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:
Ben Settle
