Ben Settle

One of my favorite things to happen is when a guru (not a goo-roo, goo-roos are kinda insignificant to these things) argues with something I say, or just espouses a totally different point of view.

Why?

Because it makes for perfect email fodder.

I liken it to picking a fight with them.

Guru writes something I know is wrong, and can prove it, and then I write an email to my list talking about it.

Every time I do this the sales roll in hot and heavy.

And, well, so it is.

But, here’s the caveat:

There is a right way to pick a fight with gurus and wrong way. When I see people do it on social media I just shake my head. Usually, they are doing it in a way that garners sympathy for the guru and hurts their own case (and sales).

Not so with my “Email Players” subscribers.

At least, the ones who read the June issue.

Starting on page 11 I show you 3 real-life examples of how this is done.

Complete with why they worked, and what not to do.

It takes balls to do this sort of thing.

But, it’s always been well worth the potential fall out for me.

This issue goes to the printer Thursday.

Grab it here while you can:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

New “Email Players” subscriber Greg Douglas taps into his inner Seinfeld:

Looking forward to my first issue. Implemented what I’ve learned from the Playbook and the DVD so far.

Only 4 emails in since I started on your material, but have seen conversion go up from 1-3 conversions per email (I was already doing daily) to now seeing 8-10 conversions per email, and a high-water mark of 18 conversions from my “Summer of George” version of the Costanza emails you talk about on the DVD.

My last message was a take on the Seinfeld episode where they’re caught peeing in the parkade…. managed to tie that to affiliate marketing and have already filled out the webinar we are doing next Thursday already.

Thanks man – looking forward to seeing what I can do with the actual newsletter content once I start getting it. Wow.

The best is yet to come, my fine feathered little droogie.

June issue is a doozy.

And, it goes to the printer in a couple days.

Check it out the newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

People claiming to make “rational” decisions amuse me.

Case in point:

The late, great negotiation master Jim Camp once talked about how it’s impossible to make decisions without emotion. And, that there have been people who have lost the emotional side of their brains through accident or disease or birth defect or whatever and it’s been shown they can’t even make the decision to tie their shoes. Yes, even those types who claim they use rational thought to make decisions are wrong — the decision to be rational is an emotional decision.

This carries right over into emails, of course.

Want an example how emotion gets people making a decision to buy?

And, brings them in the right way at the same time?

(Ready to consume your product).

Okay, here is one example from “Email Players” subscriber Connor Gallagher:

I’m not the first person to say it, and I doubt I’ll be the last… but when I first started “following” you I thought you were an arrogant arsehole.

In fact, I’d be lying if I said you didn’t rub me up the wrong way when I emailed you to ask a question about Email Players and you sent me back some one-liner that said something along the lines of “you obviously haven’t read the sales letter properly.”

Seriously, I was like “who the fuck does this guy think he is?!”

But then, one day, the penny dropped.

And I suddenly saw the method behind your madness.

To be honest, I must have had a bee in my bonnet about that email for the best part of a fortnight before I pulled the trigger. But I did.

I think it took that for me to get over myself and begin to appreciate WHY you do things the way you do.

Now, I think you’re a genius.

I know you have dozens of fanboys licking your arse all day long, so you probably don’t need another, but the stuff I have learned from you about positioning/marketing psychology in the space of just a few months has been PRICELESS.

I’ll be an Email Players subscriber for a VERY long time, that’s for sure!

Emotion is the food your prospects feed on.

Feed ’em already.

Or, write boring drivel that puts them to sleep.

Either way, nobody is going to click your links or buy without emotion.

All those appeals to logic and rationality in copy are a waste of time.

And guess what?

I show you (with an example so it’s 100% clear) one of the easiest ways I know to take a piece of boring email copy and inject it with the kind of emotion your prospect needs to open, click, and, yes, buy from your emails.

This sucker is going to the printer in a couple days.

Here’s where to get it while the gettin’s still good:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

“Email Players” subscriber David Kyte shows how you don’t have to be abrasive, or a jerk, or be anyone or anything but yourself to use my system:

Hi Ben

Thought I would drop you a line …

It’s 9:10 am.

My daily email is set up for the day – ready to send at lunch time.

Every day I send an email – I make sales, who would have thought it.

Engagement is huge.

People leaving the list – zero!

I cant remember the last unsubscribe I have had.

Teaching – minimal.

Sales link in EVERY email, no one has EVER complained.

I don’t sell, just give them an opportunity to buy.

List tiny – in the next few weeks we may break 1,000 subscribers.

We have broken 6 figures annually that comes in as repeatable; monthly subscriptions.

I am not abrasive like you; because that’s not me.

I love being me and not some pretentious jerk. 

Every time I write, “tickets selling fast, don’t miss out” – I think URGH! Stop it and backspace.

TRICKS – don’t need them, I have a relationship 🙂

Guess I am a believer 🙂

Thanks

Even though David implies I’m a jerk in this, that’s okay, I accept the label.

June issue goes to the printer shortly.

Subscribe here while you can:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of the more interesting lessons I learned once while being taught knowledge by Joe — one of the top firearm instructors on the planet is:

“Small guns get carried”

Here’s what he meant:

Some people have bigger caliber hand guns and some people have small caliber hand guns. People with the bigger caliber ones sometimes have one because of ego and that’s fine. I can tell you I have a bigger one and the chances of me carrying it, since it’s bulky and heavy, are zero to none.

Too much of a pain in the arse.

Apparently, most of the gun-toting world is the same way.

And guys like Joe — who has trained tens of thousands of people over the years — know this better than anyone. His solution? Carry a small, light gun. As he put it “small guns get carried.”

Of course, the objection is, smaller bullets don’t do much damage, etc.

Which is bull shyt.

In typical Joe style, he demonstrated (demonstration is the single most powerful way of proving a point according to the great Gary Bencivenga — and I believe him) his point via infotainment. He talked about the TV show Swamp Hunters (something like that). And explained how they killed a 800 lb alligator with a single shot from a .22 round (a small round).

And yes, my little droogie, this concept applies to your marketing, too.

Too many people are trying to conceal a hand canon in their marketing when they should be carrying a .22 or small caliber weapon in their jacket pocket.

(So to speak).

And guess what?

On page 3 of the June “Email Players” issue I show how applying this concept to your marketing will (1) make your workday far quicker (2) your work much easier (3) your marketing way more profitable — especially if you are a big funnel guy who has a 10-generation family-tree-looking funnel full of fluff and nonsense.

This baby is going to the printer soon.

Hop on board the B-train here, while there’s still time to get it:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

“Email Players” subscriber Vicky Fraser says on her podcast:

“I’ve made more money since I started sending daily emails, and as soon as I started making them better because I learned from you…I don’t always agree with everything you say but you always make me think and I really value that.”

At the end of the day I like to think “Email Players” makes people think.

Anyone can just toss “how to” stuff out there.

Anyone can preach “Value!”

Anyone can regurgitate what they heard from someone else.

But, the products that stick out in this world (and maybe I’m projection vomiting here), that do the most good, are products that make people think differently. Expand minds. And, yes, as a result give people solutions to real problems.

If you want something that makes you think, EP could be for you.

If you just want shallow nonsense that sounds cool, then probably not.

If you’re the former, then here’s the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of the people I used to follow on Twitter was a crazy looking broad with crazy eyes, whose account was “Boyfriend isn’t allowed.” (There have been many others that have sprung up since then.)

Basically, she was over attached and clingy.

And, her boy friend wasn’t “allowed” to do any number of things.

Like, for example:

“My boyfriend not allowed to break up with me. You wanna see other people? Look out the window.”

Or…

“My Boyfriend Not Allowed to sing his ABCs in public. Some hoe might catch feelings. you know these hoes love educated men.”

Or…

“My boyfriend not allowed to communicate with his ex, whatever ya’ll gotta talk about, you should’ve said when ya’ll was together.”

One of my favorites, though, is:

“My boyfriend isn’t allowed to do math, wtf he trying to do? Divide his Heart, subtract me & add a new Girl?”

Heh.

Anyway, here’s why I bring this last one up:

Math can be a powerful persuasion tool if you (1) know how to count (2) know how to use it without boring anyone and (3) follow the tip found on page 3 inside the upcoming June “Email Players” issue — which will be like cutting off all the doors of escape your prospect has when hearing about your product.

She’s hitting the printer in a few days.

Subscribe here in time, while you still can to get it:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

If there’s one lesson us marketing types can take from the casting out of Bill O’Reilly from Fox Shnewz, it’s this:

You’re never too guru to fail.

I don’t care how innocent you are.

I don’t care how much your adoring fans love you.

I don’t care how much of the green stuff you make.

I don’t care if you’ve been with a platform (auto-responder, FB ad account, AdWords account, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, etc) for years and have paid them lots and lots of your hard-earned rupees… you’re never to big to fall.

Again, just ask Bill O’Reilly.

He was Fox’s biggest draw for years.

And, had the biggest audience on cable news.

Now?

Gone like a virgin on prom night just like that.

The lesson:

It goes back to last Thursdays’s email. If you stubbornly rely on platforms outside your control for your income like Flakebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, article directories, SEO, iTunes, JV’s, etc, (even your *web hosting* or auto-responder provider) you’re as good as screwed when some executive, bean counter, banker, pencil-pusher, bureaucrat, politician, or even some muckety-muck’s wife (like in O’Reilly’s case, to an extent) deems you dangerous or not someone they want to do business with — for any reason, real or imagined.

So back your email list up regularly.

(You can never back it up too often.)

Get your customer’s *snail mail* addresses.

Build an overall *audience*.

(Like Bill O’Reilly did, and so will be just fine)

But don’t stop there.

Back up those lists to *multiple* places — hard drive, external disk, cloud, and if you’re *really* hardcore, even a thumb drive on your car key chain that goes where you go. (i.e. so if you have to leave the country or something on a dime your business essentially goes with you).

What’s the bottom line?

You’re never too big or too popular or too “guru” to fall.

All right, on to the fun stuff:

Me selling you something that can improve your life.

The June “Email Players” issue won’t protect you from the forces of Evil trying to undermine your business, but the information inside it and all the issues shows you how to write emails people like reading and buying from.

If that’s your bag, check it out here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

I recently read the late, great ad man David Ogilvy’s:

“Rules for respect in business”

The one that I dug on most was:

“In meeting with clients, do not assume the posture of servants. They need you as much as you need them.”

Reason why is, it reminded me of a real life story of persuasion.

Checky:

A few month ago, I took a firearms class from one of the world’s top instructors (according to the NRA, and hundreds of military and law enforcement professionals). And, I was floored by not only what he was teaching but *how* he taught. (I took written notes — and I never take written notes, I hate long hand — on his teaching techniques more so than the info he taught, if that tells you something.) Anyway, this dude’s classes are routinely sold out, and his trainings booked well in advance. He competes with at least a few dozen others in this small county and, while they all struggle for bid’niz, he always has more than he can handle (having to take months off at a time just to take a break).

His secret to having all these customers?

Well, there’s his knowledge, true.

And his incredibly sharp infotaining style of teaching.

But, that doesn’t explain how he gets complete strangers (who have never heard of him before) practically begging to sign up.

No, he does something else.

Something anyone — especially freelancers and coaches — can do.

Something that worked like gangbusters for me when I was freelancing.

Something that, yes, I show you in the June “Email Players” issue. If you want to know what it is, simply subscribe before the deadline and when it arrives, turn immediately to page 4 to see what I am nattering on about.

Best part (or worse part for ninja tactic-chasing goo-roo fanboys):

It’s not a “technique.”

It’s simply a *mindset* shift.

An option for thinking differently.

And, while it takes balls to do (which is why most won’t do it) it’s one of those things that, when you get a customer or client doing it, that person will very likely bond with you forever — not wanting to really do bid’niz with anyone else.

The deadline to get the next issue approaches.

Get in while the gettin’s good right here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle