{"id":14969,"date":"2023-01-01T15:45:23","date_gmt":"2023-01-01T23:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=14969"},"modified":"2023-01-01T15:45:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-01T23:45:23","slug":"rip-to-my-silent-business-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/rip-to-my-silent-business-partner\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP to my silent business partner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week I had to say goodby to my dog of 15+ years Zoe.<\/p>\n

The first time I met her she didn\u2019t pee on me like Babe did on Farmer Hoggett.\"\"But we did regard<\/em> each other when, after six solid months of walking dogs at the local dog shelter, I opened the cage, she jumped on me, I walked her on the beach and didn\u2019t want it to end.<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t long after that when she started massively improving my business.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/p>\n

I was already taking short beach walks, maybe a mile or two, on the regular.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until I got Zoe when I started taking much longer daily walks (5, 6, 7, 8+ miles) just to get the excess energy out of her (I once had a dog groomer refuse to take Zoe as a client again unless I ran her on the beach first, even though I already was doing just that, if that tells you something\u2026) when my marketing game took off, sped past most of my peers, and has kept me far ahead to this day.<\/p>\n

The reason?<\/p>\n

I was listening to \u2014 and re-listening to \u2014 top notch marketing trainings.<\/p>\n

Over and over and over.<\/p>\n

Day after day, for 4, 5, 6 hours at a time.<\/p>\n

And, also, night after night, as I\u2019d walk her on the beach at least twice a day.<\/p>\n

Take Email Players subscriber and the man universally regarded as the world\u2019s greatest living copywriter Gary Bencivenga\u2019s Farewell DVDs. I put them on my MP3 player, and listened to that seminar some 25 or 30 times before I stopped keeping track.<\/p>\n

Just imbibing his wisdom over and over and over.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Eventually I basically \u201cowned\u201d the info in my mind.<\/p>\n

This was late 2007.<\/p>\n

By the end<\/p>\n

of 2008 I\u2019d doubled \u2014 probably tripled or even quadrupled \u2014 my business’ income, and can trace a lot of that to those trainings, that I listened to over and over and over. I distinctly remember applying that info to each and every sales letter, and was banging out controls left and right.<\/p>\n

Same with the great Matt Furey\u2019s original email course at the end of 2008.<\/p>\n

I put the audios onto my MP3 player and got to walking Zoe.<\/p>\n

I listened to it, walking Zoe on 6, 7, 8, 9 mile walks each and every day for months\u2026 just absorbing the principles, ideas, and strategies over and over and over. I don\u2019t know how many times I listened to it. But it was probably around 20 or more times before I finally moved on to something else.<\/p>\n

And so it was with all the other trainings I consider \u201cmust learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything from the Michael Senoff interviews with Jim Camp, Barry Maher, Stan Billue, Bob Bly, and a guy named Mike Samonek (who used media publicity and space ads to sell his Special Effects Cookbook)\u2026 to an interview David Garfinkel gave to the late John Ritz\u2026 to the Gene Schwartz Breakthrough Advertising interviews with various A-list copywriters & marketers that Bob Bly hosted many years ago\u2026 to Dan Kennedy\u2019s Magnetic Marketing lead gen talk he did for the Peter Lowe conferences as well as the Magnetic Marketing course itself (the one from the 90\u2019s, pre-internet, I still listen to it regularly and get ideas)\u2026 to the interviews Dan Kennedy did with Peter Montoya (about personal branding) and Walter Bregman (an old school Mad Man guy) for his NO BS Gold Tapes (circa 2003 \u2014 don\u2019t ask me where to find them, I have no idea)\u2026 to Sean D\u2019Souza\u2019s System Seminar talk from 2008\u2026 to the interview Ken McCarthy did with Gary Bencivenga\u2026 to Paul Hartunian\u2019s Million Dollar Publicity system\u2026 to the interview Doug D\u2019Anna did for one of my own products\u2026 and the list goes on and on and on and on.<\/p>\n

There were quite a few.\"\"<\/p>\n

And these guys would probably think I\u2019m creepy how much I stalked their minds while Zoe stalked the beach\u2026 day after day, and week after week, for months and years\u2026 all the way up until about a year ago, when I could barely walk her the .3 miles to the water at all.<\/p>\n

I never would have done all that listening and learning otherwise.<\/p>\n

Without Zoe I doubt there\u2019d be an Email Players newsletter.<\/p>\n

Or even a fraction of the books I\u2019ve written \u2014 including fiction.<\/p>\n

As I got many ideas for all my books, ads, sites, businesses from walking her.<\/p>\n

It was the same with market and product research. I was a freelancer and doing my own deals back then. And due to the above learning spree, I was rapidly having opportunities handed to me. That meant I was also having to do a lot of research \u2014 sometimes very fast \u2014 on markets I did not necessarily know that much about like golf, self defense, college funding, and weight loss.<\/p>\n

The solution?<\/p>\n

Interview and talk for hours to my clients, record the calls, and listen on Zoe walks.<\/p>\n

Over and over and over.<\/p>\n

Until I could practically recite the entire conversations back verbatim.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d ask them about the product, the market, the customers, stories they could tell, problems nobody was talking about that the market had, how their market approached life, what words they used to describe problems, how current events where affecting them, their politics, their ethics, their professions, and the list goes on.<\/p>\n

Some of these calls were 2-3 hours long.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019d load them in my MP3 player, jingle the leash to Zoe, and get to work.<\/p>\n

The result:<\/p>\n

Hours and hours and hours of walking Zoe listening about the markets I was selling to. Combine that with the trainings I was also listening to and I was writing ads, emails, lead gen, whatever it was I was being hired for, or doing in my own deals, that were 10, 50, maybe even 100 times better than they\u2019d have been otherwise.<\/p>\n

Not even an exaggeration.<\/p>\n

I can see it in my old work BZ (\u201cBefore Zoe\u201d).<\/p>\n

All because of walking my furry \u201csilent partner\u201d so much.<\/p>\n

\"\"Fast forward a few years later:<\/p>\n

I had been running a ridiculously profitable and engaged Facebook group called elBenbo\u2019s Lair. A group that was basically a big social experiment, and that also became the basis for my Social Lair book and how much of the SocialLair social media platform (I co-own with Troy Broussard) is structured.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I was always thinking of ways to get the group riled up.<\/p>\n

Lots of highs and lows \u2014 admittedly almost like a benignly abusive relationship.<\/p>\n

And one of the \u201chighs\u201d I started doing in there was what I called:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Zoe Tapes\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started walking Zoe on the beach, turned on the phone\u2019s video recorder, and began teaching about whatever was on my mind. At first I did it just as a way to keep the group engaged. It was also a way for my horde inside there to meet Zoe, as I talked about her so much people felt they really knew her.<\/p>\n

And I daresay literally 60 videos later they DID know her.<\/p>\n

She was as much a fixture in their lives as I was each day.<\/p>\n

And it was some of the most valuable content I ever recorded.<\/p>\n

It also made me approach content creation differently, too \u2014 going even less stuffy and \u201cprofessional\u201d, and even more lax, loose, and leisurely, with no regard for production values or lighting or sound quality, with more emphasis on the relationship, connection, and the lesson being taught.<\/p>\n

Very imperfect.<\/p>\n

But also very human, and very relatable and consumable.<\/p>\n

Just like all great marketing tends to be.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s influenced every piece of content I\u2019ve created since.<\/p>\n

Including Video, audio, or text \u2014 and especially emails.<\/p>\n

All because of Zoe.<\/p>\n

Frankly, if you\u2019ve ever benefited from any content I\u2019ve created, you can thank Zoe. She was a big part of my education, my application, and my edification when it comes to all-things marketing, business, copywriting, persuasion, and anything else you see me talking about.<\/p>\n

Zoe\u2019s influence over my life wasn\u2019t just business though.<\/p>\n

Everyone loved her.<\/p>\n

And I mean literally everyone who ever met her loved her.<\/p>\n

Including an ex-girlfriend who usually hates dogs (by her own admission), and used to say \u201cI know she is a package deal with you\u2026\u201d as if it was a negative, only for her to change her tune completely and suddenly start cuddling with Zoe on the regular.<\/p>\n

Later on, when Stefania got pregnant, it was the same thing.<\/p>\n

You couldn\u2019t have pried Zoe off Stefania with a crowbar.<\/p>\n

Zoe clinged to Stefania day and night (even snubbing me!)<\/p>\n

We were just talking about how, when she was pregnant with Willis, and I\u2019d go for a long ten mile walk (by this time Zoe could not walk that far, limited to 1 or maybe 2 mile walks), I\u2019d leave the house, and 3+ hours later\u2026 return to find the two of them in the exact same spot sleeping and snuggling.<\/p>\n

After Willis was born Zoe decided to become his guardian.<\/p>\n

We have video footage from the cameras in Willis\u2019 room of Zoe using her head to bull open the door, walk in, make sure Willis was safe, then walk out \u2014 all without any of us noticing she even left.<\/p>\n