Ben Settle

Recently, I’ve been re-watching a Q&A video with the late, great Stan Lee called:

“Mutants, Monsters, And Marvels”

This video has had a tremendous influence on my business and thinking over the years, and I like to watch it at least one or two times per year, where I always get some new idea, insight, or method for building a bigger, better, and more profitable business.

One of my favorite parts of Stan’s story is when he was ready to quit the comic book industry.

He’d been writing comics for about 20 years.

And, his publisher kept things so dumbed-down, had so little respect for the intelligence of their readers, and was such a stubbornly annoying trend-follower, Stan decided enough was enough and he was going to quit and go be something else. And when he told his wife his plans, she made a suggestion that, quite literally, completely transformed the entire comic book industry and, by extension, movie industry, and has resulted in probably hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue since the early 1960’s.

What did his wife suggest?

She said:

“Why don’t you tell the kind of story you want since it’ll be your last one? Get it out of your system.”

And so Stan did just that.

Instead of doing a squeaky clean super hero story about the usual super powered Mary Sue type heroes other companies did, he gave his characters very human flaws, unique personalities, and did a lot of things nobody else was even thinking about, much less doing, in comic books at that time, but that we all take for granted now.

The result?

He created the Fantastic Four which turned into the greatest selling comic book in history at the time, along with many other comic books that even today are #1 sellers, and are billion dollar movie franchises.

All because he was fed up with the status quo.

And, because he took a chance.

Even more important:

It occurred to me on my last viewing of the video that he also did something else to tap into an extremely profitable and powerful principle of marketing and business-building around that time in the early 60’s, without even realizing it, that can work like crazy to completely transform and add piles of new sales to businesses today, too — including businesses like yours and mine.

I know this, because I used this secret business principle myself.

Specifically:

About 18-months ago, when I saw an explosion in growth, sales, and profits (and, frankly, joy) unlike anything I’d seen in the prior 18 *years* before doing it.

Enter the April “Email Players” issue.

It takes a lot of guts to implement this into your business.

Especially if you are prone to caring what other people think.

Since I am not overly burdened with that flaw these days, it was very easy for me to implement this into my business, my emails, my sales copy, my content, my marketing, and my information publishing business as a whole.

But, your mileage could almost certain vary.

And, this issue is not meant as a new business plan to be “swiped” for anyone, but a beacon to guide you in implementing this near-magical idea in your unique offers, your unique personality, your unique business, and your unique goals, via showing you exactly how I’ve been doing it, and have done it in various client deals, too.

But, my ways will not necessarily be your ways.

Doing this takes problem solving, it takes patience, and it takes independent thought.

And, people who lack the character to stick with anything after the excitement of the moment has passed (i.e. people addicted to the dopamine drip of buying something new and secksy sounding), and who buy completely on emotion, and who are merely playing business and have never done anything but buy stuff about business & marketing while going around telling people on facebook about how they are “an entrepreneur!”… will get zero value from it. I say this for the benefit of those types of marketing proles who think their lives will change somehow after reading it… just like they think will happen every time they buy a $7 eBook they never read, much less implement during their walk through the goo-roo casino.

But for the grownups?

I noticed this idea has been used by many great businesses.

Not just Marvel Comics/Stan Lee.

But many other giants of industry.

And, it’s telling how many of them were virtual nobodies, hardly noticed, maybe even barely scraping by until they started implementing it.

All right, the deadline to get this issue is tomorrow.

That’s when I send it to the printer.

After that it won’t be available, and even if I someday decide to sell back issues, I will almost certainly omit this issue from the list. Reason why is, I do want to teach and share it with my Horde, but I also want to keep some of the intimate details of my business it exposes as exclusive as I can.

If you’re interested in subscribing, go to the link below while you still have time:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

The infamous man known as “The Knee Pain Guru” recently send me this ditty:

Hey Ben!

I thought to write and share a personal experience about being on your list and an email player’s member for a little over 2 years now…

A few weeks ago you sent out a story about guy who was cancelling his subscription because of the government shut down or the economy or some shit like that.

You basically told him, you can focus on everything that doesn’t work, he doesn’t have enough money, what ever sort of “self-pity” he was spewing out in his email giving a “piss poor” excuse why he couldn’t afford to continue to be a member…

As I read it, I had a real coming to “hey-soos” moment and realized…”F***! I’m just like that guy!”

I’ve been on your list for sometime now and haven’t been implementing the shit you’ve been sending out in his newsletters. It’s an old pattern of mine and to be honest, I got really pissed at myself!

So I went and collected all the Email Players editions I have tucked away around the house and organized them into a binder I can keep handy and reference when I need to.

Next I started reading 8 pages a day…Why 8? Because it’s 1/2 a damn newsletter and I can do that in a short sitting.

Then I started highlighting the implementable “low hanging fruit” as quickly as possible taking a little time each day to write my daily emails using the different examples and strategies provided.

I’m seeing all sort of “layers” and “levels” to copywriting and business I hadn’t seen before because quite frankly…I GOT LAZY!

Don’t get me wrong…

I’ve implement stuff over the past several years and am much further along than I would have been doing nothing. I just didn’t throw myself into your work making it a daily study/practice.

Sales have started to increase and my writing has definitely changed over the past few weeks as I use customer emails, questions, and testimonials to go deeper into the psychology of where they are stuck.

So thank you Ben for kicking my ass and holding that damn mirror up so I can begin seeing real sustainable movement in my business.

And if this helps anyone else on your list or helps you get more sales/subscriptions, then all the better!

Regards
Bill
(The Knee Pain Guru)

Who knew being a jerk can create better customers?

Anyway, on to the business:

The April “Email Players” newsletter issue goes to the printer in 2 short days.

It is, in my shamelessly obnoxious and biased opinion, the most valuable issue I’ve written in some ways, in the newsletter’s almost 100-issue run. My guess is, some people will find the information inside the most profitable thing they ever do in their businesses, while others will be disappointed and natter on about how they want something secksys and ninja or whatever.

For the latter group:

I’ll just have to ramp up my jerk game to make them appreciate it more.

To subscribe in time to get this issue, go here immediately:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of the oldest and most reliable pieces of marketing advice for new businesses is to get on the mailing lists of everyone in your industry.

The reason is to see what other people are doing.

And, if you see something being repeated over and over, it most likely is working.

It’s how swipe files have always been built.

And, it’s how many businesses have been built, too.

But you know what?

I can count the number of lists I’m on with one hand. I ignore pretty much everyone else’s ads, sales letters, and marketing, too. And, if anything, I am always trying to make sure I am not influenced by other marketers I compete again — whether consciously or subconsciously.

And you know something else?

Since doing so, my sales have soared much higher.

This was also true when I did client work, in all kinds of markets ranging from golf and self-defense, to the prostate niche, golf niche, and the various home business-related niches.

Instead, I do something quite different.

Something that, I believe, works much better.

Can save you a lot of time not having to read other marketers’ nonsense.

And, can be a whole lot more more profitable, too.

I talk about this in exquisite detail on page 6 in the upcoming April “Email Players” issue. And, if you take my advice, I suspect you will see your marketing become more profitable, your ads more responsive, and your business more immune to being knocked off by the soulless copycats in your industry.

But time is short if you want to subscribe in time to get it.

The deadline is Sunday.

Here’s the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

If there’s one group of people I annoy, frustrate, and turn off the most… it’s digital nomads who are always traveling, never in one spot, and spend lots of time away from home (if they even have a home).

Why?

Because I sell physical products.

(Like Email Players, books, etc)

And, not a suite of digital products.

All of which means, these people who buy from me have to lug all my products around everywhere they go, or else leave them somewhere out of reach they can’t easily get to.

Anyway, many have complained about this to me over the years.

And, each time I have the same response:

I show them a picture of Mr. Pink from the movie “Reservoir Dogs” where he’s rubbing his fingers together saying, “See this? This is the world’s smallest violin…” And when I ask them, “Let me ask you a question, eBook boy, of all the products you buy, which ones are physically on your desk, with a physical presence in your office?” They invariably admit only mine, after I wish I then ask them, “And all those pdfs and MP3s and videos on your hard drive… which of those stands out more than my newsletter and books?”

…

Proof positive what people say and what they do are always different.

It’s not unlike when the great publicity expert Paul Hartunian told a story about a student of his who FAXed his press releases in. The reporter who interviewed him after reading his press release said, “we prefer you email them…”

The irony writes itself.

Anyway, what’s the point of this email?

To convince you to sell physical products?

To rattle the cages of the digital nomads?

Or maybe to just have a little bit of fun?

Not at all.

(Except for the having fun part.)

In fact, probably most people should sell digital products, should avoid selling physical products, and keep doing what they do. But in the upcoming April “Email Players” issue I go into great detail about many things I have been doing — especially in the prior 18 months, which my business has seen its biggest growth “spurt” during over the almost-20 years — like this, due to a way of doing business very few people have the guts to do.

But, I suspect many of my subscribers will start doing it after they read it.

And, I predict, profit handsomely from doing so.

The deadline to get this issue is Sunday.

Here’s the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Not long ago, one of my “Email Players” subscribers said he wanted to know more about how to write emails and sales copy in a way where it’s hard for people to tell they are even being “sold” until the very end, and then they feel they need to buy whatever it is you are selling.

My answer was long and distinguished.

But, the short answer is this:

I told him I love studying the old school guys, such as the real Mad Men, not the TV show, but the guys who actually worked back in the 60s in the ad agency business.

They were really good at this sort of thing.

These guys had to figure a lot of stuff out we all take for granted today.

Anyway, many years ago, I heard an interview with one of these guys where he explained a secret method some of them would use in their advertising to create so many sales it would sometimes get them in trouble if the product wasn’t up to snuff, causing product recalls, and that sort of thing.

And, I told my subscriber all about this secret.

And, specifically, how I used it to write a headline that helped get us $5 buyers.

That means it cost us about $5 of ad spend to get a customer.

Something the traffic guy in the business said he had never seen in all the 100’s of offers he had run traffic for over the years, at least, for the kind of offer we were selling in the super competitive market we were selling in.

It’s something I do to help write all my copy these days.

And, I daresay it gives me a huge advantage over most others.

And you know what?

I talk about this secret in explicit detail in the 3-page bonus “Ravings of an Adman” training included with the April “Email Players” issue.

The deadline to get this issue is Sunday.

To subscribe in time, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Just about everyone I revere in marketing — including marketers with decades more experience than your humble story teller has — avoids an admitted “blunder” I routinely commit in my business each day.

A blunder that is easily observed in all my sales letters.

A blunder I’ve had world class marketers personally warn me about.

A blunder that, despite all this, I profit from repeatedly.

What is this blunder?

I described the products and books I sell as “books” and “products” instead of “manuals” and “programs”, or some other description that implies more value for something that costs hundreds of dollars than the words “book” or “product” do. In fact, I’ve been repeatedly told by people much smarter and more experienced than Yours Humbled (and shown their test results to boot), that people don’t want to pay a lot of money (especially the hundreds of dollars I charge) for mere “books” — and this is especially true for books with professionally-designed covers such as mine that scream “MASS MARKET!”, like something you’d see selling for $12 in a bookstore.

There have been many tests showing the foolishness of what I do.

Including from companies like Guthy-Renker, for example.

And I will even be the first to admit:

Calling my books “books” is simply dumb.

At least, by conventional standards, and by the experiences of people much smarter and more successful than myself.

So why do I do it then?

That, my fledgling, is explained in the coming April “Email Players” issue.

More irony:

The shallow-thinking goo-roo fanboy will read this email without the context provided in the April issue and think, “Ooh I need to change my copy to say books instead of manuals!”

And that’d be foolish, and almost certainly hurt their sales.

Reason why is, there is something else going on here.

Something that goes well beyond product descriptions.

Something that runs like a river of gold through the entire upcoming April “Email Players” issue. And, if you apply the mysterious concept I am referring to in all areas of your business, I suspect you will see success of unprecedented levels over time as I have since doing it some 18-months ago in my business.

But, the deadline to get this issue is almost upon you.

After I send this issue to the printer, that’ll be it.

To subscribe while there is still time, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Behold this email I got from a Mr. Jeffery Harbin a couple weeks ago when I wrote about why people who need money back guarantees are not to trusted:

Hi Ben.

Thought you might enjoy this story, seeing as it is topical.

A year ago I canceled all my MBGs and quintupled all my product prices at the same time. Selling far less these days, making far more, and have almost no customer service issues. Seems people who pay top dollar don’t waste a lot of time bitching about the small stuff. However, one dude sent me an email almost word for word to your guy, saying not offering a MBG was tantamount to fraud. My reply was “Fine. Don’t buy it.” A week later he bought. Two months later I get a message from my c/c vendor he’d filed a claim that his account was hacked and the purchase was unauthorized. I sent my c/c guy a copy of the email exchange I had with him (I am an obsessive email saver). Case closed. Refund denied.

There are two powerful forces at work in what he said.

The first, is the surface-level info about the giant changes he made in his business to get giant results.

And the second force?

He knowingly or unknowingly tapped into an extremely profitable concept that anyone who reads the upcoming April “Email Players” issue will recognize and, hopefully, start applying to their own businesses as fast as possible.

The concept is not “raise all you prices!” or whatever.

It’s much deeper than that.

And, applies to most anything you ever do in business the rest of your life.

This is why I said the other day, I think the April “Email Players” issue could very well be the most overall valuable issue to date.

Only time will tell.

And, only for those who are subscribed in time to read it.

Go here to subscribe while there’s still time before the approaching deadline:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

P.S. Alex from Sweden asks a good question:

“My guess is that your upcoming issue is going to be talking about going against the grains of what other people are doing. Zigging when everyone else is zaggin, like Andre Chaperon likes to say. Am I close?”

I like the zig while everyone is zagging concept.

Been doing it for nearly 20 years.

As have many smart people I know.

But, that is not what the April issue is about. It is related to to that, and also breaking rules, etc, I suppose. Those are the themes of nearly every issue and product I create, in some way, shape, or form. And in fact, small-thinkers who read it will almost surely yammer on about how they “already know this! It is not new! Give me something new!”, while they proceed to not do it, proceed not to think more deeply than “be different” about it, and proceed to whip up excuses about why they can’t do what I suggest inside the issue to protect their egos because they know they might fail if they attempt it.

My guess is this:

Out of the nearly 800 people who will get this issue, maybe 10 people will do it to the level I suggest, and not just do it in a superficial way that still feels comfortable.

Out of those 10, five will do it enough to make some decent money.

Four will do it to make a lot of it.

And maybe only one – probably a small, “nobody” in their industry/niche now – will take it, think deeply about it, implement it to the most radical degree they possibly can, and make an obscene number of sales with it.

Zig while others zag?

Breaking rules?

Good things to do, and practically mandatory these days, at least to some degree.

But the concept inside the April issue goes way beyond those things.

May get you laughed at by certain peers.

Mocked by gurus and “influencers” who are more interested in applause than payment.

And, given unsolicited advice by those who observe what you do without context.

More:

I cannot guarantee what I teach in this issue will work for you much less “wow” you.

I only know it has worked like crazy for me, and was a big “Ah ha!” moment when I first heard it.

And, the entire issue is not a “what to do”  teaching.

Nor is it a checklist to follow.

It is merely an idea, along with a detailed explanation of how I am using it, so you can see what it looks like. But every business is different, every industry is different, and everyone who applies it must do it different and think deeply about it so it makes sense for their unique goals and situation.

Just blindly doing everything I am doing with it will backfire.

But using the concept with wisdom?

With some deep thinking?

And with some guts?

Well, I believe it can radically change  businesses.

Radically change sales.

And, yes, even radically change lives.

Or not.

It could also radically fail, too.

The only way to know is to subscribe before the looming deadline, keep an open mind when reading it, and then apply it, even if (especially if) it is uncomfortable.

Here is the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

One of my all-time favorite marketing and copywriting minds is the late, and esteemed Gary Halbert.

He was a true marketing genius.

And, I once did an entire podcast episode just on all the ways that great man of marketing influenced my business.

But you know what?

He probably would have considered me an idiot.

At least, with one of the things I say in many of my sales letters and on all my order forms. And that thing is, I always tell people to allow 1-3 weeks for delivery. I remember a newsletter issue he wrote where he said (more or less) that having that kind of verbiage is insane and stupid.

And, his reasons were sound for saying so.

But, even knowing that, I continue to keep saying 1-3 weeks.

And, I believe it not only doesn’t hurt sales, but greatly enhances them.

No, not because of the “words” themselves.

But, because of something I do in all parts of my business, that has nothing to do with the time it takes to ship products or the copy I write on my order forms or anything obvious at a glance. This “something” is a concept I have been implementing in my business for the last 18 months that has grown my sales probably faster and more consistently than anything else I’ve done outside of email marketing itself.

This concept I am referring to runs throughout the entire April “Email Players” issue.

It also to everything I do now.

And, I believe, it can explode the sales of any business (over time) who does it — yes, even though it will probably get you called an idiot too, by many of your marketing heroes, too.

To subscribe before I send it to the printer, go here immediately:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

You can’t swing a bat without hitting someone online going on and on about “give value!” — how you always have to give value, it’s all about giving value, and you have to appease the blokes and blokes-es-es running around whining about not getting enough value.

People who do it are basically stealing sales from themselves.

And, in this short video I talk not only about why it’s a lie, and what works far better than giving free value ever will if more sales is the plumb you’re after picking.

Here’s the lovin’: