Ben Settle

Dutch “Email Players” subscriber Goya Withagen shows one of the hidden benefits of being an Email Player of the Horde:

In the latest edition you quoted another Dutchie, Aartjan, he is a big name in Holland.

It inspired me to spark up a conversation with him.

You make for a great conversation starter.

He was very excited to find another Dutch Ben Settle fan.

Was impressed with my work.

Guess the fruits of this hidden value will soon be revealed…

This are just some small handpicked value bombs…

The list goes on and on…

But time to get going again.

Already spend 14 minutes of the 33 minutes on my timer on this email.

Going to try to bang out another email for a client of mine in the remaining 19.

Speak soon!

I’ve never been accused of being a good conversation-starter before…

Anyway, the August “Email Players” issue is almost ready to be sent to the printer. After that, it will be too late to get it, and that will be that.

To subscribe in time, go here immediately:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

An over-achieving reader complains:

Hi Ben

I know I’m gonna get shit on by you but here it goes. Love you man 🙂

Your content is awesome.
But the formatting sucks…

At least on the desktop version. On mobile, it is perfect.

The lines are long and eyes simply don’t like to read that many words/letters on one line
These lines extend to the far edge of my big ass screen and letters are freaking tiny!!!

Anyhow. I’m sorry Ben. Just want to enjoy my experience of reading the emails

Amusing.

And, also, astonishing how it never occurred to this over-achiever (he took the time to screen shot what he was complaining about) to simply shrink his email reader, which would then force my plain text emails to conform to whatever length he wants.

But, his complaint was also useful, in a way, too.

Why?

Because page 14 of the August “Email Players” issue talks about this topic, as well as about the myth of why you “must!” write in a way that appeases short attention spans, and why I don’t always use short sentences and paragraphs in emails, and sometimes use huge, hard-to-read blocks instead, only to watch it result in some of my most successful emails.

The attention span catering concept is something I ignore nearly daily.

And, also, profit from nearly daily, too.

The August issue explains the whys and hows.

But to get it before the deadline, you’ll have to zip on over to this link immediately:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Over the past few months especially, your long-suffering storyteller has been doing something that, according to 100+ years of direct response is not “supposed” to work.

Something railed against by many old school copywriting authors.

Yes, including several I respect the most.

And yet, doing this has been netting me quite a bit of the booty.

(The financial kind, that is).

Anyway, what is this forbidden thing I’ve been doing?

Using blatant humor in my sales letters.

And, in many cases, lots of it.

For example:

The headline I wrote to sell the Gorilla Mind nootropics a few months ago. And the headline and copy for my Email Players List Swell book. And, also, in many other parts of my sales copy for various other books I sell.

The late, great Claude Hopkins would not have approved.

But, my customers clearly did — as these sales letters all did extremely well.

More:

Some people would no doubt note those were written to my warm lists. And, might be tempted to think that all this humor stuff won’t work to ice cold lists.

And those well-meaning people would be wrong.

How do I know?

Because of all the examples of humor that have worked to cold markets.

Especially the examples I have conveniently provided in the upcoming August “Email Players” issue — including from some of the heaviest hitters the copywriting world has ever known who a lot of copywriters and marketers would probably assume would not use such tomfoolery in their ads.

The fun begins on page 6 of the August issue.

And, I spend quite a bit of time on this topic inside.

Here is the link to get it before I send it to the printer and it’s too late:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A few months ago, while selling the great A-list copywriter and “Email Players” subscriber Kim Krause Schwalm’s copywriting product, I wrote this in the email:

One of my all-time favorite copywriters — and, frankly, one of the 3 best copywriting minds who ever walked this planet — was the late, great Jim Rutz, who was so good he charged a fat $100k fee. And, Kim not only competed and won against that great master of copywriting, but did so twice.

And, it got the attention of an amateur grammar nazi:

GRAMMAR NAZI: “And, Kim not only competed…” -> “And, Jim not only competed…”

elBENBO: Jim didn’t compete with himself. Your grammar nazi game needs work.

Anyway, the point?

I’m not sure there is one.

Except, maybe, if one is going to be a dorky grammar nazi, at least do it right…

The beauty of my “Email Players” methodology is, even if you horribly mangle your grammar and spelling, you can still make just as many — and probably a lot more for reasons I won’t go into here — sales as if you spend 3 hours polishing every word to sparkling spelling perfection.

If you want to be a proof-reader, you can make a gloriously modest wage doing so.

And, possibly even get away with being a pretentious wannabe advertising critic.

But if you want to make sales?

You’re far better off knowing how to sell than to spell.

Free advice based on years of building a business and not just talking about it on social media…

Subscription info here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of the more amusing claims of online marketing is this whole idea of building a huge business by being “lazy.”

Even my slacker-ways take a lot of up-front work.

And, in my case, took around 9 years to get it all dialed in.

And that’s why, to give you a little bit of inspiration to work hard I shalt tell you about something I read yesterday in a Deadline interview with Quentin Tarantino.

The context:

He was being interviewed about his upcoming movie.

And, the plot is about Hollywood actor and his stuntman in the late 60’s.

So to make sure the movie is as authentic as possible, Quentin literally wrote 5 episode scripts of the fictional TV show the actors star in in the movie (the audience who sees this movie will never see), as well as wrote out the main character’s entire fictional back story and filmography, film by film, as well as every single director he worked with, and all the little stories, quirks, and anecdotes on the sets he worked on, how he got his roles, who the casting directors were, which movies worked, which bombed, etc etc etc.

Why did he do all this extra work?

And, why did he do it even though the audiences won’t see it?

Because, as he put it in the interview:

“[The audience] need to know that I take this mythology this history seriously, and that there are answers to these questions. I don’t have to vomit it out but if you ask I could tell you. The writer needs to know that mythology backwards and forwards. You need to be able to throw it off with the expertise of an expert.”

Lots of meat in that thar paragraph.

Especially for marketers, copywriters, and anyone in business.

Anyway, bottom line?

Ain’t no lazy successful people. No matter what your favorite internet goo-roo’s big launch videos and webinars say.

On that note:

My “Email Players” methods are certainly “slacker friendly.”

But, like any skill, you still have to work hard at learning and mastering it first.

Thus, it’s wholly incompatible for lazy do-nothings, new product junkies, and all those excuse-making souls who lack the character to commit to learning it or applying it, even as they haunt people’s social media feeds all day.

More info here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Today is a very special day that should be a national holiday.

And in celebration of this day, I am sharing a video about a lesson inspired by something I read in a book called “Marvel Comics: The Untold Story” about the so-called advertising ghetto:

A shameful confession:

For many years and up until very recently (including in the July “Email Players” issue), I used to aggressively advocate marketers, authors, and assorted other business people do their content creation (whether creating products, writing emails, pounding out sales copy, or whatever their #1 content-creation priority is for the day) the first hour of the day.

The reason?

Because that’s when people are at their most creative.

There’s a lot of evidence backing this up, too.

And all the most productive people I know practically swear by it.

But, I was reading an interview with Stan Lee — easily one of the most prolific writers and content-machines who ever walked the face of the earth — just a few short weeks ago, and realized how horrible that advice is for certain people.

For example, he used to structure his day like so:

• Get up
• Do “people” stuff – like go to the office, have meetings, talk to his assistants, give media interviews, etc
• Go home around 2 pm and write the rest of the day

Now, I can tell you, if I did that, my mind would be mush, my energy levels would be wiped out, and my content, writing, etc would be a phantom shadow of what it could and would be.

But that’s because Yours Reclusive is an introvert.

And, thus, I derive my energy – like Superman getting his power from the sun – from being alone.

Extroverts, on the other paw, like Stan Lee, get their energy from being around people, talking to people, and pleasing people. Thus, if you’re an extrovert, I now advise switching the whole thing around — and doing all your “people” stuff (phone calls, meetings, errands that deal with people, talking to vendors, coaching calls, consulting sessions, etc) during that first hour, instead of writing.

This should make you more productive.

You content more profitable.

And, your day a lot more fun.

More:

And this is especially true if you use the ideas I teach in the July “Email Players” issue which has almost three dozen of the best and fastest ways I know and use for creating content, including:

• Emails
• Social media posts
• Books (non-fiction or fiction)
• Courses
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Articles/blog posts
• Newsletters
• Membership site content
• Premiums & bonuses
• And any other kind of content you might sell or sell with

The deadline to get this issue is less than 24 hours from now.

After that, it’ll be too late.

So if you’re the procrastinating type, best hop to it, Pokey.

Here’s the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A couple months ago, Yours Crotchety wrote an email about a common “theme” that runs through the lives of those who have made exceptional incomes via writing (copywriting and otherwise). And it revealed the only two things you really have to do to make all the green stuff your greedy heart desires with your keyboard:

1. Write more words than you do now

2. Write those words faster than you do now

Notice, I did not say anything about talent.

Or decades of building your skills.

Or, having to be the best at writing, having to sell the best product, or having to tell the best stories.

Take the late, great Stan Lee, for example.

In his book “Excelsior!” he writes:

“Anytime we needed extra money, I could always write more scripts. If Joanie wanted to buy a new wardrobe or I wanted to get a new TV or the latest camera equipment, I’d say, ‘Well, I’ll write a couple of extra stories and that’ll take care of it.’ I guess that’s one of the reasons I wrote so much. I could buy almost anything I wanted because I could pay by writing stories…”

i.e. the more he wrote, and the faster he wrote, the more he made.

And, bear in mind:

At that time, he was writing nonsensical characters he was embarrassed by and stories his boss made him write — hardly “great writing” — based on his boss following trends and underestimating his audience’s intelligence — which Stan did not at all enjoy doing, having to write dumbed-down stories about dumbed-down characters.

I heard the great Dan Kennedy tell a somewhat similar story.

But, in his case, it was about copywriting, specifically.

He basically said he is the highest paid copywriter probably on the planet.

But, not because he is necessarily the “best” writer.

But because he is the fastest.

Since he can write more sales copy, faster, than any other copywriter in his league, he can complete more assignments per year, which equals both more upfront fees per year and more royalties concurrently pouring in per year, all presumably compounding on themselves.

Again, without being the “best.”

Or the most “talented.”

Or, even necessarily selling the highest quality products and services.

(There is always a better mousetrap…)

Anyway, the good news is, this is very, very simple:

Write more words faster = make more income faster.

And guess what?

You can apply this “formula” to any kind of content your business uses, I have found — emails, social media posts, books (non-fiction or fiction), courses, videos, podcasts, articles, blog posts, newsletters, membership site content, premiums & bonuses, and the list natters on…

It’s so simple:

The more content you create, the more you can sell.

The more you sell, the more your business makes.

The more your business makes, the fatter your righteous piggy bank grows.

Do it right, and that piggy bank not only gets fat, it gets downright obese.

Enter the July “Email Players” issue.

It reveals my 34 best content-creation secrets I’ve been using for years to “out-content” my competition, peers, colleagues, trolls, haters, and anyone else I compete against, without sacrificing all my energy and time to the content devil, and in ways that make it all much faster and way less painless than it is for all the millions of marketers who writhe around in agony when creating content.

The deadline to get this issue is tomorrow.

That’s when I send it to the printer.

And after that, it’ll be too late to get it.

(I turn off “Email Players” in the shopping cart after the deadline, I don’t cater to stragglers and procrastinators — if anything, I take a sadistic glee in pissing them off.)

Here’s the link for your clicking displeasure:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle