sticky change can “afford” $3.23 per day. But, instead of putting the info into practice to make that modest sum back in multiples so it would not “cost” anything… they cling tightly to the skirt of price – or worse, their wife’s skirt, in far too many cases – to justify their inaction or avoiding admitting to themselves they are simply not ambitious enough or interested enough to apply the info. It is hard work, after all…

3. It makes the newsletter legitimately more exclusive.

4. I don’t cater to quitters.

5. The mere existence of my policy rattles my trolls, as well as other new product junkies (i.e. people addicted to the dopamine drip of buying new products, but never implement anything), marketing hobbyists, and other contemptible opportunity-minded buyers who lack the character to stick by a decision long after the excitement of the moment when they subscribed has passed.

6. I prefer 4 quarters to 100 pennies. i.e. fewer high quality customers vs many low quality customers.

7. I have been carefully building a small All Star roster of customers that are taking over their markets, and letting low quality quitters return would reduce my customer base and my brand to Bush League or T-ball level, like everyone else’s who accepts the “I will be back!” types.

8. I like having more customers for life – which is, I hear, a great way to amp up the LTV (lifetime value) of your list for those who obsess over such metrics.

9. Quitters make for great Orc heads to display to warn away other orcs (like this email is doing) from bothering to waste their money or my time.

10. Makes for better people — as the policy forces people to take responsibility for their actions & decisions. This is something sorely lacking in today’s victimhood-celebrating society.

11. Makes people far more likely to take what I teach and then consume, implement, and succeed with it.

12. Identifies the players vs the spectators for future would-be affiliate, JV, client, and other potential deals down the road should I ever look for such opportunities.

13. I don’t like encouraging new product junky-ism.

14. I can’t realistically help people in the long run if they have a quitter mentality. It’s like someone taking a supplement for having better workouts and not being jacked after month one, and then quitting saying “this doesn’t work!” then trying to come back later, with the same loser mentality. What I teach in “Email Players” is a lifetime marathon, not a sprint. Some of it works fast, some of it takes months and even years to see a payoff. But none of it works if it’s not consistently applied day in, and day out over months and years.

15. Wards off the newbies & non-forward thinking types who I can’t help anyway.

16. Makes for overall greater long term profits, I have found over the years.

17. It helps protect the integrity and value of what I am building. There is a reason ancient societies exiled those they deemed unworthy and disrespectful of their laws, customs, and rules. Ain’t nothing new under the sun…

Again, there are many more reasons.

These are just off the top of my head.

And, my reasons for doing so will likely not jibe with most people’s personalities or goals, and that’s fine. I’ll be writing more about this next year in an extremely expensive book I am going to sell about my publishing model.

But until then, let’s move on:

If you sell a subscription/continuity offer, there are many financial — immediate and long term — reasons to create content meant for and that will only probably appeal to 10% of your customers, ie the ones who are likely making up 80-90% of your profits, and who are also very likely making up the vast majority of those who promote you and refer to you in abundance.

Thus the purpose of this long email you just spent all this time reading.

Which brings me to the December “Email Players” issue.

Like I mentioned yesterday, it will be one of the more revered & reviled issues. I suspect many will despise it and hopefully leave… never to waste my time trying to return. While others will love it and profit from it beyond the dreams of avarice for years & decades into the future.

The difference in the two types of people will be night and day.

As will be, I further suspect, the state of their business affairs.

Whatever the case, here is the link to subscribe, if you dare:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Following has many valuable lessons “between the lines.”

And, a wise guy or ghoul will be able to extract a lot of value from it, with but a little thought & imagination.

Anyway, here’s the scoop:

A few months ago, I decided to have a new logo created for my Email Players newsletter. And, one of the several options the great Kia Arian gave me to pick from had the tagline:

“The Most Revered, The Most Reviled”

Which I immediately knew was going to be the new tagline.

Not just because I like the way it rolls off the mind’s tongue.

But, also because if the year 2019 was anything, it was solid proof that the newsletter is both those things in equal spades. Starting last April — possibly the most revered and reviled issue to date, which got the most new sign ups for a single issue, and also the most people leaving in disgust after reading it — I decided to triple down on what gave it that effect with the newsletter. That means, it became less straight action-taking “how to do xyz” info appealing to shallow-minded swipers & new product junkies who haunt social media all day, to more deeper thinking & long term profit-building concepts & strategies.

Yes, email is still the “engine” that propels the car.

But, the car that engine is inside went from slick convertible to ugly urban assault vehicle.

In other words:

For the first 92 issues prior, it appealed way too much to shallower thinking people who want and need a checklist to scan, a swipe file to cling to, and a social media group full of other online marketers just as shallow thinking as themselves to consult.

Nothing against those types.

They’re around 90-95% of people in general, and can still be successful in the short term.

But, I also realized those are the types I get most frustrated by and like dealing with the least. I can spot them a mile away by their dumb questions alone now. They are always amateur questions that show an embarrassing lack of knowledge of the fundamentals.

Why these types subscribe at all is beyond me.

They really should be learning marketing, business, copywriting, etc from more conventional people who will kiss their arses and tell them what they want to hear… where they will be more comfortable and feel “safe”, with their little checklists & the constant validation & “you go girl!” high-fives of their Facebook friends & Twitter peers.

At the very least, they should learn the fundamentals of marketing first.

Which brings me to the point of all this drivel:

The December issue will not just triple, but quadruple down on what reviled people since April’s issue.

And, I predict, it’ll be reviled by far MORE people than who revere it.

And the reason it will be so reviled by so many who read it is because the info will officially & irrevocably remove any and all excuses your Krampus-like rationalization hamster may have been cooking up to sabotage your sales, your profits, your list-building, and, yes, your overall success at whatever business it is you do.

This may sound strange to some people.

After all, why would someone willingly sabotage their own success?

There are many reasons — including simply not being “wired” to be comfortable with success. Everyone has their own inner success thermostat, where they will only be as successful (financially or otherwise) as that thermostat will let them. In other words, if you are mentally & emotionally comfortable with making $100k per year, you will subconsciously do everything in your power to stay in that comfort zone. Make $50k and you’ll suddenly perform all kinds of marketing miracles to get that extra $50k to sooth your tortured psyche. Make $200k and you’ll also start casting all kinds of irrational and foolish spending & business curses on yourself to get you back to that comfy $100k.

This is why so many lottery winners lose it all.

Why so many pro athletes & entertainers end up worse than where they started from.

And, why so many otherwise intelligent and well-adjusted marketers and business people with all the talent, connections, and “how to” knowledge they need to make a fortune… sit around on social media all day like flies on the same turd, interacting with other people at more or less their exact income and success level, and never grow much beyond where they are now.

If you doubt this, all you need do is observe.

The proof of this is everywhere.

Which brings me back to the December issue:

I believe the info can potentially add as many “figures” to your income as you want over time. But, the nature of the information is so simple and quick to implement, if you have any kind of inner-sabotaging going on, you won’t do a blessed thing with the info, and almost certainly will be disappointed with it at best, and have downright contempt for it (and for me) at worst.

And no, there is absolutely zero hyperbole in saying this.

If anything, I am downplaying what I think will happen.

On the other hand:

Those who are ready & comfy with making the leap into the next income bracket… the next rung of influence in their market… and the next leg of their journey towards their goals… can, I believe at least, not only reach that next rung, leg, and income bracket… but maybe even far exceed them over the next 12 months in ways they didn’t believe possible.

Such is the nature of what I am teaching in the December issue in great details.

Along with what exact ways to apply it.

As well as ways I have been using the info myself, that most businesses can model exactly as-is — regardless of market, industry, product, or niche.

The caveat?

You actually have to have a business of some kind.

If you still don’t know the raw fundamentals of marketing (hint: if you only learn marketing on social media or via free eBooks, you don’t have the fundamentals, Maynard) this issue will do you zero good whatsoever.

Anyway, I’m being cryptic about exactly what is inside on purpose.

But people who read last month’s November “Email Players” issue have already been told on page 11 in that issue what Santa elBenbo has in his righteous sack for his Email Players of the Horde in the December issue. But, even they have no idea of just how powerful and profitable the concept it teaches will be, until they see all the ways it can be used — big and small — to send their businesses into the next phase of prosperity, regardless of what happens to the economy in 2020 and beyond.

And certainly it’ll let you start 2020 off with a righteous bang.

That is, for those who have the right “wiring” for it.

And, of course, for those who are subscribed in time.

This issue is going to the printer soon, after which it’ll be too late to get it.

If you want it, hit that finger clickin’ good link below:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

I was recently re-watching the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”

And, there is a scene where Red, one of the inmates played by Morgan Freeman, is at his parole hearing. And he starts talking about how he wishes he could go back to his younger self, talk some sense into him before committing a violent crime, etc.

And, it got me to thinking:

What advice would I give Child elBenbo?

Especially in his formative teenage years?

And, almost as soon as the question popped into my head, all kinds of advice poured out right after, including:

• Sac up, and quit complaining
• Do the opposite of what everyone else says to do
• Don’t bother with college
• Read more, watch TV less
• Stop Putting people on pedestals
• Before joining MLM, look up Dan Kennedy and read every word he has ever written, and then build your own info-publishing company instead
• Hit the gym instead of watching TV, dummy
• Time is passing anyway, might as well start doing things now
• Instead of just reading about writers, write
• Those customers & people you hate dealing with working at OfficeMax aren’t hell, they are future market research
• A shocking number of those hot chicks you are too much of a poosey to talk to now will slam into the wall like crash test dummies due to bad choices & vices – no need to be a dork putting them on a pedestal…
• Evil beyond your wildest imaginations does exist, and that Bible you only skim through is what’ll help you identify it
• Stay off forums debating politics & religion, waste of time
• Reading and re-reading Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and those comicbooks your mom hates will pay dividends
• When you accidentally fart in study hall and everyone looks at you, and you look at the schlub behind you as if he did it, don’t feel guilty about it…

Anyway, probably few if anyone will find this much help.

But, maybe someone needed to hear it…

Whatever the case, go here next for more lovin’:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Last month, “Email Players” subscriber Richard Emmons forwarded me an email that was written by someone at Marketo, an Adobe company, admitting what long time Email Players of the Horde have always known, but is still a mystery to the big tech fanboys who think they can “tech” their way into making more sales, getting higher engagement, gaining more readership, etc.

Here’s a snippet from what he sent:

“In the end, we found that focusing a subscriber on a single-link, text based email produced higher clicks on the call-to-action.”

You don’t say, Chuckles?

It’s almost like the laws of direct response marketing — like selling one thing at a time, making emails like Gary Halbert’s “A-pile” teachings (personal and not “branded”), etc — work the same online as offline, in email as well as in direct mail, for big tech pinheads as well as no-tech cavemen.

Whatever the case, good news for low tech cavemen.

And, also good news for big tech fanboys, too.

That is, if they can open those pried-shut minds.

Focus on the fundamentals over loud musical whistles.

And, follow the simple instructions in my newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Once upon a time, the great Jim Yaghi — a computer scientist who has helped Yours Caveman with my many technological snafus over the years — responded to one of my customers’ questions about open rates.

And, specifically, the futility of paying much attention to them.

In fact, I daresay his response exposes the whole “open rate” shtick quite nicely:

there is no way to know your real actual open rate or numbers. Clicks are accurate, however. Some opens are implied from counting clicks (no one can click your email link without opening your email). More opens can be tracked by embedding a tracking image into the html version of an email (if you send in html). If and when the email is opened, the email client may only load the text part of the Message and ignore embedded images. This is most common for security, images are only loaded if the user asks to load them. If a user asks to load images, the tracking image is requested from the email sending server. It then can count that open. However many actual opens are missed because the original message is text only, not html, or the recipient only accepts text emails, or the email client does not load images by default and the recipient does not feel the need to load them for your message. Meaning, most actual opens without link clicking are untrackable.

What’s more important to you, Chuckles:

Having a higher open rate… or getting more of your emails opened?

If it’s the latter, then focus on these 3 things, in this exact order:

1. Be someone whose emails people on your list want to open

2. Write emails people on your list want to open

3. Write subject lines that intrigue people on your list enough into wanting to open

You won’t hear these being taught at any goo-roo seminars. Instead, you’ll hear chest-pounding about “test results!” using slick tricks that are purely tactical, that may have worked for the one teaching them, and may have only worked one time at that… and that may or may not work for you, your market, your list, your offer, your personality, your brand, and the list goes on.

But, do the 3 things above, and you’ll blow all those fools out of the water.

More:

All 3 of those things are what happen when you apply — over time, with patience & consistency — what I teach in my “Email Players” newsletter and the book I give to new subscribers.

Just realize, it takes hard work and time to get the above 3 things tight.

It also takes a list to email to, even if it’s a small list.

And, an offer(s) to send to that list.

Don’t have those things?

Then git…

Otherwise, go here next:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Let’s chat about “The Matrix”.

There is a scene when Neo visits “The Oracle”.

She’s a sort of prophet inside The Matrix who can read people, tell the future and keeps the good guys on track. And while Neo is waiting in the other room to see her, he sees this kid using his mind to bend a spoon and make it do whatever he wants.

The child hands the spoon to Neo so he can try.

But, before Neo begins, he says:

“Do not try to bend the spoon — that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon.”

The meaning of which is this:

They are living in a computer generated world.

Nothing is technically “real” in the Matrix.

Not the air they breathe, or the taxes they pay, of the jobs they go to or the cars they drive, etc — it’s all a computer program they live in. And by realizing the spoon isn’t real, isn’t governed by the “rules” (i.e. laws of physics, etc) of the real world, it can be manipulated and bent.

Yes, tough guy, this applies to your emails.

In fact, understanding this changes everything.

For example:

People get so bent out of shape about “writing.”

“Oh Ben, it’s so haaaaard, I can’t write!”

Nonsense.

It’s only hard because you’re trying to bend the spoon.

When, in reality, there is no spoon.

By that I mean, “writing” isn’t real.

The words are from your brain.

Not from your fingers.

Or your keyboard.

Or your word processing program.

Your brain is truly a magnificently designed piece of equipment that is FAR more powerful than any computer or human-created machine. From the moment you’re born to the second you breathe out your last breath, it records, catalogs, and processes every “byte” of information you receive from your 5 senses.

Every sound you’ve heard.

Every object you’ve touched.

Every thing you’ve seen.

Every food you’ve tasted.

And, yes, every fart you’ve smelled.

It’s all there, inside your brain, crunching that data with more power than any “super computer” ever created. It regulates your body temperature, it keeps you breathing when you’re sleeping, and it basically keeps you alive in the background. It also feeds you ideas and sifts and sorts data so you can use it to accomplish goals and solve problems.

And guess what?

You have this massive power as your ally.

It’s yours to use as you want.

And yet, you’re telling me you can’t write a simple email every day designed to sell your product or service?

Bah!

You can write emails just as easily as I do.

You just have to realize the truth:

There is no “writing.”

The words don’t even have weight or substance.

That means you can manipulate your ideas into any form you want, belt out all the emails you need to make sales, and ignore the silly communication “rules” human beings have placed on each other when it suits you.

Of course it helps to have a guide.

Your very own “Morpheus” to explain and clarify everything.

That’s where my “Email Players Skh?ma Book” comes in.

Fact is, emails beget emails.

The more you write, the easier it gets.

And the easier it gets, the more you want to do it.

And the more you do it, the more sales you can make.

What this book (which comes with your “Email Players” subscription) does is, it shows you a systematic way of writing emails people love to read and buy from. It shows you how to write subject lines and body copy and make the sale, and how to do it in a way people not only don’t mind, but welcome.

It also comes with a 30-day game plan designed to make your business more sales.

If this sounds like something you want to know more about, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

I once had a conversation with a fellow who was starting to see some significant success in his business and was getting kind of down about it.

Money was flowing in like lies from a politician’s lips.

New customers were popping up like pimples on a teenager’s face.

And, he had more free time on his hands than a welfare queen laying around watching TV in a moo-moo all day.

So, why was he down?

Because he couldn’t figure out why (1) nobody in his world was all that happy for him and (2) why they were, in some cases, even hostile and antagonistic towards him.

“Mr. elBenbo,” he asked, “shouldn’t they be rooting for me instead of dogging me all the time?”

My answer?

Because the world simply doesn’t celebrate real achievements anymore.

It celebrates bullshyt.

In fact, an observation:

I have noticed over the past decade or so especially, success, persistence, and discipline, are simply not celebrated. They are almost mocked, in a lot of cases. It’s funny the things that are celebrated today. Someone gets a new $75k per year job licking corporate boots — yaaaay! Statistically, they will probably either quit or get fired in a few years. Or, at the very least, have their morale butchered by office politicians and a boss who was promoted a level or two above his competency. Someone starts a business from scratch and makes $150k their first year, with a foundation to hit the millions in a few more?

Meh.

“He just got lucky…”

So listen up, listen good, and never forget, Bub:

Nobody cares about you or your accomplishments.

Yes, some people do, of course.

But, don’t count on it.

And, don’t expect anyone to sing your praises.

And who cares if they do, either way?

What you should be focused on is your mission. Let the doubters and scoffers do their thing, you do yours. If anything, let them be spectators in your life to give their little, insignificant existences something to do.

That’s a lot more fun than the alternative.

And, that indifference towards caring what anyone else thinks can help move mountains for you in other ways, too.

All right, on to the business.

Go here next to start applying this attitude towards email marketing:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Listen…

Hear that?

That’s the sound of a thousand marketing proles flocking to buy from someone else’s business. But, if you want them – or your market’s equivalent to them – to change their trajectory and go to your business, instead, below is a proven game plan for getting all the marketing prole lovin’ your greedy self could ever want, following you on Flakebook, joining your email list, and kissing your righteous booty:

* Constantly behave like you’re a badass by going heavy on the internet tough guy/girl attitude

* Brag about being better than what your track record says you are

* Give little or no credit to those who helped you (books you read, courses you took, people who you learned from, etc) so people think you figured it all out on your own

* Swear all the time to look “edgy” and “cool” – bonus points if you put “AF” after bragging about something

* Keep your prices really low while talking about how high quality your product/service is

Do this and the marketing proles looking for a place to plug their umbilical cords into will love you. They will also give you lots of “likes” on Facebook, too. And, if you sell products and services that have nothing to do with selling to other marketers, fret not. Every market has its equivalent. And the above will work for any market to get the bottom-of-the-barrel customers.

In fact, they’ll follow you in droves.

They’ll say how genius and wonderful you are every time you post or mail.

And, you will build a solid following of them.

Yes, they’ll be mostly price shoppers, T-rexers/kangaroos (as I’ve heard ‘em called — i.e. their arms are too short to get to their wallets), serial refunders, and butt smoochers looking for free advice.

But, they are a market a lot of people make a living selling to.

And the high class customers/clients?

The ones who look for quality?

Who are the good kind of price shopper (i.e. they buy because your prices are high, with no time and patience for cheap)?

And who are serious about solving the problem your product helps with?

They’ll ignore, scoff, and maybe even mock you.

And, probably never buy from you.

Yes, even while they come to Yours Grouchy and my fellow “Email Players” subscribers instead….

It’s your business, you can run it however you want.

But if you want to learn how to write emails the classier group above enjoys and looks forward to reading & buying from, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle