I once heard the great Dan Kennedy talk about a weird and paradoxical phenomenon of how, when someone finds a marketing teacher to latch onto, that teacher then becomes the person they think will solve all their other non-marketing problems, too.
For example:
When he got divorced.
Even after his divorce, when it was clear (by his own words) he was the last person anyone should be getting dating, relationship, or marriage advice from… his marketing and business students would ask him about their dating, relationship, and marriage problems.
Same with their investing questions.
And, other questions he said he was unqualified to talk about.
But, that didn’t matter — because it’s just how people are, when they find someone to learn from and they know, like, and trust that person, they tend to want to only learn from them.
Case in point:
Even though I am off Facebook, was never very “good” at Facebook, and couldn’t care less about Facebook, I still sometimes get asked questions about it.
But, I am the last person to ask.
Not just because I was terrible at monetizing it (my old elBenbo’s Lair group notwithstanding, which was a sort of surreal experience, which had people so unnaturally attached to it, and to me, it also resulted in, I recently found out, people getting anonymous threats via phone and other means from my “fans” towards people they thought slighted me…) but because I have so much contempt for it.
Still, sometimes someone will ask me about it.
And, here is what I tell them:
I look at Facebook like going to Chuck E. Cheeses. If you’ve never been there (Child elBenbo went there for several birthdays back in the early 1980’s…) it’s basically a big arcade and game center, with lots of pizza and crappy junk food to eat. It’s fun, it’s a great place to waste money, and it’s an even better place to waste lots of time, make yourself dumber, and interact with other people doing the same thing.
Plus, there is also a big pit in there full of balls kids can play in.
The ball pit is full of germs, dirt, and probably even piss, shyt, snot, and saliva.
But, back in my time, if you found the *white* ball you’d get 50 free tokens to play even more games with.
That, in a nutshell is what marketing with Flakebook is like:
Going to Chuck E. Cheeses, looking for the white ball (i.e. value you can use) in the dirty ball pit, in the hopes you will be the one to find the white ball before anyone else.
But, this doesn’t mean you can’t still use it.
And, I even talk about it some in the December “Email Players” issue.
When I was on there, I did use it in a way to monetize, but not directly, and not in ways anyone was likely to notice. A way that built my brand, strengthened the bond with my audience, and, yes, lead to a few (not many) high quality leads that became long-term buyers and “Email Players” subscribers.
Anyway, I talk a little about it in the December “Email Players” issue.
As well as about some other (far better) ways to build a list.
Including ways I’ll be using aggressively in 2019 and beyond.
Here is the link to get it and subscribe before the deadline, while you still can:
Ben Settle
