Ben Settles Big Book of Business 2017

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Ben Settle’s Big Book of Business!
Every Business-Boosting Word He’s Ever
Published!
Volume 1
 
Copyright 2017 Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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This eBook is Copyright © 2017 Ben Settle (the “Author”). All
Rights Reserved. Published in the United States of America. The
legal notices, disclosures, and disclaimers in the front and back of
this eBook are Copyright © 2009-2011 Law Office of Michael E.
Young PLLC, and licensed for use by the Author. All rights reserved.
No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system -- except
by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed
in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or website -- without permission in
writing from the Author. For information, please contact the Author
by e-mail at http://www.BenSettle.com or by mail at 950 SE Oak
Ave., Roseburg, OR 97470.
For more information, please read the “Disclosures and Disclaimers”
section at the end of this eBook.
Published by Settle, LLC (the “Publisher”).
 
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Table of Contents
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Ben’s Book of Books
• Blue Chip Email Secrets – How to Make Money "at Will" Almost
Every Time You Send an Email to Your List
• Selling from the Trenches
• Newbie-Proof Traffic Secrets! – 9 Easy Ways to Drive All the
Traffic You Can Eat to Your Websites
• Negotiation Secrets of the World's Most Persuasive Men and
Women
• 12 "Mish-Mash" Joint Venture Secrets You Can Profit from in as
Little as 60 Minutes or Less
• How to Write, Produce, and Profit from Print Newsletters
• How to Quickly Get More Business by Being a Local Celebrity
• How to Get Clients in a Bad Economy – Secret Ways to Attract an
Endless Flor of New Clients and Customers in 21 Days or Less...
Even when the Economy Tanks
• Crypto Copywriting Secrets – How to Create Profitable Sales
Letters Fast Even if You Can't Write Your Own Way out of a Paper
Bag Now!
• Crackerjack Positioning – How to Control the Way People Think
about You in the Marketplace
• Christian Business Secrets – How to Use Ancient Biblical Laws to
Build a Thriving, Godly Business in Today's Cut-Throat Marketplace
• The Affiliate Trump Card
• 10 “Street-Smart” Secrets of an Email Marketing Strategist Who
Lives and Dies by His Results
• Persuasion Secrets of the World’s Most Charismatic & Influential
Villains
• Copywriter’s Crib Sheet - 40 Proven and Tested Copywriting
Secrets You Can Use in Your Ads Today and See Results in Your Bank
Account Tomorrow
• How to Build an “Instant” Million-Dollar Marketing and Direct
Mail Swipe File!
 
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Blue Chip Email Secrets
How to Make Money “At Will” Almost Every
Time You Send an Email to Your List
Copyright 2012-2017 Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
 
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Begin
MICHAEL SENOFF: First question, what is the number one
element you include in every email?
BEN SETTLE: The only thing I’m cautiously putting in every single
email is, I got to put something in there that makes the email fun to
read and it doesn’t have to be this giant slapstick comedy thing. It
doesn’t even have to be a joke, it just must be fun and it could be a
word that makes it fun. It could be a concept that makes it fun, it
could be a combination of words that just makes it interesting and
fun. I’ll give you a real-life example. Last night I wrote an email for
today and I was making fun of the law of reciprocity and I called it
the law of “narcissocity” playing off the condition that a lot of people
online these days are narcissists. You know I got a lot of feedback
from that this morning; people got a kick out of that. It sounds
strange, but by making it fun every time, you are going to almost
guarantee that people are going to want to open your emails again the
next time, whether they’re even interested in what you’re offering or
not, they’ll just keep opening them just to see what you’re up to.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What kind of response did you get from it as
an example?
BEN SETTLE: One person was saying how he reads every email I
send out and he goes, “It doesn’t even matter”, he goes, “I don’t even
care what you’re selling and if you want to pitch me or anything.” He
goes, “I just find it so fun to read your email.” That was something I
actually got yesterday. That’s kind of typical of what I get and now if
I wasn’t making sales, none of this would matter. I would not
recommend doing it plus I get consistent sales all the time, you know,
for various products and I attribute it just to making it fun to read. I
mean people are not craving content any more, they were back maybe
in the late 1990s and all that, early 2000s. Now content is a dime a
dozen. Anybody can go on EzineArticles.com and get content, what
they’re not getting is a good experience. They’re not really having
fun reading emails anymore. They’re not enjoying it, it’s just all
business or it’s all content or it’s all straight sales pitch and nobody
actually takes the time to engage them and kind of make it the
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highlight of their day and that’s kind of what I try to do. I sit there
and think, “What can I say today to be the highlight of somebody’s
day?” and it seems to be working pretty good.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What words should you avoid in your email?
BEN SETTLE: For some reason, I rarely get flagged on
SpamAssassin even when I think I’ve gone too far. So I don’t know if
that means SpamAssassin needs to be updated or what. But other than
that, I actually try not to do a lot of profanity. For one thing, I just
think it’s unnecessary. Once in a while, a well placed line of profanity
can work pretty well, I’ve done it before. But some people go
overboard on it and they do that because they’ve seen certain goo-
roos doing it. “Oh, that guy’s swearing like a sailor so that must be
what works!” I don’t recommend that, I think you have to understand
who your audience is.
If you’re writing to a bunch of 17-year old high school kids watching
Beavis and Butt-Head all day, fine, go ahead but most people who are
buyers are normal people. I mean, when the hammer misses and hits
their thumb or the car slips off the jack, there’s probably a four-letter
word blurted and I understand when you do it, if there’s a context to
it. But I just wanted to throw that out there as a warning. You see a lot
of people swearing just for the sake of it, without any reason, just to
be like their favorite goo-roo.
MICHAEL SENOFF: It’s hard to tell literally how many of your
emails are going into a junk folder. You just don’t know.
BEN SETTLE: And this goes back to before, that’s why you got to
make sure your emails are something people look forward to because
if they’re not getting it, they’ll look for it. They’ll look in their junk
file -- “I got to get my fix from Michael Senoff today, where is it?”
They might even email you, “Are you still sending emails? I haven’t
gotten anything.” I mean if you’re doing it right, you’re going to have
people seeking you out, not necessarily forgetting about you.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How do you get your ideas for your emails?
They’re always fun to read and they’re so creative, what are your
tricks forgetting such cool ideas?
BEN SETTLE: I have like an antenna that’s always up actively
looking for ideas. And today, more so than ever, because now I’m
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writing for multiple different lists depending on what day it is,
sometimes three or four different lists and articles and all this other
stuff, so I just have to have ideas all the time. Everything in real life
is an idea. In fact, one of the best things that somebody can do if they
want to get good at this is just look around wherever their office is,
wherever they do their work at, just sit there one day and try to come
up with a story for every object in your office.
Everything has a purpose and a function and you can just tell the
story about how you came upon that printer, what books you have on
your shelf. It could be anything, what your dog is doing right now, is
he laying in the corner? I mean everything is a story and ironically,
and this is a good and a bad thing, anything bad that happens to you is
always an email story. I don’t care how bad it is, you need to write
about it. For one thing, you’ll feel better afterwards since it’s sort of
therapeutic. And for another thing, you’re going to tap into
people’s minds in a way that nobody else is, because you’re sharing
something painful with them that you’ve gone through that they’ve
probably gone through or are afraid of going through. It’s like any
good movie where you’re watching a character get into a problem and
work themselves out of it. There’s a lot of drama in just something
simple like that and so yeah, just real life. Actually I’ve written about
just about every stupid thing I can think of… I even wrote an email
about farting in study hall once.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How do you explain the power of stories and
why stories you know, are so different than everything else
everybody’s getting and why do you think they’re so effective?
BEN SETTLE: They’re effective because neurologically, it’s the
easiest way for humans to communicate. There are stories that have
been around for 2,000 years that people can recite like the Christmas
Story. People who aren’t even Christians and don’t celebrate
Christmas can probably tell you the Christmas Story because it’s just
been passed along, word of mouth. I once heard the story about how
the Native American Indians, how they passed down stories for like
3,000 years, all word of mouth. That’s like the easiest way for
somebody to remember something and it’s a great way for somebody
to kind of have their mind open to what you have to say and to
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remember your message. It’s a good way to prove your case,
especially if you’re new at what you’re doing and you want to give
yourself some credibility, tell a story.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Was it Gerry Spence, that trial attorney, and
he had just an unbelievable winning record?
BEN SETTLE: Yeah, in fact most lawyers would write these boring
legal briefs. He wrote briefs that were actually kind of interesting and
the judges actually liked reading them. But even besides that, when
he was giving his opening and closing statements and doing his thing,
he would tell stories. He wouldn’t just tell the facts, he would put the
facts in a story. He was even accused of hypnotizing a jury once just
because the other lawyer thought he must be up to something to get
his kinds of verdicts and results.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, another good idea is photographs. If
you’ve got a bunch of pictures, you know digital pictures, every
single one of those pictures has a story attached to it as well.
BEN SETTLE: And every person in that story is a different cast
member with their own story, I mean really, it never ends. And this is
why I think it’s important to write every day or almost every day
because you just get really good at it after a while and it becomes
second nature. You did this, when you started writing emails all the
time and all of a sudden, you’re just pumping stories out like crazy.
MICHAEL SENOFF: One of the hardest things I think for people to
do and I don’t know if this is for you, you got to say, “Okay, screw it,
I’m going to do it”, but I think people may be hesitant to start writing
every day because they don’t want their readers to know that much
about them. I’m trying to get my sister to start doing emails, she’s got
a list of several thousand customers and clients in the specialty
advertising business and I wrote her up an email and she said
“Michael, it just sounds too sales-y.” But what she’s really worried
about is, she was worried about looking silly and looking foolish and
I think anyone who’s considering doing that, that is an obstacle that
they’re going to have to just deal with. And after they do it for a
while, you’re not even going to think twice about it.
BEN SETTLE: You know the way around that is to just write an
email that is extremely personal and just send it out and just do it
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once. And then you’ll realize that nobody really is laughing at you, in
fact, they probably respect you more. I mean you won’t know you’ve
gone too far until someone tells you. I just wrote an email yesterday
for another list that I’m doing and I read this to my wife and even she
thought I was crazy and she’s used to me writing about stupid things.
I wrote about how I started taking a certain health supplement and
had a wet-dream that night. Most people would not think to share
something like that, but the market I’m selling to, believe me, they
will find that interesting, not because it happened to me but because
it’s just part of what they’re going through right now, the pain they’re
going through. And you can get personal, don’t worry about it. I’ve
gone too far maybe once or twice, but rarely have I said, “Gee I wish
I hadn’t done that” and I do this every day. So chances are you’ll
never go far enough, so just don’t worry about it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah if you do that, you’re going to bond with
people on an emotional level and that’s also what this is really about.
You know, it’s not just surface promotions and things that really have
no meaning. When you’re sharing something about yourself or about
your kids or how you love them or something personal and emotional,
these are people on the other end and they have the same and similar
life experiences. And you’re going to bond with them and then you’re
going to build a trust and that’s what we’re trying to do with our list.
You’re trying to build up a trust and a bond where like you say, they
can’t wait for that daily fix of Ben Settle’s or Michael Senoff’s email,
just to see what he has to say.
BEN SETTLE: You’re not guaranteeing they’re going to be more
sane after they read your emails, but you know they’ll have a good
time.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How do you develop content that is
informational and does not just sell?
BEN SETTLE: I’m probably a lot more aggressive with the selling
than most are with this. But I think the question is kind of backwards,
I think it should be more like “How do you sell” and it’s not just
information. I think there should be a link to something that you’re
selling in it somewhere. They don’t have to be blatant every day --
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you could just mention the product, put the link in, in mid-sentence
and then just carry on with the rest of your email.
But this question reminded me of the Jim Camp interview you have
on your website which he’s talking about you’re always safe when
you’re in your prospect’s world. Whether you’re pitching something
or not, if you’re in their world talking about their problem, it’s
informational. It may not be teaching and I don’t think people should
do a lot of teaching anyway, but it’s informational.
I’ll give you a real life example. You and I have been doing these
joint ventures a couple of times a year with the Eugene Schwartz
product and the email that always gets a lot of sales and so far, (like
the three times I’veused it) and when I tell the story about how I used
that course just to improve my life. In the real life story, I had
listened to it at a time when I was just starting out and I didn’t have
any clients or anything. And you and I were doing those joint venture
deals and really every ad… if it didn’t make money, I wouldn’t have
gotten paid anything. And that one interview you had was huge. I
listened to it over and over and over and I told that story. It didn’t
teach them anything, but it was very informational in its own way,
and it was selling.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I remember that because I remember looking
at the sales that came in. That one had a lot of sales, I think it was the
first one, the one seminar that saved my life or something was the
headline.
BEN SETTLE: Yeah, the $20 Seminar That Saved My Business. It’s
a story that everybody who’s in that position can relate to. People
love to hear about their symptoms so to speak. You know, they love to
hear about other people who went through the challenges they’re
going through now and how they got through it and you’re not doing
them a disservice by telling them. You’re doing them a favor; I mean
they want you to give them the solution. They want to know how you
got out of it so they can too.
MICHAEL SENOFF: The person asking this question, maybe he
worded the question this way because he’s afraid to sell or he’s selling
from his heels or he’s afraid that his list doesn’t want to be sold. Do
you know what I’m saying?
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BEN SETTLE: I think that’s a huge mistake to have that mindset
because of course they want to be sold. They have opted in because
they have a problem they need solved and you’re not doing them any
favors by not selling your solution to them. What’s that old adage,
“Don’t tell me about your weed killer, tell me about my crab grass”,
right? Somebody who’s got crab grass and weeds, you cannot tell
them enough, you cannot talk to them too much about their problem,
about their weeds and their crab grass. By the time you’re done
talking to them, they are so hot for some solution to that problem, if
you don’t give them that solution, you have absolutely done them a
disservice. That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What does your testing reveal about using
personalization in an email, for example, when you have the first
name in the subject line or wherever you want to have the first name
of the reader in their email content. Does it always improve open
rates or do people see this as a marketing gimmick? I do use the first
name in some headlines of some emails. I don’t use it in all of them.
Well now, on my website when I’m capturing emails and now, only
asking for an email because I find I get more people who subscribe, I
don’t even ask for a first name. So the first name isn’t that important
to me. I think it adds some personalization, everyone does like to see
their first name, but it could be overused as well. So I don’t have a
specific answer for that. How about you, Ben?
BEN SETTLE: I never use the first name on new lists; but I still do
in my BenSettle.com list. I use it in the salutation, just say, “Michael”
or whatever the first name is. Besides that list I don’t even ask for
their first name anymore, I don’t see the point. Maybe it was a
novelty in the 1990s, like a big deal, but I don’t know, it just seems
pointless to me, but I’ve never tested it. I wouldn’t say necessarily do
it or not. Use your own testing data if you wonder about it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Next question is... do you get better results
with text email or html? 
I think text is the way to go and the number one reason is, with all
these mobile devices out there, I know that text email is going to get
through and it’s going to be easily read. If you have one of the maybe
older mobile phones or text-based phones with an html email, you
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may not be able to get your message through and I know there’s more
and more people reading their emails on their mobile phones. So for
that reason and the simplicity and the look of it, I like text. I don’t
think you can go wrong with a text email. Ben, do you get
better results with text email or html?
BEN SETTLE: I have found it to be the same. Just from a personal
point of view and just from what I’ve seen, I think plain text is better.
You’ll get people though, and I’ve had long debates about this with
people, ask “How can you test your open rate, how can you test your
click-thrus?” I don’t care about my open rates or click-thrus. I’m like
the lone wolf in the wilderness when I say this, but I honestly think
that if you want to test those things fine, use html. I test sales, if
something brought on sales; I know it was a good email. If it didn’t, I
probably don’t want to repeat what I did and the thing with plain text
is it looks like a regular email. I didn’t tell you this, but sometimes
when you send me a real email, I have to scroll down to see there’s an
Aweber opt-out link since it doesn’t look like commercial email.
MICHAEL SENOFF: You’re right; it looks like a personal email,
that’s correct. When you say real email, you’re saying it looks like a
personal email, something that is not broadcast.
BEN SETTLE: Yeah and I have a friend who’s also a computer
scientist named Jim Yaghi and he’s really good. He’s not even a
trained writer or anything; he doesn’t use a first name or anything.
He’ll just write like it’s an email he dashed off. I swear I have to
scroll down to see if I see the iContact link to know if it’s personal or
not. Sometimes I say, “Is this real or is he writing to me personally”
and man, when you can get to that point, you are going to have people
reading your emails top to bottom and you’re just going to make
more sales if you’re selling something.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Should the email be short or long for the best
results?
BEN SETTLE: Generally speaking, I like to make mine short, not
because I think it necessarily is better or worse. I’m in a hurry, you
know, I don’t want to spend all day writing an email and I know
people don’t want to spend all day reading an email. People have very
short attention spans so to me; the ideal length of an email is about
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250 words. I’m always trying to get it under 300 but always for sure,
under 400 words. That’s just my personal thought on it. Now, that
doesn’t mean that long ones don’t work. I have written long ones if
that’s what it takes to tell the story that have done extremely well in
sales. Here’s the way I heard it. I think this is a perfect way of
explaining it, “Treat it like a women’s skirt, you want it long enough
to cover the deals but short enough to get your attention.”
MICHAEL SENOFF: Next question... how do you find what
relevant topics to write about every day?
What you really have to start thinking about, I don’t think collecting
the stories are going to be a problem but I think the transition from
that story into what you want to sell is where most people get hung
up. So for example, my sister took a crack at writing a story of how
when she was in Vegas, she was walking through the largest trade
show for the specialty advertising industry. This was last week and
her knee was killing her, it was swollen, it took her seven hours to
walk the trade show floor. She didn’t take any bathroom breaks,
she didn’t take a lunch break and then while everyone else was
partying in Vegas that night, she was up in her room going through all
her little catalogues and she felt like a nerd and a loser.
But the point is, she wrote all that, which was great. She could
articulate her story, but then at the very end, she goes, “Now here’s
where I get stuck”. Where she was getting stuck is the transition from
the story into the product or into the call to action or into what you’re
trying to actually do. Are you trying to sell something, are you trying
to get someone to click on a link.
BEN SETTLE: You know youcan get relevant topics just by keeping
in touch with popular culture. What’s on the Drudge Report news
site? Every headline is a different email in waiting. What are people
complaining about in your industry today? I once wrote an email
about Sidewiki, which is like people are signed into Google, they can
comment on your website and kind of like graffiti, they can sit there
and call you names or whatever and people see it while looking at
your site. People were making a big deal about it and so I wrote about
it. Also, what’s your favorite TV show? Every week you see your
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favorite TV show, turn that into an email. Turn it into some relevant
lesson or something. Really, it’s endless.
Look at what’s trending on Twitter, what’s on Yahoo News? All these
TV shows, all these news reports, they’re all relevant topics that
people are talking about around the water cooler and if you can find
what people are complaining about, you’ll never run out of stories. If
you find out what people are complaining about, you are the ultimate
email writer because really, what it comes down to, email is just talk-
radio on glass, that’s all it is. You’re just talking just like a talk-radio
show to complain about something to their audience, they all
agree and they’re all nodding and they’re all getting mad together.
That’s all it is, so don’t get too hung up on the topics. 
MICHAEL SENOFF: Where do you get the inspiration for your
unique stories and does the story motif play off better than more fact-
based presentation? You know we’ve discussed all the stories; I get
my inspiration from my day, from my kids, from my life, from my
work, from, you know, headlines, from things that are newsworthy or
that I just feel like writing about and I think a story will be more
easily read than something that’s fact-based. You can include some
facts in your story; you can do a little bit of both.
BEN SETTLE: I think everybody should listen to your Jim Camp
interview, the original one because he nailed it when he said, “It’s all
about vision - vision drives decision.” You’re not giving facts; you’re
not giving a PowerPoint presentation. You’re getting in their world,
talking about their problems and their frustrations. You get into the
facts and all that, but first, let’s get the problem on the table or
whatever it is that they want, let’s get that on the table. You have their
interest, you have them wanting a solution, then you give the facts.
Now here’s why you should try this. It all works out.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Another question is how do I write great
emails in my voice and sound like someone else?
BEN SETTLE: I used to do some work in the golf niche and I didn’t
know anything about golf and even what I did know about golf, I still
couldn’t quite do this guy justice who was doing the teaching because
he had such a unique personality. So I did what you just suggested, I
interviewed him, I had like a 90-minute transcript made and I pulled
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content right out of that, his own words, smoothed it out and put it in
a nice structure and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference that it
was his voice and not mine. It was all him. All I did was put it
down there, I didn’t really do much actually, all the hard stuff was in
his voice already.
MICHAEL SENOFF: It’s like how you were able to put together 50
emails for Art Hamel, the business buying expert for me.
BEN SETTLE: I had listened to a lot of those interviews you did
because I was helping you sell that product and I just kind of liked his
attitude. He acted like that cranky old man, you know, it was actually
kind of fun to write in that voice. But all I did was literally go
through the transcript, cut and paste sections of it where there was a
point being made, smoothed it out, maybe turned it into a little bit of
a story and a call to action.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What is the single most effective persuasion
strategy you have ever encountered?
I’m going to say there’s not one thing, you know, it all depends on
what you’re trying to accomplish. I think trust is important, I think
when you’re talking about writing a daily email, each one of your
emails is designed to do something different, some may be to bond,
some may be to build trust, some may be to offer great value. So
there’s not any one single most effective thing and I did write notes
here. You just got to go back to your principles. What’s your mission
and purpose and why you’re writing all these emails but all these
tactics and strategies really aren’t going to do you much good. You
just got to ask yourself, “What’s the big picture? What am I trying to
accomplish here”.
BEN SETTLE: I would agree with you. I get people asking me all the
time about so-called dark arts and copywriting. Somebody asked
about, “What do you think about NLP?” And they’ll ask about all
these things and honestly, I don’t know anything about that… none of
that stuff interests me at all. I just think it all comes down to what
this guy named Bernard Baruch said.
This was a guy who was considered the most persuasive man of the
20th Century. He advised presidents, he advised Wall Street power
brokers, he would have all these giant egos meeting in the same room
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who all wanted different things and he would somehow be the guy
that could make everybody happy in that room. And people were just
amazed that he could do that because you just wouldn’t think that
would be possible. Toward the end of his life, somebody asked him,
“How do you do that? How did you get them all to agree on
anything?” And he said, “The secret of persuasion is simply finding
out what people want and then showing them how to get it.” It’s no
more complicated than that, you don’t need any black hat dark arts
stuff. You just need to find out what they want. Get in their world,
talk to them about their problems and show them a solution to it.
That’s really all it comes down to.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What benefits statements get the best results?
BEN SETTLE: That’s the thing, everybody wants like this checklist,
like what are the words that work. There isn’t one. What works for
you may not work for me and vice versa. What works in one market
may not work in another market. What worked for Guru A might not
work for you. What worked for Guru B might not work for you. It
may not even have worked for them, quite frankly, you know, they’re
just saying it did. It always comes down to your market and with your
relationship with your market and your product and this unique point
in time in their lives, however they’re feeling right now, today, under
these circumstances. That’s what it’s all based upon and it’s always
changing.
MICHAEL SENOFF: The next question is - what do you think about
using words like warning or similar words that are attention
grabbers?
I think they could work, you know, maybe once or twice. I think you
have to be careful and you don’t want to over use it. Once that email
is opened, I hope that maybe it would be a real warning and not a
trick just to get someone to open it because if it is a trick, I think that
will backfire on you and you’ll lose some credibility with some of
your readers.
BEN SETTLE: Everyone has got to realize that email is not like a
static sales letter. It’s not “okay, this worked today, this is going to
work tomorrow and the next day and the next day...” You have to be
like a jazz musician, you have to keep coming up with new
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combinations and new ideas or you’re not going to be in business
very long. I go back to this talk-radio on glass analogy. Imagine Rush
Limbaugh coming in every day and saying the exact same joke or
reading the exact same news headline each day. It would get very old.
No they have to keep changing it up.
My opinion is this, if you’re going to use something like warning in
the subject line and nobody has seen it in your market, that’s fine,use
it. See what happens. But if you’re in a market where people are
seeing this all the time, like “Last Chance!” or “One Day Left!”, at
least try to make it interesting. And I’ll give you a perfect example of
this. I used the warning in the subject line once too.
You know, warning this, that and the other. I said, “Warning, blatant
testimonials.” I still kind of made it interesting and fun just to read it
but even if it was over-used, at least it was done in an interesting way.
So you got to always be thinking how can you be different and stand
out and not sound like everybody else.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What are the three best ways to grab the
attention of the reader and get them to take action?
This is a similar type question. I would say to grab the attention, have
a headline that offers some solution or have a headline that entertains
them or have a headline that is interesting enough to get them to open
up your email and then have something there for them that has some
value. What’s in it for them, whether it’s entertainment or whether it’s
a great product or a great offer, I think there’s no one right way. But
first of all, you have to have something that’s going to get them to
open your email, number one and then you have to have them read the
email. And then if you have a proposition or an offer, your selling
something, it better be a good proposition that’s attractive and a good
deal. And I think maybe having something that’s totally risk free
could increase your chances of maybe getting that sale.
BEN SETTLE: Yeah I think it again goes back to the market. It
depends, I mean there are some markets where you’ll say something
and they’ll love it but if you said that same thing in another market,
they’d hate it and they’d ignore you. I know that everybody kind of
wants it nailed down, you know the way you always do and this
always works, but email is such a dynamic medium, it’s always
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changing. You’re market is always changing. You have to have
something fresh and original they haven’t seen before and they’re not
seeing in the other 20 emails in their inbox right now. I don’t think
there is just three ways, I think you have to know your market. If you
know your market really well, you’ll know exactly what to tell them. 
One thing you can do is you hear this all the time from copywriting
people who say read the magazines they read, watch the TV shows
they watch and I think that’s very good advice. And I think you’ll find
that if you look at the headlines that are appealing to that market,
assuming you’re in like a broad market like that or seeing like a
men’s health market or something, go get men’s health magazines,
look at the board teasers, play around with those words and go with
those appeals and just look at the benefits they’re talking about and
all that. And that’s really the only guideline I would actually
recommend for that. It’s always about the market first and the words
second.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Michael, can one make up stories to tell or
should they always be true?
I think yeah, you can make up stories to tell. Now, if you’re selling
something, you can’t lie about it, but you can use your imagination,
you can do an email that’s totally not true, you know. It can be a
fantasy or some kind of story and if you can tie it into something
you’re offering, absolutely. There’s no rule that you have to write
non-fiction. You can write fiction. I mean look at all the fiction books
out there. You can do true stuff and you can do not-true stuff but
never lie.
BEN SETTLE: Yeah I would agree, don’t ever lie and say something
happened to you that didn’t happen. But you can always say, “There
was this guy” or “There was this girl who blah, blah, blah.” There’s
nothing wrong with telling a story if you’re just trying to illustrate a
point. I did a whole bunch of martial arts ads in 2009 for one client
and I was kind of running out of stuff to write about. And then I
thought, “Well, I don’t have to tell a real story”, like for example, I
was selling a course on fighting styles used by inner-city police. So I
told the story of an inner-city cop that was more of just a story that I
made up based on things I’d seen on shows like Cops and stuff. I took
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the most dramatic stuff and put it in a story. I didn’t say that cop had
used the course, just to prove how tough inner city cops are so readers
would want to know what they do.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Right.
BEN SETTLE: …I just said here’s an example of how tough cops are
and if you want to learn how to fight like cops, you should check out
this program, yada, yada, yada, yada and you can do that in emails all
day long. Just use a story that illustrates how cool something is and
then say, “Hey, you can do this too... I’ve developed a program to
show people how to do this.” You’re not lying about anything. You’re
just telling a story and you’re certainly not lying about your product
because you’re not saying anybody actually used it. 
There’s that guy, John Caples, he’s like the father of modern direct
response advertising. He wrote this ad for a piano course with the
headline “They laughing when I sat down at the piano, but then I
started to play...” I think ad is blatantly fraudulent actually because
he’s telling a made-up story about someone who never used the
product saying he did use the product to get the results. I would stay
away from stuff like that. I think that would actually be flagged by
the FTC if he wrote it today, maybe not though, I’m no lawyer or
anything.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I was doing one of my promotions where I
was sending out a lot of emails over Christmas and I said, “Santa
elves hacked my computer” and I used that as a story of why I was
sending so many emails. You know, it was so farfetched that I had a
lot of comments about it and people liked it, and I got a lot of
response from it. But that’s an example of something you can do if
you take it to the exaggerated level.
BEN SETTLE: You’re not lying about a product; you aren’t saying
people got results from the product who have never even used it. I
thought it was a great example of a good story and it was funny.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Michael, I read every one of your emails and I
was wondering how the personal touch is working for you. Many of
your messages include events that you have had with your kids and
other life experiences. Are you getting good responses with these?
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And I think about what you said, I do have people who respond to my
emails and they comment on it and they like it. But a lot of people
don’t comment on it, so sometimes it’s hard to say, so it depends.
What am I trying to accomplish? What is my big mission and
purpose? What is my goal? Is it to sell something? Is it to make a
point? I get responses and generally the responses are pretty good. I
don’t have that many negative responses to my personal and story
emails. So it’s mostly positive. I would say try it and see what kind of
response you get.
BEN SETTLE: There have been times where people have
complained and actually I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me one bit. I
just unsubscribe them myself, if they’re that wound up that tightly,
they’re really not a good prospect for me anyway. That’s a good way
to get the people you don’t want off of your list anyway. If you’re
being warm and personal and if that’s too personal for someone to
handle, they’re just that wound up that tightly, you’re better off not
even having them on your list. Let them go and focus on those who do
want it. Keep giving them what they want.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Then I’ll ask you, what is your most effective
closing statements?
BEN SETTLE: Well, I don’t know if I have a most effective closing
statement because again, it changes. I don’t really use the same one
over and over and over. I will give some advice on this though. Try to
avoid the word now, buy now, do this now, act now. I know that’s like
themost popular phrase in advertising, it’s to the point of
obnoxiousness but that’s not the reason why I don’t think you should
use it. I have a friend I mentioned earlier, Jim Yaghi. He tested now
versus using today or a specific time, do it by tomorrow, do it by next
week, do it today because people have a hard time grasping what now
means. Now is already passed the second you say it and it’s weird, but
he’s actually tested that and he found that by being specific about the
time, not to say now, makes a huge difference. Try to avoid the word
now in the context of telling them when to order. You can say the
word now for other things like, ”now this…” that’s fine. But just
don’t say go get it now.
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MICHAEL SENOFF: I think taking away the risk or making it easy,
whatever you’re trying to do is always a good closing statement and
when we say closing statement, what are we closing them on? Are we
closing them on to call us, are we closing them on to click a link? Are
we closing them on to buy something? I think making it as easy as
possible and making it as risk free as possible and maybe even go Jay
Abraham style, risk-reversal, turning the risk around on us is always a
good way to go.
BEN SETTLE: It’s fine to bring that up because I think that’s a good
idea but I also think there’s a time when you should do the opposite
and actually tell people how hard everything is.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Do you use transcripts from your interviews
in your email copy and what software do you use to get the transcripts
done?
Yeah, we talked about this, Ben, you gave me the idea, I’ll give you
the credit again. I’ll send the entire transcript in the email and I’ll
send a link to the interview. Now I’m doing a lot of audio interviews
and the list out there, there are people who don’t like audio. Ben,
you’ve said you’re not a video person. There’s people who don’t like
video, there are people who only watch video, there’s people who
only listen to audio, MP3s and there are people who don’t watch
videos or don’t listen to MP3s and they only read.
So by sending a description of an interview with a link for someone
to go hear the interview and then in the actual email, the word for
word transcript in the email, I’ve increased my chances of getting
that receiver of my email to get the information I want to get in their
head with as little effort as possible. So I’ve used full on transcripts
in the interviews and then we talk about taking a transcript and
pulling the stories out of the transcript and creating individual emails.
I’ve used it in that manner as well.
The other question was what software do I use to get the transcripts
done? I don’t use any software; I have a transcriber who’s been
transcribing my work for years. So I use a real person who gets a link
to the MP3 and they download it and they may use some software to
stop and play the audio recording, but they’re doing the physical
transcription. It is possible, they could be using software and I don’t
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know about it, but I’m paying them just to get the transcripts of the
audio.
BEN SETTLE: I do recommend it just because I think it’s like pizza
delivery. People want something delivered to them and they don’t
always want to have to go get it. Now if it’s an audio file or a video
file, they might not have a choice, but if you have a transcript, why
not send it to them? I’ve had people say, “Hey, I printed this whole
email. You really made this convenient for me.” I mean, it doesn’t
hurt anything and you could always put a link to a website above the
transcript - “hey if you’d rather read this online, go here...”
MICHAEL SENOFF: Where is the best place to find swipe files for
emails?
BEN SETTLE: First of all, I don’t think people should be using
email swipe files, I mean, I think it’s great for starting emails, but if
people are looking at swipe files, they’re like swipe subject lines and
swipe actual copy and try to put it in their own words and all that, I
would have such a disdain for that professionally. But even more so,
they’re just hurting themselves. Again, take it back to the talk radio
analogy, if someone comes on the air and starts acting like Rush
Limbaugh, they’re not going to last very long because they’re
not bringing a new voice to things or any other talk show host for that
matter. You got to be your own unique voice for telling your unique
story, doing your unique ideas or your unique take on everything and
you can’t get that from a swipe file.
Now if you want to read emails just to see how people are structuring
their stories and how they’re kind of pacing everything, just get on
some lists but make sure you get on the right lists. Stay off the guru
lists. I’m going to say this just generally… there may be a few gurus
who are okay, but generally speaking, most of them don’t know what
they’re doing. They have absolutely no clue what they’re doing with
email. They have a lot of traffic and that’s probably how they’re
getting away with it, but you and I Michael cannot get away with
doing half of what these gurus are doing. I mean there’s just no way.
You have to be very personable, you have to care about the person,
you can’t just pitch, pitch, pitch. At the same time, you can’t be doing
this moving the free lines stuff where all you do is give free stuff
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away too, because what will happen is you’ll make a lot of people
happy but you’ll get no sales. And when you do try to sell, people get
offended because you’ve trained them to expect free from you.
So I guess my point is: if you’re going get on some list, I’m going to
recommend a list -- Matt Fury, MattFury.com. He’s the email master.
He’s really the man with this stuff.
MICHAEL SENOFF: My question has to do with how to make that
first impression with your prospects on your first or first set of
emails?
Okay, I could see this is probably a big concern for a lot of people
because I mean I can remember when I first started doing it, I was
very nervous about it and you worry, what kind of impression am I
going to make to my list? My list isn’t used to hearing from me in
this manner and I can imagine that being a concern. I had the same
concern and I just said, “Screw it, I’m just going to do it”, and I’m
going to tell you right now, you’re going to screw up, you’re going to
write some bad emails that sound stupid, you’re going to get a couple
of people who say, “What is this?” and you just got to be ready for
that so you just got to say, I’m just going to go for it, you got to be
willing to fail. Fail fast, but you will get better.
BEN SETTLE: I agree with you, just start doing it, but also this kind
of insecurity, it’s never going to leave you. I’m just starting a new list
now and just last night I was looking at the emails and I got kind of
nervous about the email I wanted to put as the first one because the
email subject line is “Yoda’s Sex Secret”.
People who are listening to this think I’m probably selling like an
erectile dysfunction product. I’m not, it’s a men’s health market and
yeah, that’s kind of a bizarre subject line to put as your first one but
what does that do if I put that as number one? It sets a tone that
they’re going to get something completely different from me than
what everyone else is sending them for one thing. And two, if I’ve
offended someone in email #1, they’re going to probably eliminate
themselves right away so I won’t have to worry about them later and I
can just get away with saying whatever I want.
So the point is just go with what you know is right to do. Tell your
stories, have fun, don’t get too hung up on if people are going to get
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mad or not. So what if they get mad? Somebody who gets mad
because you’re actually like having fun in your emails and sending
something interesting is not somebody you want on your list anyway.
When I first started writing likethis, I actually kind of eased into it. I
started doing one a week and then I kind of got into it daily. I did that
for a couple of weeks, yeah, I got rid of all the crud and all the
bottom feeders pretty quickly. If anything I wish I would have done it
faster. You want to get rid of the bottom feeders. Believe me; they’re
just clogging up bandwidth. You don’t need them, they’re never going
to buy from you, let them go haunt somebody else and just don’t
worry about it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How much of each email should be used to
give new information or education in telling stories and how much
should be used selling my product or service?
Okay, that’s a good question. I think you should mix it up. It’s like I
used the example, I had done four emails in a row that include a story
and includes some entertainment and something interesting but I am
marketing a consulting course. But today, I changed it up and I just
sent out a straight new interview with Brian Tracy. I’ll do that also
after I’m promoting a product.
I did a series of $20 offers for some pretty expensive products that I
did really, really well with and I was pushing the limit and I would
sometimes do three, four, five emails a day. I mean I’m always
testing the limits of my list and it’s been very interesting but after
that, for the next week, I may just send great stories, I may send a
free gift, I may send links to some new interviews.
BEN SETTLE: I think that people have to realize that teachers make
almost no money in this society. I guess we could get into the politics
of it, maybe that would make somebody go yell at people, but
compared to a good sales person, they’re not making anything. People
who sell make the money. I really think everybody should be selling
something, even if it’s just to click a link, but I am big on telling
people what to do but not how to do it.
So for example, let’s say I’m writing to a weight loss list or
something. I might tell them all the benefits of drinking more water.
People who drink more water lose weight. But then I will transition to
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that toward the end, towards the last half of it, but you need to know
how much water to drink because if you drink too much water, it will
have the opposite effect. You know, you want to make sure you drink
the right kind of water and you don’t want it to be tap water or bottled
water. And I’ll start teasing them about all the stuff that
they shouldn’t be doing.
You’re dangling the carrot, yet you have given valuable information
by telling them to drink more water but they don’t know how to do it
unless they get your product. People are actually like that. You won’t
really get very many complaints doing that and actually you’ll get a
lot more sales. I think people should just kind of focus on getting
what I call soft information versus hard information. The soft
information is you’re giving general concepts that really aren’t
necessarily that mind blowing but it still is useful and then you just
kind of want to tease them into your product where they’ll get the real
lesson.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Should I start selling from the beginning of
the series or start with education and then gradually transition into
selling later?
BEN SETTLE: I have heard seasoned marketing people who really
don’t know what they’re doing tell me, “Well, you have to ‘incubate’
them. You have to give them a whole bunch of cool stuff up front and
don’t sell anything. And then you have earned the right to sell them
something later.” I think that is the worst thing anybody can do. The
very first email you send out should have something for sale. 
It doesn’t have to be 100% blatant pitch, but just like what we’ve
been talking about, give some value and have fun and all that, but
that’s the point. Let them know you’re in business right away. I
interviewed Terry Dean. Terry Dean is like the father of modern email
marketing or he’s certainly one of the “founding fathers” of email
marketing. He’s been doing this before most of us even had a
computer in some cases and he tests this stuff all the time. He says
that the very first email, when someone gets into his file, he sells
them something. It’s not like a blatant thing where he’s trying to turn
you off or anything, but he’s going to let you know with a solid little
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pitch at the end. He’s in business, you better expect this, there’s more
to come, he’s also trying to help you, he’s trying to give you value.
It might not be an expensive thing, but he does set that tone right
away and this whole idea of moving free lines and incubating, I just
think it’s absolutely retarded, it makes no sense. There’s not one sales
person I’ve ever met that does that. Now back in the day of door-to-
door sales, they used to do stuff like that, but we’re not doing door-
to-door sales. It’s not that hard of an environment and if you’re
targeting your market properly and if you have the right solution to
their problem, you’re doing them an absolute disservice by not letting
them at least know that it exists.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I see what you’re saying, I mean, I’m
definitely guilty of that. Look, when I started, before I was really
selling anything, I was just giving it all away for free.
BEN SETTLE: Hey, believe me; I was doing the same thing. I’ve
been hard on myself for doing the same thing my first 6-7 years
online.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah.
BEN SETTLE: I did it too, man, I think we’ve all done it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I’m just thinking about this, the moving the
free line. I think this is also a list building strategy and I think this is
primarily how I’ve tried to use it. You’re giving something of real
value for free and it will build a list and look, if you don’t have a list,
you can’t sell anything to anyone.
BEN SETTLE: Oh yeah, definitely. You have to build your list with
the free stuff to demonstrate your knowledge and build credibility.
There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but once you’re emailing
them, I’m not saying be blatant, I’m not saying shower them with
sales pitches, I’m just saying doing what we’ve been talking about
just get them hooked on this. They’ll buy from you. They trust you.
MICHAEL SENOFF: All right, what is your formula for selling
versus content that you use when emailing your list?
I mean I’ve talked about this before, I’m always selling something
whether I’m building trust or I’m trying to build like-ability or I’m
offering value. I’m even guilty of some teaching through my
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interview or I’m doing a blatant offer, a risk free offer on a product or
service. There’s no real formula. I’m always testing, I’m always
trying different stuff and any other listeners who are interested in
doing email marketing should do the same, there are no rules. You
know, there’s so few people doing it, it’s like we’re making the rules
as we’re going along.
BEN SETTLE: I agree with you, there are no rules. Even the stuff
you and I are explaining, somebody should actually break it just to
see if it works for them. I’m just giving guidelines of what works for
me but honestly, there’s some stuff that I’m saying right now that
won’t work for everybody. Maybe some people should incubate news
subscribers, I don’t know, I’ve never seen it be the case but yeah, I
agree with you. There are no rules; these are just guidelines if
anything.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What is the most effective viral marketing
mechanism that one can use in email marketing without annoying our
current clients?
Here we go again…we’re worried about annoying our current clients.
How do you know you’re going to annoy your current clients? You
have no idea because every single one of those people on your email
list are different. So you can’t be a people pleaser, you are not going
to please everyone on your list. Some will, some won’t, so what?
BEN SETTLE: One good viral mechanism is actually telling really
good stories. People like to forward good stories topeople and they’ll
retrieve them and they’ll put them on FaceBook and that’s one way to
do it, get good at telling these stories.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How do you get the best value from an email
marketing company and which ones do you recommend?
I use only one service currently, I use Aweber.com. I used to use
something called ReplyToIt.com and ReplyToIt was another off-brand
service. I didn’t know it was any good or it wasn’t any good. It
worked for me for years and I had no problem with it until the
company just disappeared and they also disappeared with about 5,000
of my email names. Even though I had them backed up, when I was
looking for another email auto-responder service, I learned about
Aweber, I had a guy interview the founder of Aweber and Aweber’s
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unique selling proposition, the thing that stood out about them was
that they concentrate on getting your emails delivered.
They actually work with ISPs to make sure your emails get delivered
and that is the number one thing, you can send out all the emails you
want, but if they’re not being delivered, it’s not going to do you any
good. So that’s why I chose Aweber plus they’re extremely
inexpensive, $19.00 per month for unlimited auto-responders and it’s
the deal of the century.
BEN SETTLE: I’m going to refrain from recommending anything
only because these things are always changing. Five years from now
somebody could be listening to this and say, “Well, you told me to use
Aweber” and for all I know, Aweber could be out of business at that
point. But I will say I personally have used three different companies;
I’ve used Aweber, 1ShoppingCart and iContact. So those are the only
ones I can really intelligently talk about. The good news is those are
the ones people most likely would use anyway.
Like you said, you have to look for the ones who are going out of
their way to make sure delivery is good and this is important because
a lot of people don’t understand that when you send an email out,
your auto-responder or broadcast feature, it’s not your name that gets
flagged by ISPs and all that. It’s not like Michael or
MichaelSenoff.com is going to get banned, it’s Aweber that will get
banned or 1ShoppingCart or whatever company you’re using so you
have to understand, they’re very paranoid -- and rightfully so -- about
people not spamming. So that’s why I think it’s good to go with a big
reputable company like that.
Aweber is very simple, that’s what I like about it. I also use
1ShoppingCart, though, which I also like for a lot of E-Commerce
because you can segment your list, like for example, they’re on a lead
list and they buy something from you, it’s already integrated with
your merchant account and shopping cart. So you don’t have to have a
separate shopping cart like you would with Aweber or iContact. And
for another thing, it will automatically remove their name from the
lead list onto a buyer’s list so that you can send special sales and stuff
like that for the lead list and you won’t have to worry about
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everybody who had bought it at full price seeing it and getting mad at
you.
So like right now, you kind of rig it by suppressing names and email
addresses, you know, but this will do it for you. So I’m a big fan of
1ShoppingCart like that. I’m not saying they’re the best for delivery
or anything like that, but they’re just very convenient. 
I also worked with iContact a lot at one time. There were just things
that you think that a normal auto-responder company would do that
they would have, but they didn’t which was kind of frustrating.
They’re a good company though, I’m not saying don’t use them and
from my understanding they might even have the best delivery rate
plus they’ll let you do single opt and I don’t think Aweber will unless
you put a special request in. So it really all comes down to what you
want.
My point is there’s pros and cons to all of them. I wish they would
make one that takes the best of all of them, I have not seen that yet,
but that’s my take.
MICHAEL SENOFF: It’s just like taking the time to learn how to
use it. I mean, it’s taken me long enough to learn how to use Aweber
and how to do the forms.
BEN SETTLE: Here’s how it can screw you up too. With Aweber,
when you’re setting up an auto-responder series, they have a specific
way of how you space it out, you know, day one, day two, day three,
whatever. With 1ShoppingCart, you have to say how many days since
they joined and what I did was put all the emails in and I just put
number one because I was thinking it was Aweber, it was just the next
day, one day later they’ll get the next one. Well, that’s not what
happened. What happened is on day one, they got the whole sequence.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Did that happen for a while?
BEN SETTLE: I found out right away, people were getting 80 emails
in one day from me.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Oh my God. That’s funny.
BEN SETTLE: You have to always keep that in mind too. I guess I
wasn’t paying very much attention.
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MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, well, it’s definitely confusing; it’s a
whole other language. If this overwhelms someone who’s listening to
this, there are people who know how to do it. Craig’s List should be
your best friend, you know. You can go onto Craig’s List in your local
area and place a free ad in the Gig section and say “I’m clueless when
it comes to setting up an email auto-responder. If you can help me,
I’ll pay you X dollars an hour. You can come to my office or my
home and show me how to get it set up.” And you’ll have people
replying to you within ten minutes once the ad goes live with their
experience, a little bit about their background and they’re local which
is really nice. So there is expertise and there’s help out there. If it’s
something that overwhelms you and you can’t do it or you don’t want
to do it, you just get someone else to do it for you.
BEN SETTLE: Have you seen that site Fiverr.com?
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, I have.
BEN SETTLE: I’ll bet you there’s people on there who would do it
for five bucks.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah probably, I’ve used it, I’ve done Fiverr
things, there’s a lot of stuff on there, but I mean I wasn’t that
impressed with them, but I have seen that. Check it out, all these E-
Services that people will do for five bucks, Fiverr.com.
Here’s another related question -- gurus use Infusionsoft. It is
expensive; do you think it’s worth it?
I don’t know, I have never used it, I have seen a lot of the gurus’
promotions on there. One thing I do like about it is being an affiliate
for one of those gurus is that Infusionsoft, when you get a sale, it’s
pretty interesting. When you get a sale you get the name of the person
who bought the product, the email, the address, what they bought, the
price and everything and if you are an affiliate and you want to sell
for someone who is an affiliate, I would highly recommend that you
would feel more comfortable doing and joining or participating in
an affiliate promotion if they’re using Infusionsoft because you can
go in and you can track all your paychecks and everything. That’s a
very robust system. As far as using it, I don’t know, but as far as
being an affiliate, I like what it does from the affiliate point of view.
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BEN SETTLE: I have not personally used it but I have some stories
that might be helpful for people. I have a friend who loves it, he uses
it, he says it’s not complicated, it’s no big deal and on the other hand I
know people who say it’s complicated and hard to understand. I guess
it just depends on what someone’s tolerance for high technical stuff
is, but I also had a client, a pretty big one. He has a list of at least
200,000 people and he ended up going back to 1ShoppingCart from
Infusionsoft.
He said when you get to a certain point, it’s actually not that good of a
service and I guess they’ll even admit it. They’ll even say, “Look,
you’retoo big for us.” I don’t know this from personal first hand
experience so don’t quote me on that. Check into it and do your due
diligence. It has a TON of features you won’t find in other programs.
I don’t know if anyone can use that information and this is just
hearsay that I heard from a client. I was pretty amazed that he went
back to 1ShoppingCart at his level but there’s just no one size fits all.
I think you should look at all of them and weigh them all and most
importantly, talk to people who use a shopping cart that you want to
use. Ask them because they’re really the best people to talk about it. I
wouldn’t even talk to the sales people right away, just talk to the users
first.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What would be the best paid and best free
email tracking system to use when email marketing that tracks open
rates, clicks on links, et cetera?
Now I will say to answer that question, there are other ways to track
if you are doing an email and you are promoting something or you’re
directing them to a URL link on a specific page on your website, you
can go into the control panel of your website and you can look at the
stats.
So if I sent out an email yesterday to my list, today I can go into my
stats and look for that page that I directed the readers of the email to
go to and I can see how many hits were on the page, I can see how
many downloads of the MP3 happened and then there’s also a service,
everyone’s seen those live help services where you go to a webpage
and it shows an operator there. If you click on it, you can get some
live help.
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I subscribe to that service at about $100 bucks a month and you can
put some code on a webpage and you don’t have to track your click
through’s using Aweber because I wanted to avoid that long link.
What I wanted people to see was HardToFindSeminars, I didn’t want
them to see Aweber’s link but some code on the page, they give you a
control panel and you can see all your stats, how many people clicked
on the page. You can see it live happening so when I was subscribing,
I could send out an email and I could look at my monitor and log in
and see in real time, how many people were on the actual page,
coming from the email going to the webpage and that was kind of
cool to see.
BEN SETTLE: 1ShoppingCart has an interesting feature like this
where you can track links and I do this when I do affiliate stuff, like
for the Eugene Schwartz thing we did. I was able to track how many
clicks I got. If it was something I was selling with my own merchant
account, I can track it all the way to the sale, how much each click
was worth. It will tell me all that stuff and you can easily just create
your own re-direct link through your website. Have it forward right to
your tracking link and it’s a very clean way to do it the
way 1ShoppingCart has it set up because you don’t see all this long
code or anything.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How many unsubscribes do you get now that
you’ve been doing daily emails for so long?
I’ll be honest, I get unsubscribes. I get unsubscribes every day. When
someone unsubscribes, I’ll get an email that they unsubscribed.
Sometimes I’ll look at the comments. I do see some comments that
say too many emails; I’ve seen that more than once. But then again, I
can’t worry about them. You are going to get unsubscribes when
you’re doing daily emails but what you’re doing is, you’re sculpting
your email list to your list of hard-core people who want to hear from
you, who like you and who trust you. The people who don’t, they’re
going to get off the list. Like you say, that’s not a bad thing. How
about yourself?
BEN SETTLE: I get lots of unsubscribes, but I get almost zero spam
complaints because whenever somebody opts into my site, they are
told before they opt-in and then they’re told again when they opt-in in
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the welcome email, this is a daily email. So anybody who would
complain, I would have to question their ability to read. Did you see
four or five times where it said that this is daily? But I don’t really
care about unsubscribes because I’m getting more sales than ever.
So to me it’s like if somebody’s worried about unsubscribes, they’re
kind of missing the point. You should be concerned about spam
complaints. I would agree with that. But you’ll never get them if you
tell them right up front, this is daily or this is bi-weekly, however
often you want to do it. You’re not going to get the complaints. I get
like maybe one spam complaint a month at the most. Half the time I
think they just push the spam button on accident. I don’t even think
it’s because they really think it’s spam.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Okay so if someone gets one of your emails
from like AOL or something …
BEN SETTLE: AOL or Gmail, I mean one lady was on Gmail and
she pushed spam because it’s next to the delete button and she
actually emailed me, she said, “I’m sorry I pushed the spam button on
accident… I didn’t mean to.”
MICHAEL SENOFF: How do you know if someone does that?
BEN SETTLE: Well on Aweber at least, I don’t know how you would
be able to tell on 1ShoppingCart, I don’t know if they show you …
MICHAEL SENOFF: But Aweber does show a spam complaint?
BEN SETTLE: After you send a broadcast out, it will show you how
many were mailed out and then there’ll be like a little percentage are
spam.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Oh, I got to look at that.
BEN SETTLE: It’s very rare for me to get a spam complaint. I’m not
saying it never happens, but you’re going to get unsubscribes. You’ll
get unsubscribes simply because somebody subscribed with three
different email addresses and they’re getting three emails from you
and then they just unsubscribe the two of them. It’s really irrelevant.
One more thing about daily emails or doing them often, it’s a
leadership thing.
Anybody can position themselves as an expert these days,
everybody’s an expert. But if you’re going to position yourself as a
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leader which is much better than just an expert and you don’t have
something to say every day or mostly every day, people are not going
to necessarily take you as seriously as they will for the person who is
contacting them more often.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, that totally makes sense.
BEN SETTLE: So for me it’s worth it if you get some unsubscribes
if your sales are going up, that’s why you’re in business, you know,
not to please people. You don’t have to keep a big list but they have a
list that converts.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I’ve been using Aweber and doing it all
myself and I am unable to keep up the learning part in promoting the
business. Please suggest quality resources for outsourcing and email
marketing, that value compliance and offer reliable service.
You know, I don’t know how much there is to keep up with. I mean,
really if you’re going to want your email, you just pop it in there and
you send it out. There’s really not that much to keep up with in my
opinion. You’re just using it to broadcast and send it out but if it’s
absolutely frustrating you, get some help. Go online, use Craig’s List
and just write that in a Craig’s List ad in the GIG section and just say
you’re having trouble keeping up with your email marketing, would
you be willing to help and offer to pay them something.
BEN SETTLE: I just can’t fathom someone having technical
problems with the easiest one … I mean I’m as un-technical as they
come. It’s pretty simple. I mean if someone’s having that
much trouble, I have to wonder if they’re in the right business. We’re
not doing brain surgery here. You have to learn some of this stuff. Not
trying to be hard on anybody, I’m just saying, not that big of a
learning curve. They have video and tutorials and all that all over the
Internet.
MICHAEL SENOFF: For someone just starting to cold call via
email what are the best methods and how long does one measure to
determining its effectiveness?
If you’re cold calling to your list, it sounds like spam to me, but you
know,if you have a list that has subscribed but you’ve just never
emailed them, then you may want to state right from the beginning
that you’re on my list and that’s why I’m emailing you. You can say,
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“I’m emailing you for the first time” and I don’t know, you could do a
story about why it’s your first email and why you’ve been hesitant to
email for so long and you know, maybe you can do something like
that. To determine its effectiveness, is it going to bring in a sale or is
it going to get the result of what you’re trying to accomplish from the
email?
BEN SETTLE: Generate your own opt-in list and you won’t be cold
calling because there’s nothing cold about it but if he’s talking, like
you were saying, it’s just that he hasn’t contacted his list in a year or
something and they’re cold, you know, that happens. I agree with you,
I thought that was actually a good thing to do, but this is going to
sound almost syrupy sweet probably but it’s the truth. Just be honest,
always be honest with them. Believe me; they will appreciate… “I
haven’t mailed this list in 13 months. You probably don’t remember
who I am and you may have even deleted this email by now or
something but let me tell you why I’m writing you today, blah, blah,
blah, blah.” It could be as simple as that, just be honest with them.
They’ll appreciate it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What is your best conversion rate with your
email marketing methods?
I could give you an example of these $20 promotions which were
pretty incredible where I was offering some pretty high dollar
products for only $20 and I did lots of these. I maybe did 10 or 12
different products and I did these $20 promotions multiple times and
the way the promotion would work is there was a $20 offer. I would
do the promotion maybe I’d do one email one day and then another
email the second day and then the third day, we’d do a countdown till
we’d say 12 hours left, seven hours left, two hours left, one hour left,
30 minutes left and then it worked really well. Ben, I think that first
one on the joint venture, we converted like up to 20% or 25% of
everyone who hit the page.
BEN SETTLE: I had the exact click per rate on one shopping cart. I
remember I was updating you on that like daily and I think we were
up to like 25%, it was huge. That was probably one of the most
successful ones I’d ever been involved in.
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MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, the Eugene Schwartz, Ben promoted a
$20 product for a seminar by Eugene Schwartz to his list and we used
that same system that I was just describing and you know, the
combination of that low price, let me tell you low price does sell.
High price sells too but you’re not going to sell to as many people. So
you got to look at your list.
There’s all kinds of people. You know, look at people, there’s tall
people, fat people, skinny people, people with blonde hair, old people,
blue eyes, brown eyes, your list is a sea of different people with
different likes, different interests, different desires, different amounts
of money in their bank account, different levels of need and every one
on there is different unless you’re really segmenting your list. So
there’s money in all of your lists. A certain percentage is willing to
spend a lot of money with you. Maybe a larger percentage is willing
to spend a smaller amount with you. Most of them would love
something for free, so you can’t generalize about your list. There’s all
kinds of people on that list and you’ve got to try all kinds of things
and all kinds of things will work with the list.
BEN SETTLE: Well, the best one I could think of was probably that
last Schwartz one. I think when people ask us questions, I know why
they’re asking it and it’s understandable. But it’s really the wrong
question to ask because you’re conversion rate and my conversation
rate is not going to matter to them. You know if you have a list of a
million people, one percent conversion will make you a lot of money.
If you have a list of 300 people, well one percent is not going to make
you anything probably unless it’s a real expensive product. What
someone else’s conversion rates are is meaningless. It’s like
comparing apples with oranges, it does not matter what someone
else’s is. What matters is, did they make a profit or not and how
much? Really, that’s what it comes down to, how can you make more
next time?
MICHAEL SENOFF: What is the best way to determine if emails
are actually getting read?
A couple of different things: are you getting sales? You can track on
the back end or people are clicking over to your website or to your
offer. One thing I do in a lot of the emails is, at the end of the email I
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may not have a link in there and I may say, if you’re interested in this,
reply back to this email” in all caps and I’ll ask them to reply back to
me where there’s no option to go to any link and the only way I’ll
know if they’re reading the email, because there’s no link, is to ask
for a reply so that’s a way you can do that as well. You can say, “For
more information call...” You can put some kind of direct response
mechanism in the email to measure whether it’s to click, to call, to
order, to all back, to reply back. That’s how you’re going to know if
your emails are actually getting read.
Ben, what is the best way to determine if emails are actually getting
read?
BEN SETTLE: I agree and especially, did you make sales? I mean I
think a lot of people are getting confused. They think that all their
emails have to get read and they have to have this really high open
rate or click their rate to make money, you don’t. And I’ll give you an
example. Sometimes you can write an email knowing full well most
people won’t open it.
For example, let’s say you have a list of Internet marketers. You know
maybe they’re used to hearing about the newest, shiny new object out
there… product or cutting edge technique. Well maybe you have a
product about eBay selling and you put that in the subject line which
would be a very smart thing to do for flagging the people who want to
know more about eBay. Most of your list who doesn’t care about
eBay is probably not even going to open it much less read it. But the
percentage of people on your list who are very much into eBay, they
will open it and they’ll be more likely to buy it.
So who cares if everybody else opens it or not? People get caught up
in conversion rates and what’s the best for this, there is no one size
fits all. It’s what is your strategy and did it make money. Did it reach
the goal you have, whatever that goal is.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Is there an auto-responder I can use that
doesn’t require a monthly fee?
There probably is, you can probably find one out there on the Internet
for free but be careful, you get what you pay for. You know, free
doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good and there’s a good chance it’s
not going to be any good and you don’t want to mess with your email
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list. I mean if you can’t get your message to your reader reliably,
there’s no way you’re going to make any money. It’s like someone
cutting your legs off.
BEN SETTLE: I have two ideas, they’re not ideal, but there’s this
one company that’s been around at least since 2002 because I’ve seen
them since then. It’s called SendFree.com and I believe they have a
free version which is very limited in functionality. I’m pretty sure
you have ads in your auto-responders at the bottom and you probably
are limited to how many you can send out and all that. But it’s free at
least.
Another option, and I’ve not used it for this purpose, but I am using
Yahoo groups right now. There is a limited auto-responder
functionality in there. They can join your Yahoo group and I think
you can make some settings so that they get a message that goes out
at such and such a time and you can definitely broadcast people on
there. You really have nothing topay at all, you could just open a
Yahoo group if nothing else and play around with that and you could
probably get something set up. You wouldn’t want to keep that any
longer than you have to, but it’s kind of like the total MacGyver idea,
you know, turn the scrap metal and a stick of bubble gum into a bomb
to get the job done. That’s all I can really think of on that.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Is it better to use a service or for convenience
host auto-responder on your own server?
BEN SETTLE: I don’t think there’s anything convenient about doing
it on your own server. From what I understand, it’s a complete
nightmare. It’s almost like when you get too big, this guy was telling
me because he actually created his own auto-responder back in the
late 1990s and he was telling me that you actually need a full-time
employee just to make sure you’re not on all the black-lists, spam
lists and all that. My opinion, you should just go with one of the
servers. Maybe there are circumstances where you shouldn’t do your
own, but I have not run into that myself. I couldn’t comment on that.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Which is the best smart auto-responder
around, one that has a user-friendly interface, requires close and no
maintenance after set up and costs nothing?
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BEN SETTLE: If you can’t spend $20 a month, you really should not
be in business. I mean, you really shouldn’t, you should wait until
you have enough money you can at least afford a $20 a month auto-
responder. If you’re homeless or you’re whatever, don’t worry about
this stuff but the reality is even a homeless person on the street makes
a dollar a day. It’s like people still want everything free. Those days
are over, it doesn’t work that way.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Do you split your lists for areas of interest,
source of original inquiry, et cetera and if so, how?
I have a lot of different lists and the way you do it, at least with
Aweber is the way I create the list is by using a form where someone
can opt-in with an email address or an email address and a name if
you want or an email address and a name and a city, state, zip,
whatever information you want to collect on that form and you would
put that form on specific areas of your website and you can create as
many different lists on your Aweber. So if you wanted a form for
females, you can say, “Sign up here. If you’re a male, sign up here.”
If you’re interested in a business buying course, that form will be on
the business buying course interview or whatever I’m promoting. So
yeah, you can create as many lists as you want with Aweber, so that’s
how you do it.
Ben, how do you do it?
BEN SETTLE: I think list splitting or whatever you want to call it is
the smartest thing that anybody can do because it lets you target your
offers without taking your whole list off and I’ll give you an example.
I said I used two auto-responders systems right now. Aweber is my
main list, but with the 1ShoppingCart, I have a list just for people
interested in copywriting and on that sales letter there’s an opt-in
form for people who want to opt and they go on that 1ShoppingCart
list. So for example, I’m selling the Eugene Schwartz thing, not only
will they not mind you sending them offers, I mean they’ve pretty
much raised their hand “Because I want to know more about that
topic.” And you have a business buying list. You’re whole list
probably isn’t that interested in it but the people on that little Art
Hamel list, they’re going to love any information you have to say on
that and so you’re not making everyone else mad, you’re making
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more money and everybody’s happy. That’s how the big direct mailers
do it. They segment like crazy. The more you can segment the better.
That’s really where the money’s at.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How do you decide what to put into an auto-
responder series? For the series the subscriber gets, how do you
choose which content to add to that series over time, the idea being to
expand the series to cover several weeks or even months, or useful
content to the new subscriber, in addition to the monthly newsletter?
BEN SETTLE: You’ve really got to know your market well before
you start selling any of them. You have to do this with regular sales
letters, but it’s even more important if you’re going to do a long-term
auto-responder series – because I’ve written series that are 100
emails long and it’s not as hard as it sounds if you just know what
they want, if you know what’s on their mind, if you know what
they’re thinking about, what they’re talking about, what they’re
scared of, what they want in life, you know, who they’re mad at – all
these questions that you should be finding out before you sell to them
anyway. You find those hot buttons and you just pick one to talk about
each day or in each email.
I am a big fan of doing daily emails so I like to do auto-responders
that go out every day. If you have 100 emails in your auto-responder,
you would have 100 days of email. Not everybody does that – that’s
just the way I do it. No matter how many you do, even go through
your sales letter, if you have a good sales letter, and just pick out one
hot button. It could be in the first part of the sales letter. Just pick out
one hot button and talk about it.
It does back to staying in their world, that “Jim Camp-ism.” As long
as you are in their world, you’re safe. You can’t bore them. You can’t
make them not interested, as long as you talk about what is
interesting to them. So that’s really all you do. Then, you just want to
tie it into a call to action in each email. You want to put something in
there that gets them back to that sales letter and they will be much
more likely to buy it from you.
MICHAEL SENOFF: For a very long time, I had a series of
probably 130 emails. When someone got on my list, you know, I think
it took about eight or nine months to get through all of them. I didn’t
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do it every day on my auto-responder follow-up. I had it maybe every
four days, every five days, every six days. Then, for the last 14 or 15
months, I’ve been doing a daily email. That’s how I’ve done it in the
past.
Anyone who has come onto my list will hear from me automatically
through my auto-responder series, just introducing them to new
interviews or new ideas or maybe a little bit of teaching or what have
you. Then, I’m doing my daily emails on top of that.
I am going to try something new. I stopped or put a hold on the auto-
responder series and I’m just now doing my daily email. Have you
played around with that? What are your thoughts on that?
BEN SETTLE: If you have things set up right and you know your
market really well, you can do two emails a day. I’ve done that before
where maybe one email in the morning is more content driven. It’s
not really a strong filled pitch or anything, but maybe you’re just
giving something away. Then, in the afternoon, you give them just a
straight sales pitch or something.
There are people who have done that. I think Matt Fiery actually was
doing that for a long time. He called it his Afternoon Delight email.
That would be the sales pitch one. It’s like you kind of earn the right
to send them a sales pitch because earlier in the day, you gave them
some content.
I have not actually done that. I just have a different take on it than he
does with that. I don’t think there is a “right” or “wrong” way to do it.
It’s whatever works for your list. Some markets are more rabid and
more hungry than others, and some you kind of have to work on a
little bit more to get them to that point where they want to buy
something. It always comes back to your market.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Some people may not want to do the daily
email. They find that hard, but they may have a burst of energy. They
can put together ten or twenty of them, set them up in the auto-
responder, and just set it and forget it.
BEN SETTLE: You know what I’ve done before, and I really think
this justsimplifies things; we’ve talked about creating sub-lists
before. For example, if you have a list and you sell to people who
own cats or something – who are cat owners. Then you have sub-lists
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of people who are just interested in a certain breed of cat, like
Siamese cat owners, or you have another sub-list that is just
interested in teaching their cat to do tricks or something. So each of
those are sub-lists, they are all on your main list, but they have kind
of segmented themselves into these sub-lists.
Every email you write, if you’re doing a daily email or a frequent
email, to your main list that is about a specific topic, you can then
take that daily email and put it in the auto-responder under its
appropriate list. So all the emails you write on cat tricks you can put
in that auto-responder. You’ve already written it. Now just put it in
the auto-responder. It’ll just keep working for you forever that way.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Ben, should I always split test?
BEN SETTLE: If you ask ten different people, you’ll get ten
different answers to that. Should you always split test? I don’t
personally see the point of always split testing. You’ve got to
understand that the point of split testing is to split one idea against
another. If you’re sending a daily email out, unless it’s like a sale or
you know you’re doing some kind of push to sell something, is it
worth your time to set up a test to see which subject line out-pulls the
other, spend the morning doing that, and then send to the rest of your
list with the winner? It might be. If you have a big list and you know
your numbers that very well could be worth it.
For someone like myself, I have a relatively small list. A split test
would do me no good right now because I just don’t think I’d even
have much of a control to work with. I kind of go the opposite way. I
just write something, get it out, and then move on to whatever else
I’ve got to do.
It always comes down to the way you’re setting your business up. If I
have a big list of 100,000 people, and I don’t but maybe I will by the
end of this year – who knows – I would probably split test every
email in the morning, if I didn’t have client work and all this other
stuff to do, and if it was my main income source, I would probably
spend time split testing every email to get the most sales just because
it would be worth it.
If I have a list of 2,000 people, you’re never going to get a
statistically relevant response either way, so it doesn’t matter. You
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might as well get it in there and push, send, and, you know, if you get
sales, great; well, if you don’t, that’s great, too.
By the way, I want to say something. People will say, “Why would
you reuse an email that didn’t get any sales?” The reason you should
reuse an email, like in an auto-responder that didn’t get any sales, is
because maybe it’ll get sales later. I’ve had many emails where I’ve
sent it to my main list and gotten zero sales, put it in an auto-
responder and then got sales, or maybe I reuse it again to my main
list, and the next time I did get sales.
Email is not like a static sales letter which just sits up there and
everybody sees it every day. It taps into a specific emotion or thought
or something that’s going on right now in the culture or in their lives.
You just never know. I just wanted to add that in there, too.
MICHAEL SENOFF: It’s the concept of the moving parade. Your
emails may have the same headlines and say the same thing, but when
you send it out; your list is always in movement. They may catch
your email at a time that is convenient, when they’re not distracted,
or they may be more receptive or maybe something happened in their
life or their day that makes them, you know; read it this time where
before they couldn’t. You just never know. A lot of it has to do with
the right timing.
That’s why I think email marketing is so powerful. First of all, your
whole list isn’t going to open it up when you send it out. Only a small
percentage will open it up. Every time you send it out, it can be the
same email, you’re going to get a different piece of the pizza opening
that email, and you’ll get sales. I have tested this with my $20 offer.
BEN SETTLE: People have got to look at it as an audience. If you’re
doing it right, they’re tuning in to your show. For example, if you’re a
fan of a talk radio host, you may not make the show every day. Now,
you listen to it two or three times a week, but you don’t listen to it
five times a week for whatever reason. The same with email – people
might just miss your email the first time. It’s nothing personal.
People are busy. Why not reuse it and see if it works again?
MICHAEL SENOFF: If an email campaign isn’t generating sales,
but it isn’t triggering unsubscribes either, what should I try adjusting?
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BEN SETTLE: That sounds to me like nobody is getting your emails.
If you’re not getting either sales or unsubscribes, I find that kind of a
strange situation because I’ve never actually seen that happen before.
You should at least be getting unsubscribes if for no other reason than
you’ll eventually get email bounce-backs. Most auto-responders will
just automatically unsubscribe them after so many attempts. So sign
up for like four or five free email accounts, add yourself to a list, and
see if they’re even getting delivered.
MICHAEL SENOFF: It depends on how many times you’ve sent it
and what your offer is. If it’s a price thing, if you’ve got a good offer,
maybe the price is too high; test one with a lower price. See if you
can get some kind of movement.
One thing I do in a lot of my emails, even when I’m selling
something, is I’ll have a call to action at the end of the email. I may
not send them to a link. I may do a sales piece or a sales email that is
selling something, but not have a link on purpose in the email and
say, “If you want more information on this, reply to this email, and in
all caps, type in, MORE INFORMATION, and I’ll send you the link.”
That way, I kind of get a temperature. Is my list alive and are they
reading through to the end of the email?
BEN SETTLE: Yeah, that’s a good idea. If I had time to do that kind
of stuff, I would definitely do it. It’s things like that where you get
some kind of direct response from people back, if they write you an
email, that’ll tell you right there who is paying attention. 
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah. Another thing, we were talking I think
about Google’s email, how depending on how frequently you email
someone from a Gmail account, for example, maybe the
big providers, it’ll categorize your email not necessarily in the order
that they are received. If you’re responding to an email, let’s say
you’re on Gmail and you get my email and you’re at the beginning of
an auto-responder campaign and I ask you for a call to action and you
reply to that email and email me directly, that’s going to put my email
address in a safer spot on your Gmail account compared to you never
responding and just reading my emails and going to a link.
BEN SETTLE: That’s very interesting. I didn’t realize that. That’s
extremely good information.
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MICHAEL SENOFF: Check that out because these email services
are getting smarter and smarter, and they’re trying to solve problems
with cluttered email.
BEN SETTLE: You know, there’s only one problem I can see with
that, and it may not even be a problem. With auto-responder
companies, it’s not your email address and your IP address
that they’re seeing. It’s the auto-responder’s. I don’t know how that
works.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah – that is interesting. Well, when you
reply. . .
BEN SETTLE: You’re replying to Michael and Michael’s. . .
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, I think that’s what you
want. I don’t know.
Okay, let’s move into this next session: questions about email
frequency or day of the week.
With only a smalllist, I need to be careful about the frequency. What
frequency do you suggest that I email?
BEN SETTLE: I understand why people get kind of paranoid. They
have a small list and they don’t want any unsubscribes. But I really
think that’s the wrong way to look at it. I want to give you a real life
example.
I recently started going after another niche. I’m building an email list
and it’s slowly building up. I probably get two or three opt-ins a day
maybe. So far, as of today, I have one buyer. I’ve had like, I don’t
know, 50 or 60 opt-ins, and I’ve got my first buyer just this last
weekend. No, actually I think I’ve had like 70 visits to the site so
actually it’s even smaller than that.
So I had 15 or 16 opt-in people and I’ve had one sale. That person
who made the sale is getting a daily email from me to sell them the
next thing. This is one person and if I lose him, so be it. Emailing and
not staying in contact with them to me is actually going to do you
more harm than just contacting them once a week or once every two
weeks.
Some people will aggressively disagree with me on that. I guess you
could spend a lot of time testing this and everything, but again, when
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you have a small list, your tests are pretty much irrelevant anyway
statistically. I guess until I get a bigger list, I’ll just keep doing that.
Of course, if you have a small list, that’s the only time you’d ask this
question anyway.
My opinion is just keep emailing them as often as you can and doing
it the right way, as we’ve been talking about. Don’t just send them
crap or constant sales pitches or bore them with a bunch of content
they’ve already seen. You’ve got to be engaging and interesting and
be the highlight of their day. Then, just let the chips fall where they
may after that. I think you should still go after it. If you have ten
people on your list, I think you should email them every day or five
days a week. That’s my opinion.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah. I’ve talked about this in the first
section. You’ve got to get over the fear of what they’re going to think.
You’re going to be doing something drastically different that your
people on your list have never seen. You’re going to get noticed,
you’re going to get some attention, and some of it may be negative.
But after a while, they’re going to forget the old way you used to do it
and, if you’re doing it right, they’re going to look forward to the new
way. You just never know what’s going to happen.
Being in front of your list more frequently will open up doors. I’ll
give you a perfect example. I was doing a daily email last year. I did
this one email that opened up a great door. I told you about this, Ben.
It was this email called “The Pistol Shrimp,” that was the subject of
it. It has to do with this amazing little shrimp creature in the bottom
of the ocean and how, when it snapped its claw, it created the same
power as a little atomic explosion. Then, I tied that in with the power
of your voice doing audio interviews.
I sent that out and I got a reply from Drayton Bird. It said, “Who
writes your email copy?” He’s a very well known advertising man out
of the UK. David Ogilvy claimed that he knew more about
advertising than anyone in the world. So, I emailed him back and I
said that I do.
That opened up the door for dialog between us. We email each other
pretty regularly, maybe once a month. I’ll comment on his stuff; he’ll
comment on emails that he likes of mine. I was able to get an
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interview with him. I did a wonderful two part interview with him
that I have on my site. He has endorsed me through an email
broadcast to his list. He’s put me up on his blog and he’s given me a
wonderful testimonial that I can use to promote myself on my site.
That all became possible because I made a decision to do daily email.
If I didn’t do the daily emails, there’s a good chance he would never
have seen it, I would have never done it, he would have never emailed
back, and none of that would have happened. I can think back and
there’s probably twenty other instances where this has occurred. A lot
of my interviews occurred from doing initial emails. It’s a door
opener for new opportunities. I am sure you’ve got stories like that,
as well.
BEN SETTLE: Oh, yeah, I’ve gotten a ton of them – people I never
would have met otherwise, just because I’m doing these emails in a
fun, interesting way. People have got to understand. When you start
doing emails the way we’re talking about, you’re not just the regular
old run-of-the-mill marketer. All of a sudden, you’re somebody
people want to listen to.
You are not imposing on people by emailing them every day. It’s kind
of the highlight of their day. I mean, well, not in every case, but a lot
of people save them. They want to hear from you. You’re actually
doing them a disservice and kind of letting them down if they don’t
hear from you.
Attach some value to yourself because you’re doing good out there.
You’re out there helping people and kind of showing people how to
solve their problems. You’re doing good. There’s nothing to hide.
Don’t hold back.
Yeah, be proud of what you do. Stand behind your product. Don’t be
ashamed of it. If you’re really proud of it and you’re selling a good
service or a good product, that enthusiasm, it’s contagious and that
just shows you stand behind what you’re offering and what you’re
selling. That’ll translate to your readers and you’ll get more sales.
You’ll get more of what you want.
How can one determine the best time and day to send emails for the
best response?
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BEN SETTLE: The first thing you don’t want to do, I say this as a
warning to everybody is you don’t want to sit there and follow the
Internet guru list. They’ll sometimes tell you what time is the best
time to send it out. You don’t want to follow that method necessarily
without testing it yourself because – for example, there was a time
when people were saying that 5:00 a.m. EST is the best time, that’s
when you’re going to get the best response. This was a few years ago.
Everybody was saying it. 5:00 a.m. – it was just parroted around –
nobody actually tested it. I don’t know which guru said it, but
somebody said it. That was it.
Well, guess what happened? All of a sudden, everybody’s getting
emails at 5:00 a.m. Does that help your chances or hurt your chances
of getting your email opened? The point is, is there a best time? You
could test this. I just don’t spend time testing all this stuff. Again, if I
had a bigger list, and maybe in the future I will, I would probably test
this because I think it would make a difference. You just never know.
If you’ve got a lot of customers in certain countries, in other
countries, it could make a big difference. You’ll never know unless
you test it. But even then, if you’re going to test it, keep testing it,
ongoing, because that’s something that could change on a dime.
Because all of a sudden, if you have competitors who are on your list
as a marketing spy, they may start doing exactly what you’re doing
and diluting the effect of whatever they’re seeing you do.
I don’t personally get all caught up in it right now, but I could see
why somebody might. If you’re doing a huge list and you’ve got a
really good back-end in place, and every sale can really make a
difference – I mean, test it. That’s actually the only way to find out.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah. I would say it depends on what you’re
doing. If you’re just doing an email series and you’re not doing any
kind of hard selling or promotion for a product, I think it doesn’t
really matter. I do think you shouldn’t be sending your emails out the
exact same time.
There is a very well-known marketer and I’ve been on his list for
years, and he sends his email out every Sunday evening. At the time I
get it, every Sunday evening, I never really have time to read it. So
his whole list has been getting that email every Sunday evening– it’s
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his weekly email. Now I think that’s a mistake. I think he should
change it up. I think you should change up the time you send your
daily emails because again, your list is a moving parade, but mix it up
and you’re going to hit parts of your list at different times where
they may be more receptive.
One thing I wouldn’t do is if I’m going to be selling something
through an email promotion, and let’s say, my list is all within the
United States, I wouldn’t send that email out at 3:00 in the morning. I
want it to go to where there are as many eyeballs in front of the
computer or in front of their phones where they get it, and they can
open it and they can read it. If everyone is sleeping, then I’ve got to
wait until in the morning when they can download all their emails,
and 20 or 30 emails come down and mine’s just in the list of 20 or 30
ones.
I don’t want to be there in the morning. I want to get my offer or my
email in front of them where there’s not a pile of emails waiting to be
opened before the first thing in the morning. So that’s something to
think about as well. If you have an auto-responder that allows you to
segment your list, a lot of auto-responders know exactly where the
email servers are, and you can create segments of your list. You can
have a list for different time zones and then email those different
sections of your list appropriately. There is a lot you can do
in segmentation with a good auto-responder series, but certainly, I
think a variety is the best way to go.
Ben, what should new marketers expect for open rates and click-
through rates for various types of audiences, hot leads, previous
clients, cold leads, those who have opted in because of an offer, et
cetera?
BEN SETTLE: There is absolutely no answer to this question. It
can’t apply to everybody all the time. There are so many factors
outside of my control or your control or anyone else’s control that can
affect these things. There is no answer to that. All you can do is put
your emails out there, see what the response is, and if you want a
better response, test something against it. There is no magic time.
This is one reason I rail against everyone wanting to know
everybody’s conversion rate. It doesn’t matter what someone else’s
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conversion rate is. They may not even be going aggressively for a
sale. For example, they may be trying to get people to a blog post
every day so that they’ll comment on a blog post and then maybe get
better search engine rankings.
These are things that I don’t do, but I know people who do that.
There’s no right or wrong answer to any of this stuff. There’s no
answer to that. You could do phenomenally well. You could do one
per cent open rates.
Something else about all these conversion rates and open rates, one
time I went through this Paul Hartunian course on how to get
publicity. He goes, “Don’t worry about your conversion rates. It
doesn’t matter. What was your overall profit? Would you rather get
10% of the people to open your email and make $100, or would you
rather get 5% of the people opening your email and making $500?”
I mean, it really doesn’t matter in the end; it’s what was your profit? I
think people should focus more on that. I’m not saying there’s no
value in looking at all these open rates and click-through’s and all
that. You can get some good intel from that, but, at the end of the day,
what’s putting food on your table? It’s sales.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How many emails are too many per week or
per day etc? What’s your opinion on that?
BEN SETTLE: That again depends on your market. As long as
you’re talking about their problems and you’re in their world. You
cannot go wrong. You cannot bore someone who’s got, for example, a
urinary tract infection. There’s nothing you can say to that guy about
urinary tract infections and different ways of curing urinary tract
infections that they’re not going to be glued to wanting to hear more
about. If somebody is really suffering from something you can’t talk
to them enough.
But if you’re just talking to a general audience and they’re not really
as hot a prospect or maybe they’re just not as hot as a market for
whatever reason. You might not want to overload them with too many
emails. You’ve really kind of got to gauge it on what’s profitable and
what’s not. If sending that second or third email out is getting you
sales and it’s worth it to do it then I see no reason not to do it. Maybe
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there is a limit and maybe there’s not. But that’s always going to be
determined by each individual situation.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Here’s another question -- When I first started
to receive your emails I felt they were too many and too often.
However, my view has changed slightly. I believe it’s important to
stay connected and therefore not forgotten. I guess that’s one of the
secrets. However, I’m also aware that in Australia, we market
differently. Recently, I launched my second business I sold the first
one six years ago and much has changed, particularly with social
media and the use of the internet.
My target market is predominantly married female parents
approximately 86% between the ages of 27 years up to baby boomers.
In my first email newsletter sent out in October, 2010, I included
several calls to actions which included a year of home delivered
flowers and I didn’t receive one response. As a new portrait
photography business in Sydney Australia how am I able to get my
readers to target market to respond to my newsletter and my email
marketing approach?
BEN SETTLE: I’d have to see the guy’s emails. I’d have to see more
about his market. I don’t know a whole lot about that market
personally. Maybe they just don’t want what he’s selling. A lot of
times people get into the business because they want to sell
something instead of finding a problem to solve. I’m not saying that
is necessarily the case with this guy because I know of at least one
person who’s in his business. He’s not in Australia but in America
who does extremely well sending direct mail letters with just a
simple offer.
There’s just no way I can answer that because I don’t know enough
about his market. His emails may have totally sucked for all I know.
They may have turned off these people, we just don’t know. Maybe
the market in Australia is just different from the one I’ve seen in the
United States. There’s so many ways to look at this but without
information I just can’t answer.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah. How did he acquire the emails? Where
did they come from? How did he get them on the list? What was the
offer? What did he tell them? There are too many variables I agree.
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How do you walk the fine line between being a persistent marketer
and annoying pest?
BEN SETTLE: This is a good question. I think this goes back to that
Dean Kennedy story. Remember the one where his house was on fire.
He didn’t know it and he was on the phone and he’s ignoring this guy
who’s banging on this door to get his attention. He just thinks he’s an
annoying pest. Until he realizes the house is on fire and the guy’s
trying to help him. And he went from being an annoying pest to a
welcomed guest. I think that’s the best story that you can ever study
for this.
You have to be the answer to their problems. As long as you’re the
answer to their problems and you’re in their world talking about their
pains, their hopes, their desires and what they’re going through in
their lives... you’re not going to be an annoying pest you’re going to
be a welcome guest. But if you just go out there guns blazing with
another sales pitch day after day after day or more of the same old
thing they’re getting from everyone else you do run the risk of being
an annoying pest.
So you have to really sit down with your knowledge of your market
and say “What do these guys want and then how can I give it to
them?” And just do thatand you won’t be a pest. It’s impossible to be
a pest to someone if you have a solution to a problem that’s really
bothering them.
MICHAEL SENOFF: That’s excellent, yup. Ben, have you found a
certain day of the week where your open clicks and conversions are
higher?
BEN SETTLE: This is a very good question. Every time I think
something is certain way I find out it’s not. I’ve been told never do a
sale that lasts longer than a few days or four days. Yet I’ve done sales
that have lasted seven days or two weeks.
Generally speaking I don’t know if there’s a better day or not to sell
on. Let’s say that I have done a bunch of testing in this and I have
done some testing in this actually. But let’s say that I was the expert
at this and I did this all the time. My test results would still be
irrelevant to you because my market is going to be different. The way
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I market to them is going to be different. They’re already hearing
from me every single day that sort of thing.
A lot of times people will say nobody buys on Mondays I get a lot of
sales on Mondays. Where are you selling? If you’re selling how to
make money stuff Monday’s might be a good day because what
happens Monday morning? They’re sick of their job and they’re
dreading the week. Here’s an offer from me to get out of this job and
on my own. That might be the best message they can hear. You might
be selling something that won’t appeal to them until another day of
the week or not have as much appeal and it won’t matter either way.
This all comes down to your unique market and if you’re going to test
then test it. That’s really the only way to find out.
MICHAEL SENOFF: It’s interesting. I’ve done about fifteen or
sixteen of these promotions where I sold $20 products. Probably on
90% of them I did them on the weekends and on holidays. I had great
results with them. I would do them on a Friday afternoon or just all
Saturday and Sunday. Those are times when you think most people
aren’t in front of their computer. They’re doing stuff on the weekend
or they’re not really checking their email but that’s proven wrong.
I’ve done well with these on a weekend. Even on Thanksgiving. You
did it and you were doing it on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
BEN SETTLE: You know what. My original email course launch or
maybe it was the second one... I did last July Independence Day week
-- it was a weeklong launch. Everyone said “Don’t do that you should
do it over three days.” I said “Screw them.” I did it over one week and
ended on July 4th Independence Day here in America. And most of
my sales came the first day and the last two days including on
Independence Day. When everyone is out supposedly eating and
ignoring their emails and during the weekend I got all my sales. You
can’t believe what everybody says.
Whenever somebody says something’s a rule or then that rule is going
to be proven wrong. I’m a big fan of doing these holidays and
weekends. Why not go after people when nobody else is?
MICHAEL SENOFF: Right the stores are closed. People are just
brainwashed into thinking that no business is happening on these
holidays. Except maybe the grocery store.
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BEN SETTLE: Black Friday is not a bad weekend to do a sale, but
why not do a pre-Black Friday sale where you do it the week before
and pre-empt everybody else? You can think around this stuff too.
There are no real rules to any of this.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Next question... Do you see a spike in your
unsubscribes on days when you send out multiple promotional emails
on one day?
BEN SETTLE: I’ll answer that in a second. But I’m kind of
concerned about why everyone’s worried about unsubscribes. It seems
like every other question they’re worried about unsubscribes. Why
are they worried about people who don’t want to hear from them?
You should be happy when somebody unsubscribes they’re just not
into the topic as someone who is going to buy. Again you and I sell a
similar product. Let’s say I’ve got people on my auto-responder but
they’re really not entrepreneurs. They’re just looking around and
they’re not going to do anything. And they know they’re not going to
do anything and they unsubscribe that’s a good thing. You don’t want
to bother this guy if he’s not into it. If he doesn’t have a problem that
I’m trying to solve. That’s all that’s happening when somebody
unsubscribes they don’t see you as the solution to their problem. That
could have nothing to do with you whatsoever. So don’t worry about
the unsubscribe.
As for seeing a spike no, I haven’t actually. That’s kind of surprised
me more than anybody. If you’re doing this the right way and if
you’re segmenting your list correctly, you’ll probably have less
unsubscribes from your segmented list then you will from your main
list anyways. I don’t think you’ll get too many if you do it the right
way.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I will say this on some of my promotions I
have looked at the unsubscribes. If I do a promotion where I’m going
to promote and do five emails in one day, one of my countdown
emails like seven hours left, five hours left, two hours and twenty
minutes. I do see an increase in unsubscribes. People just aren’t plain
used to seeing five emails in five or six hours. It’s so out of the
ordinary and especially from a marketer. It kind of shocks them. I
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have to admit you are going to lose some people. But at the same
time I’m going to gain sales as well.
So you’ve got to ask yourself and it’s kind of a hard question to ask
especially with the questions here of people worried about
unsubscribes. I don’t want people to unsubscribe but I also
understand what my mission and purpose is. It’s to generate an
income and promote and sell products so I can continue on with my
business. So you’ve got to take the good with the bad. You can’t have
it both ways. You can’t promote hard and generate sales and not have
some unsubscribe. You’re not going to make everyone happy. Some
people are going to get irritated and they’re going to unsubscribe and
you may not see them again ever. But at the same time if you want to
please all those people then don’t do anything. If you don’t do
anything you’re not going to get any sales. So you’ve got to decide
what’s important.
Next question... Do questions work best for open rates in the subject
line?
BEN SETTLE: They can in some cases and in some cases they
won’t. This goes back to email not being like a static webpage that
you keep sending people to. So my opinion and this is just based on
probably writing several thousand emails certainly at least two
thousand emails over the last couple of years, you have to keep it
interesting and different. If you send every email out with a question
subject line, that’s going to get old really, really quick to people. I’m
not saying you could never get away with that. I’m just saying
generally speaking that you kind of want to keep it mixed up and
interesting.
Think of those variety pack cereal boxes you get, you know you can
get like five or six different kinds of cereal in those little boxes or
you can get a big box of Fruit Loops or something. People tend to like
the little variety thing. They like something different every day. They
want to have an adventure and everyday should be like “Gee! What is
this one going to be about? Man, what’s he got cooked up for me
today or what’s she up to today?” and if you write a question for
every single subject line, that could ruin that effect.
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So I do think it’s a good way to do it and especially if you can make it
very curiosity provoking, but don’t overdo it. I’m very cautious to
give advice from some of these things because I don’t want people to
just take something and say “Oh! That’s how you do it” and they’re
going to do it with everything. You don’t want to look at it that way.
You always want to be playing and experimenting and having funwith this. There is no right or wrong answer to any of these questions.
MICHAEL SENOFF: And it’s like you know, you like ice cream. So,
you know, ice cream for dessert tonight would be really good but, ice
cream for dessert tomorrow night would be pretty good, but not as
good as last night and ice cream for dessert a third night in the row,
it’s going to start getting old, it’s the same.
BEN SETTLE: It’s like you’re watching the exact same episode of a
TV show every day. It might have been entertaining the first time,
maybe the second time, but you got to be paranoid about this stuff.
You know if you bore someone just one time, that could be it, you
could lose a buyer.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What’s the best source for new headlines that
you’ve ever found?
BEN SETTLE: I don’t know if this is the best source but I have
found it very useful and if you go to the Yahoo’s home page, you’ll
see little teaser news headlines. Some of them are really stupid but
some of them are actually surprisingly good and I’ve gotten a lot of
inspiration from them, just adapting those to whatever I’m writing
about on a specific day. So, I think Yahoo actually just the front page,
you’ll see it right there, is a great way to do it or drudgereport.com is
another one, which is very widely read and I think it’s the most
read news website in the world. You know that they’re using
headlines that are tapping into people’s interest; you can also play
around with some of those headlines too.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Money headlines aren’t too bad either.
BEN SETTLE: They’re pretty good. They tease you. They’re good at
teasing people.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yes. So, look to some of the biggest
publishers out there and take a look at their headlines, their daily
headlines and take them and adapt. So, there are so many ideas for
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headlines. You know Amazon, go look at the titles of some of the
bestselling books on a certain category. Look at those headlines. You
should never have to be struggling for new headline ideas. 
Next question... How do I grab a person’s attention with a subject line
without being dismissed to spam?
BEN SETTLE: There are two answers to that. The first answer is to
get to the point where you are a welcomed guest and they’re not even
looking at your subject line, they’re just looking at your name and
opening it. “Oh! It’s from Michael Senoff, I’m opening it.” Yes the
subject line helps and all that, but really, they’re opening it every day
because of you. Besides that, I’m going to give somewhat
controversial advice here. In fact, I tried to write an article about this
on EzineArticles.com and I got rejected because they thought I was
crossing a line here.
So take this however you want but I think you should look at your
spam for ideas for subject lines and I’ll tell you why. Now most spam
is obviously spam, you don’t want to copy that, but every now and
then, there’s a very good chance you’re going to get spam that you
thought was legitimate just by the subject line. The subject line was
so good and was just so interesting and did not look like spam that it
got you to open it and yet it was spam and you don’t even know who
the sender was. That is a subject line that you want to take and dissect
and I’ve actually once wrote an email about all these subject lines I
got and “Do you want me to call some of these up and read them?”
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah do it.
BEN SETTLE: So, the subject line I used for the email was “Cool
open rate stats.” That does not sound like a spam at all. In fact, that
sounds like something I would get from a colleague or from a list I
have just because of the market I’m in. I mean, Michael if you got an
email that said “Cool open rate stats” that wouldn’t sound like spam
to you probably.
MICHAEL SENOFF: No, not really.
BEN SETTLE: You kind of want to know. So I actually used that as a
title of my email for that day and then what I did was I listed some
spam subject lines I thought were kind of interesting. The ones that
actually got me to open, I saved them and here are some of the ones,
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“A clearly good marketing plan” that was a subject line I got. I mean
that does not sound like spam. To someone in the business or an
entrepreneur, that’s actually interesting.
Another one was”Tell, don’t sell.” Now anybody interested in email
would probably open that. Another one was when your video is not
viral, people who are interested in video or marketing and that sort of
thing and understand viral thing and they want to know more about it
probably would open that. Another one was “Dumb it up people.”
You know, that sounds like an email subject line that I would actually
come up with, I would say dumb it up just for a contrast effect.
Another one, podcasting is easier than you think. Another one was a
gentle step in the Web 2.0 and then the last one was the SEO Rapper.
So I admitted I opened those. I did not buy whatever was in it. But the
point is if you get spam or any kind of junk mail that normally you
wouldn’t open but it said something that just appealed you, open that
up and just dissect that subject line and see if you can’t use it for
what you’re doing. In a way you’re using spam legally to help sell
stuff with.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What words should I use in my subject line
that will make the email a must read for readers?
BEN SETTLE: This is going to vary based on your list in your
market. There are things I can say to my list that will turn off your
list and vice versa. Author Dale Carnegie wrote How To Win Friends
and Influence People and I think he said something that really sums
this up.
So it’s not like I’m making fun of anyone, but I might like strawberry
short cake. That may be a very good meal to me, but when I’m going
fishing for catfish it makes a terrible bait. They want worms and
stinky chicken livers or whatever and it’s the same thing when you’re
email marketing. What words that work for my list is irrelevant to
what will work for your list.
It really just depends on your market and how well you know it. Get
in their world. Find out what words they respond to. For example if
there are magazines that they read, and this won’t always be the case
with every market, but if there’s magazines, look at the cover
headlines that are appealing to these people. Like you were saying
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before; look at the Amazon book bestseller list. Those titles are
obviously being bought. I’m not saying to use those titles word for
word necessarily but they’re tapping into something.
Another really good place to get good verbiage for your subject lines
is if you look at the reader reviews of books that are sold in your
market and in fact, this is something that people who do freelancing
can save them a lot of time. If you’re trying to learn a new market
that you’re not familiar with, go to the bestselling books in that
market and read all the user reviews. The negative ones and the
positive ones and you will see what these people complain about. You
will see the exact words they use. I mean it is the biggest shortcut to
learning this stuff you’ll ever have, but do it with your own market
too. You might find interesting turn of phrases you can use in your
emails and your subject lines or in the body or whatever and just start
making a note of all these things. Maybe even write them down and
just start using those, I think that’s a good way start with that.
MICHAEL SENOFF: On average, how many email headlines or
subject lines do you write out before you decide on the one that you
will use?
BEN SETTLE: You know some days I start with the subject line, I
already know what that’s going to be. Most days, I don’t. Most days, I
have to write the email first and then I try to figure out a subject line
from there. Sometimes, I only have to write one down, sometimes, I
have to write five to ten before I’m happy. My personal goal is to not
spend more than 15 to 20 minutes on an email.I’m always in a hurry because I’m a big believer in the concept that
money is attracted to speed and that if I spend an hour on email, I
may not make much more money than I would if I spent 20 minutes
on an email. If you’re sending out an email and you’re going to be
doing a launch or a special sale or you really want to make a sale of
something, you might want to spend a lot more time than I would
spend on a subject line. I’ve done that before and you may even want
to do some split testing, but if you’re just doing daily emails just to
get something out there so you can move on with the rest of your day,
I don’t really see any reason to obsess over it. Just try to do your best,
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get something down and you’ll find out by the way the market
responds to your email if it was a good subject line or not.
Now, this is where testing open rates can actually come in handy. Play
around with different subject lines and words and all that sort of
thing, but there’s also a seasonal aspect of subject lines that I think
people should take into consideration. If I write an email about the
Grinch’s marketing secrets -- and I have -- that’s going to get
probably a lot more opens during the Christmas season than it would
in July. My point is that subject line that doesn’t work today might do
better tomorrow, you just don’t know. 
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah that’s a good point and you know that’s
taught in publicity. I’m sure Paul Hartunian teaches that when you’re
sending out press releases, you know the headline of your press
release, which is equal to the subject line of your email, your email
really is a little press release to your list and tying it in to events
where you can piggy back off of news. You know if you had the
subject line with that word Egypt in there with all the stuff that’s
going on over in the Middle East or you tie into the state of the union
address from last week.
You’re piggy backing off of all that publicity, all that news the media
outlets and Reuters and all of them have spent a lot of money and a
lot of effort getting out to the public. That could also help your open
rates as well. So that’s a good strategy, piggy backing on news and
holidays and things that everyone knows as related to a certain time
of the year. Then what email headlines do you use the most to get the
person who receives the email to open it up? I, myself erase most of
the emails I receive. I wonder why your emails do, Michael
Senoff hardly ever get erased from my email inbox. What’s the magic
formula?
BEN SETTLE: The reason that person’s not erasing your email is
because he already knows likes and trusts you. This goes back to he’s
probably not always even caring too much about the subject lines at
that point. You’re already that welcomed guest. If you have a good
friend and he stops by your house, in some cases, he can just walk in
and you’re not going to care. When that person was a stranger, he has
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to knock on the door first and try to tell you why he needs to come in
for whatever reason. This is how it is with email too.
If you’re already a welcomed guest and a friend to that person in their
mind, they’re at least probably going to open your email and maybe
scan it. They may not read every word of it. They may not even care
about it one way or the other depending on what they’ve got going on
that day. But I would assume that guy is at the point where he just
trusts you and likes you and he wants to hear from you.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Next question... How do you test your
headlines?
BEN SETTLE: The way you can test your headline is you got to have
a big enough list, we already talked about that. I mean if you have a
small list of 500 people and you’re testing your headlines, you’re not
getting a statistically relevant result, especially when you consider
that not everybody’s opening your emails. I’m not saying it’s a total
waste of time, but you’re not going to get a real test result as if you
have 10,000 emails going out. So really what you can do is you take
your list, take a thousand people or 2,000 people, it just depends
how many you want to test. Take another thousand or 2,000 people,
make it an equal amount. Send one email with one subject line to one
side of the list, take the same email, but a different subject line, send
that to the other thousand people, track the sales and see which one
brought in the most sales. If you wanted to test open rates, then you
would just look at which one got the most open rates. pretty easy.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Why won’t people opt-out if they’re not going
to open or read emails they receive?
BEN SETTLE: Probably because they’re not reading them. They’re
just either deleting them on site or those emails are getting shunted to
a spam filter and they’re never seeing it or they signed up for your
list with a little throw away hotmail account or something and they
don’t even know your emails exist. So they’re not going anywhere but
they’re not buying anything either.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Here’s the next question... Everyday many
strangers send emails making claims about seven figure incomes and
the question is how do you separate the truth from the fiction?
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BEN SETTLE: I don’t believe anything anybody says. I don’t know
why anybody does, unless it’s Robert Kiyosaki or Donald Trump
sending the mail out or something like that. They’re claiming seven
figures I don’t believe it. This might be due to the fact that I’ve
written ads for these so called seven figure marketers and they don’t
even make seven figures. They’re lying through their teeth. Or maybe
they made it once. Or maybe they made a million dollars total over
ten years but of course they’ve blown it all.
I had one client and I’m not going to name who he is. Who claims
even today to be a multi-millionaire internet marketer? Yet he
couldn’t afford an $8,000 copywriting fee. You have to look at these
things. Don’t trust anybody. This is a good rule of thumb. Don’t trust
me. Don’t trust Michael. Don’t trust anybody; make us prove
ourselves to you. Make us prove it however we can. If we’re doing
email the right well then we’ll prove it to you. Otherwise just assume
that people are lying. That sounds kind of cynical but I think it’s a
good way to kind of cut through the crap and the hype.
MICHAEL SENOFF: When emailing someone you don’t know for
the first time how do you get them to open your email?
BEN SETTLE: If you brought them in the right way where they
opted in because a) you’re offering them something like a video or a
report. Some bribe to get them into your list which is perfectly okay.
We all do it. Or maybe they just like reading your stuff or they like
what you’re doing on your site. They want to opt in because they want
to be part or your world. They’re going to know who you are. If
you’re asking this question it makes me wonder if you’re buying
leads again that don’t know you.
Once again if you’re emailing to someone who doesn’t know you, you
have a problem there. It’s an uphill battle. Now there are times when
maybe you haven’t mailed the list in years or something. You’re
unknown to them. I think we discussed that earlier in this call already.
There are ways to kind of get their attention.
One of the things you can do is just be blatantly honest. I know I
haven’t written you in a while. Don’t hype them up. Don’t try to
overwhelm them with big claims thinking that’s going to impress
them it’s not. Think about if you’re approaching someone you haven’t
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seen in a few years at a social gathering. You don’t know if they
remember you or not. You’re not wearing name tags or anything. I
mean you’d go up to them and you’d be calm and use a little tact and
a little class and start a conversation. It’s no different with email.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What’s the quickest way to become
indispensable to your email customers?
BEN SETTLE: Justbe that person that they want to hear from
everyday. Be the one person who doesn’t lie to them, who doesn’t con
them, who doesn’t exaggerate things, who doesn’t promote anything
just because they want to make quick money and don’t care if the
product actually helps anyone. That’s a big one by the way. You’ve
got to treat your customer like they’re gold because they are gold.
That list is the lifeblood of your business. You’ve got to treat them
with respect. Even if it means you’re not going to make as much
money at certain times. Too bad you’ve got to put them first.
You should always be thinking about them. Remember we talked
about staying in their world. Keep thinking about what it is they want.
What problems they have. Stay in their world and talk to them about
it. Empathize with them a little bit. When you find something you
want to sell to them whether it be one of your products or somebody
else’s, you make sure it’s the best possible solution you’ve used
yourself ideally, and that you have benefited from yourself too.
They’ll appreciate that because you’ll be the person that’s not out
there yanking their chain all the time just to make a buck.
MICHAEL SENOFF: When you write your email do you need to
write keeping in mind about the spam filters? Do you write around
the spam filters?
BEN SETTLE: That’s a very good question. When you’re writing
your first draft of an email don’t worry about it. Just don’t even
worry about that just write it. Any good email system has this thing
called SpamAssassin where they will look at your email when you
type it in there. It will compare it against what the ISP spam filters
are looking for and all that. It will give you an indication if you’re
going too far or not. Here’s the interesting thing and this is a really
interesting question that we’re just getting this today.
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Just this morning I’ve been writing a bunch of emails for a client on
how to make money and debt elimination. There are very few ways to
word these things without using the word millions or millions of
dollars. The book title actually has the word million in it.
The client says “Let’s run this through spam assassin and make sure
we’re going to get these through.” I took six emails and I even put the
word millionaire in the subject line. I just put them all in one email
and I saved it in Aweber just to see what it would show me. There
were only two words that got flagged. My opinion is and I can’t prove
this, I think spam filters are getting smarter and more sophisticated
and I don’t know if they’re using algorithms or what. But I think this
is good for the rest of us. I think they’re getting better at figuring out
what’s spam and what’s a legitimate thing that’s not full of hype and
nonsense.
So I’m not as paranoid about spam filters as maybe I was a few years
ago. Again if you’re using a reputable auto-responder company like
you should be using Aweber or 1ShoppingCart or whatever you use,
they should all have the spam assassin function in it. You can just run
it through there. But when you’re writing that original email don’t
worry about that stuff. Because you don’t want to self edit as you
write. You just want to get it done and you can edit it later. If there are
words you need to take out that’s fine. It will tell you what words you
need to take out. Don’t worry about it too much as you’re writing.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How is email marketing different from social
media marketing?
BEN SETTLE: I’m not the expert on social media. But let’s say
you’re using FaceBook pages and that sort of thing which I’ve used. I
see absolutely no difference. I mean you’re still using the same
principles. If there’s any difference I don’t know what they are.
You’re still talking to your own audience. You’re still having to
respect their time. You’re still talking about what’s interesting to
them.
If you do it right you’re not going to be coming off as some kind of
scam artist who everybody just ignores. Even if you’re selling
something, if you do emails the way we talked about in this course
you’re going to be interesting enough where they don’t mind. It’s not
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like it’s a big deal that you pitch something. In fact they should have
gotten some kind of value even if it was just reading an interesting
story about someone who was going through a problem they’re going
through. They should have gotten some kind of value from reading it
anyway so I don’t see much difference.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Is writing for mobile emails different then
regular emails? I think they’re referring to mobile phones.
BEN SETTLE: I don’t see any difference. I’ve been told this is
before I had an iPhone. I finally got one a few months ago. Six
months ago I wouldn’t have been very qualified to answer this. But I
have not noticed any difference other than the fact that it might be
harder to respond to an offer or something on an iPhone or a smart
phone.
But other than that I don’t see a whole lot of difference. I do know
one thing and I don’t know if it’s always going to be this way. This
one guy told me after I sent a YouTube video out, ”It’s a good thing
you sent us to a YouTube video because on this phone I can’t watch
internet video. It won’t look right unless it’s YouTube.” That’s
something to keep in mind if you’re going to send somebody to a
video.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Is email marketing on the decline?
BEN SETTLE: There are certainly a lot less people using it all the
sudden because of social media. And this is good for the rest of it. I
think it’s funny when people say email marketing is dead. FaceBook
is going to kill it. You hear all these wild wacky things. Nobody is
going to read email anymore. I just don’t see that happening. What
does the average person do the first thing when they get up in the
morning? They go and they check their email. I guarantee they’re
checking their emails before they’re checking their FaceBook
account. Or if they want to get their FaceBook or other social media
stuff it usually comes through their email anyway. So they’re
checking their emails on average two, three, four, ten and twenty
times a day maybe more. Maybe there’s some super disciplined
people who don’t. People who don’t use computers at all they’re not
in your market anyway. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think it’s’
more important than ever before to know how to stand out the way
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we’re talking about. People are realizing that the responses aren’t
what they used to be. And what they’re trying to do is yell louder and
scream louder. And it’s kind of like these TV commercials. I don’t
know if you noticed this Michael. You turn on the TV and the
commercials get really loud all the sudden?
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yes.
BEN SETTLE: It’s kind of like that with email and all direct
response. They think that by yelling louder and being more obnoxious
and bigger claims and being more overpowering they think that’s
what’s going to do it. I think those are the people that have something
to worry about. If people are doing it the way we’ve been talking
about where you’re treating it like a talk radio show and it’s
interesting and entertaining... it’s something they want to read... even
if you end up in their spam filter a lot of them are going to seek you
out. They may even email you and they’ll say “I haven’t been getting
your emails.” Then you just tell them you’re in their spam filter or to
use a more reliable email address or something. The point is
they want to hear from you if you do it right. So I don’t know any
other medium that will do this for you unless you have your own talk
radio show or something like that.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What is the most important part of email
marketing regarding making money?
BEN SETTLE: That’s kind of a doozy of a question. I have an
opinion on this. I think if you asked ten different people you’d get ten
different answers to this. In my opinion the most important aspectis I
think infotainment. I think mixing information with entertainment is
the single most important thing that you can do with your email,
because entertainment will sell whether you have something valuable
to give away or not. I think about people who are on the street they’ll
be dancing or playing a guitar or something. People are tossing them
money. They’re not providing any value to anybody they’re just being
entertainers. Entertainers make a crap load of money. Teachers really
don’t make a lot of money.
But I think that if you can combine the authority of someone who can
teach on a subject with the celebrity power of someone who knows
how to entertain and keep people interested... I think it’s a huge
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powerful force when using an email. It almost makes you
unstoppable. No one can really compete with you. It’s funny people
will try to compete with you and they might try to reverse engineer
what you’re doing. But they don’t understand it. They don’t
understand really what you’re doing. In fact, their instincts are telling
them that you’re doing something wrong and that they can do it
better. So in my opinion it’s infotainment that doesn’t make me right
necessarily this is just my opinion.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What are the steps to generate profitable and
sustainable email campaigns for marketing clients?
BEN SETTLE: Just last fall I wrote a hundred emails for one client. I
wrote another fifty emails for the up-sell product. Now I’m writing a
whole bunch more emails for them. All I do is follow what we’ve
been teaching here and the proven secrets in my Street-Smart Email
system.
MICHAEL SENOFF: If you get good at this you’ve got a valuable
skill you can offer and a service that you can sell if you’re willing to
do it?
BEN SETTLE: Ideally that was the kind of clients I would be doing.
Unfortunately I can’t find too many clients who just want email. They
always want a sales letter and all this other stuff too which is
understandable. I actually almost had a chance to write emails for
Newt Gingrich.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What happened?
BEN SETTLE: You remember Matt Gillogly, don’t you?
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yes.
BEN SETTLE: Well he’s someone I met through FaceBook and we
setup a joint venture thing. He’s the one that set up that Art Hamel JV
and we all got paid on it all because of FaceBook. His company that’s
what they do they’re internet marketing done-for-you-services.
Someone in his company knows Newt Gingrich’s marketing guy or
something. They wanted to send out three emails a week selling his
products or getting donations or whatever. And Matt, I guess thought
highly enough of me to offer that to me if it went through. The deal
never went through unfortunately.
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MICHAEL SENOFF: Did you talk to them?
BEN SETTLE: They don’t know who I am. I just talked with Matt.
They were in negotiations and I’m not even a big fan of Newt
Gingrich or anything. But man, that would have been a sweet gig.
This is valuable for anyone that wants to do this. That would have
been a fee of $3,000 or $4,000 a month plus I was asking for a small
cut of the sales generated by my emails. What I was asking wasn’t
even that much.
MICHAEL SENOFF: And you could say you wrote for Newt
Gingrich.
BEN SETTLE: That’s a huge one but it didn’t happen. It doesn’t
matter the point is there are gigs out there like that. There are people
looking for someone to write emails because it’s a mystery to people.
They just can’t figure it out. It’s definitely marketable.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What is the best way to outsource writing
emails that boosts client’s acquisition and retention?
BEN SETTLE: You don’t want to cheap out on this any more than
you want to cheap out on a brain surgeon. This is profit. So if you’re
going to outsource email you’ve got to be prepared to pay for it. You
see this a lot and you and I made this work for a little bit where
people would work just on commission. Some writers will do that and
some clients like that.
I have found that might work for the short term. It doesn’t tend to
work long term and the reasons are many. So I don’t really promote
that as a way to do it anymore. I think it’s better to get paid up front.
If you’re hiring someone just pay them upfront. I’m not saying don’t
work out a deal on contingency. I’m just saying be careful with that
because I’ve seen it fail too many times. There are so many forces at
work that can make these things fail so you’ve got to be careful. So
pay them good but don’t expect them to work for free for you just
on commission or anything like that.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Email is obviously brilliant for most types of
companies but how can a one person business like a painter or plaster
or builder or plumber use it to build their business?
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BEN SETTLE: You can definitely use email for that. I think email
can and should be used by people like that. Think about it; let’s say
you’re a painter now not everybody needs their house painted or a
room painted or anything painted all the time. But you can start an
ezine on home improvement on something generalized that a lot of
people are interested in.
At the end of every issue which can be a daily or weekly or whatever
you can do you may plug your services. Most people say all painters
are the same. All lawyers are the same. And all doctors are the same.
Whether that’s true or not I’m not saying it is. That’s the perception
it’s called an assumption of competence and most professionals run
into this.
You can send out a daily ezine just talking about general home
improvement stuff or construction stuff whatever it is. You make a
little pitch for yourself every time. And you can also make
relationships with other people who sell other things and get paid by
commission if you sell their stuff. I wouldn’t even mind doing
something like that myself if I had to do it over. Because I think it
would be such a no-brainer.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Ben, I’m artist and I want to do a mailing to
get old customers to come back or give me referrals. Any ideas?
BEN SETTLE: Selling art is actually not as easy as it might seem.
One of the things that you can do is just a simple reactivation
campaign. Again, if you don’t have a list that’s used to hearing from
you all the time, this could take a while. It’s not hard to send an offer
out and just say look, send me a referral and I’ll give you XYZ. This
is almost as simple as sending a coupon out as we were talking about
earlier.
Give them a reason to give you a referral and they’ll probably do it. I
don’t know anything about that market – people who buy art. I just
know that people respond to rewards. If you reward somebody for
doing something, they’re more likely to keep doing it every time you
ask.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, and a good model for the rewards would
be give them a little bit of money. Just say that if you refer someone
to me, you’d be willing to pay X amount of whatever sells. A lot of
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people will go for that and some people may give you the referrals
regardless and they don’t even want money. Look, that’s what the
whole affiliate industry market is based on, you know? You refer
someone and you’re going to get paid for opening your mouth and
doing a referral.
Next question... I find stimulus and tax credits for commercial
property owners and manufacturers in the United States. Money these
folks never thought they had coming and I do it on a contingency
basis. If I find nothing, they pay nothing.
My main obstacle is trust building for them to sign the agreement as I
won’t do work for free. For example, when I do find something, I
need to have them sign and even though it clearly states if I find
nothing, they owe nothing, I still have this same issue. Perhaps some
training in email writing can better introduce myself and build
confidence with them to make me believable.
BEN SETTLE: There are a couple of things with this.First it sounds
to me like he wants to write cold emails to introduce his service to
people which to me is probably not the ideal way to do it. You’re
much better off maybe using a FedEx letter and sending it FedEx
really classy so they know you’re serious and all that. Let’s assume
that you can build a list of people who are commercial property
owners and manufacturers which is probably not hard to do. You just
have to go out and target them in your traffic campaign.
You get a list of people like that together joining your ezine that are
about ways for them to get money and finance their deal. You have an
ezine list about the general topic you do. At the end of each ezine
email or most of them, you can kind of plug yourself, look I can do
this for you, but I can do it where it won’t cost you any money blah
blah blah.
Now you have established trust, they are hearing from you on a
regular basis, you’re not a stranger and by the time they are ready to
contact you, they’re way more receptive to what you’re doing here
and you probably won’t have all these troubles.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I market an employment alternative to
government and get them off their payroll and on to mine. This can
save governments close to 30%. My question is should I
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direct prospects to our website only in the email message for further
information or sell them in the email message at the same time?
BEN SETTLE: I’ve never sold anything like this before. I do a
mixture of both. I think it’s better to have a nice good sales page on
the Internet on your website that you can test on a regular basis and
play with and it looks nice and professional and all that and you tease
people in an email about going to. At the same time, sometimes if
they are hearing from you regularly and if you can build a good
enough story around what you do, you can pitch it in an email every
now and then. I do it all the time. You just kind of have to feel it out.
It depends on what kind of email you are writing. Do both, I would
say.
MICHAEL SENOFF: We have 24 hotel rooms and an email list of
3,000. Unfortunately, we just do not have the time or resources to test,
but we have special offers. Would you recommend a mention in the
email with a link to the website or full details of the offers in the
monthly email?
BEN SETTLE: Well in that case, it’s simply a matter of just giving
people a reason to stay in your hotel whenever they are passing
through. I mean discounts, room discounts and that sort of thing,
coupons – I think there is a hotel called Courtyard or something like
that.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Courtyard by Marriott?
BEN SETTLE: Yeah, I think they do a lot of interesting offers and
that sort of thing. I would actually just sort of look at what they are
doing and mimic it.
MICHAEL SENOFF: They can use story techniques depending on
where they are, what are some of the features and nice restaurants
around the hotel, what are some reasons for people to come to your
city where your hotel is located. Are there amusement parks? Would
it make a nice vacation? Is there a beach? Sell the area, then oh, by
the way come to the area and stay at our hotel. Give them a reason to
stay at your hotel.
BEN SETTLE: Also, has any interesting celebrities stayed at that
hotel. You can kind of tap into that social proof that a famous person
has stayed there. It gives you a reason to tell a story if nothing else.
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Even on eBay, in fact, Michael, I think you’ve shown me eBay ads
that were built around just the stupid story about a celebrity.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Yeah, they are mystery auctions and they were
super popular – I haven’t checked into it lately. You don’t know
what’s actually for sale and you’re placing your bids in an auction
format based on this incredible story. It could be a box that’s closed –
like a cardboard box. Then the writer of the mystery auction doesn’t
release what it is, but concocts this whole story and based on the story
and some great writing and some great imagination, some of these
mystery auctions can go for a lot of money just based on curiosity.
Another question... I’m a licensed massage therapist and I just started
using email blasts to inform my clients of discounts and specials. I’m
not impressed with my headliners. What would you recommend for
body workers, such as myself? I need wording to lure them to open
my emails and to call me for an appointment.
BEN SETTLE: I think the same principles that we talked about
before about subject lines apply. There are so many ways to attack
this. You can use curiosity. Here is a good one too. If you’re dealing
with massage therapy, you can talk about painful things that people
go through right in the subject line. You know painful backs, painful
legs or whatever. There are just so many ways to hit this. You just
have to stick with the basics.
Tell a story and often times you’ll get your best subject lines just by
going through the email and picking out some interesting little tidbit
you’ve already written and use it to tease people. The one thing you
don’t want to do is be boring. As long as you are not boring, you’re
going to be fine. Put it this way, the first thing that comes to mind –
the wackiest stupidest thing that comes to mind, write it down and see
if you can’t use it as a subject line.
You might be surprised by how many people open something like that
because all they are getting all day is the same crap. They are just
getting things that say, last chance, 50% off – it’s always the same
thing. If you just do something interesting and unique and it’s just so
different that it stands out, people are going to open it and they are
going to enjoy hearing from you. You are becoming the highlight of
their day.
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MICHAEL SENOFF: Massage therapy is kind of like an intimate
profession in a way. Kind of like a hair dresser. When women go to
the beauty salon, the hair dresser is almost like their best friend. They
open up and they talk about anything and everything to their hair
stylist. I bet it would be the same thing. Just think back to all the
customers you’ve had and all the stories you hear and what brought
them in. Why are they there?
Then talk about those stories. Talk about some of the interesting
people you’ve met doing massage therapy and some of the stories
that brought them and the results that you brought for them. Then
make some kind of incentive or offer to get the readers of the emails
back in there. I can see tons of stories coming just from the existing
personnel. If you have your antennae up and you’re willing to listen.
MICHAEL SENOFF: How can I engage my readers but also get
them to buy from me on occasion? I try to follow the 80-20 rule –
80% content, 20% offer and they just don’t seem to respond like I
think they should.
BEN SETTLE: That’s because the 80-20 rule when it comes to email
is a complete fabricated myth. There are some people that I highly
respect in this industry who believe this and they’ll even say it’s like
90-10. It should be 90% content and 10% selling. I just don’t agree
with that. I think every email stands and lives and breathes on its
own. Some emails you may tell stories or maybe give some really
soft information away and have a really soft pitch at the end. Some
emails you’re going to want to be more aggressive. It just depends.
I’ll give you an example. I did an email yesterday to my own list and
it was about the benefits of using publicity. I simply told the story
about how I wrote a book about dogs and I didn’t have any expertise.
I’m not a dog trainer or a vet or anything. Yet, when I got on the radio
and I’m being interviewed, I had more creditability than all the vets
and the dog trainers did in people’s minds who were listening to me.
All because I got on the radio and I was the celebrity. They were
experts, but I’m the celebrity.
Anyway, the point is I told that story and it was somewhat useful. It
tellspeople the benefits of using publicity without teaching them how
to do it. Then I segued that story into a bonus that I give away when
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people join my print newsletter that will show them how to do it. You
can say that was pretty much a straight sales pitch but it didn’t read
like one because I followed the exact same principles we’ve been
teaching in this email. It’s not like I had a bunch of unsubscribes or
anyone complaining saying, “Hey quit sending me pitches!” Those
things don’t really come into play anymore when you follow these
principles. Just forget this 80-20 stuff or this 90-10 stuff. Don’t worry
about that.
Every day is a different email and some days you are going to push a
little harder, some days you are just not going to push at all. I think
you should plug something every time no matter what. I plug things
even though it really has no context to the rest of the email just so I
can put a link in there. If people get too caught up in these formulas
and everything, they are just going to trip themselves up. Don’t do
that, just go with your gut, start writing and see what happens.
MICHAEL SENOFF: What about copywriters who are listening to
this where they are looking not only to improve their email
correspondence to get more sales, but what about offering
email riding as a service for clients? You’re doing this right? Is there
some good money to be made for copywriters who want to add
another service or product to their product line?
BEN SETTLE: Yeah, once you learn this skill, it’s just so easy to
prove that it pays for itself. I don’t offer it anymore because I’m not
taking clients on at the moment. Last summer when I was talking to
this client I’m working with now, they kind of got me exclusively.
They wanted to hire me just to write a sales letter and I really wasn’t
all that interested in just doing a sales letter. I simply asked them,
“How are you guys on emails? Are you pulling the kind of response
you want?” He was like, “no not really, we’re not, can you do
emails?”
I told him how I write emails every day to my own lists and have
trouble beating my own controls because of it. He said “Really,
you’re talking my language” and he wanted to know more. We just
went into it from there. It is very easy to sell this as a service. Some
people are really just looking for an email copywriter. There are
people out there who know that they are not making nearly enough
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money with the emails as they should. They have big lists and it’s
absolutely a no brainer for anyone who goes through my course to
profit from a big list. If you want to hire yourself out as an email
writer, it’s so easy to show them samples because you’ll be doing this
everyday to your own list. You can show them the results you’ve
gotten. You can show them the sales you’ve gotten and the emails
you’ve written.
MICHAEL SENOFF: Starting out with your first clients, give me an
idea what a copywriter would charge. Do you charge per email to the
client? How does that work?
BEN SETTLE: I have not done it that way. I have not written too
many emails for clients. Again, we talked about the deal at Newt that
almost happened. The deal I was trying to get for that was a base fee
every month of I think $3,000 or something, just something that they
had some skin in the game every month. Then I was going to charge
them 5% or 10%, – I can’t remember what the number was – of each
sale generated by my emails which is very easy to track.
Mostly I’ve been doing it on these contingency deals with people
where I would get paid a portion of their overall sales in emails and
sales letters counted together of what I’d been doing. It’s not really
hard to go over there and charge per email if you want. If you know
what we’re teaching in this course and you can prove and show
people how much it’s making you personally to your own list, it’s like
selling money at a discount. It pays for itself whatever you charge. If
I was going to do this on a freelance thing, I would be charging at
least 3 to 5 grand a month just to keep me on retainer every month.
Then probably a percentage of sales on what those emails generate
which is easy to track with even the most basic tracking software.
MICHAEL SENOFF: I remember in the Matt Fury interview I think
his brother was doing emails for clients and charging like 150 bucks
an email or something like that.
BEN SETTLE: Yeah, he was getting paid about $8,000 a month just
doing them. If I was going to go back to just traditional freelancing, I
think I would just specialize in emails. The only problem is the
people that I’ve been working with kind of want everything. Let’s say
I was just starting out knowing what I know now. I would just be an
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email guy. I wouldn’t even screw with anything else because once
you’ve done enough of these; you’ll get to the point where you can
knock these things out in like 10 or 20 minutes. Thinking about that,
what if you’re getting paid a few thousand dollars a month or $5,000
a month or $8,000, whatever you charge just to sit down for a half
hour a day and knock an email out.
It’s just crazy the leverage you have and to them it looks very hard. It
is hard, if you don’t know what you’re doing, this is hard work. When
you know what you’re doing and you’ve just done it every day, day in
and day out, ideas just start flowing to you. You don’t even think.
Right now I’m writing an email series for this one client that I work
with and I have to sit down and write a series of 50 emails. I will have
those 50 emails done by the end of next week and it won’t even strain
me because I can do five to ten a day without even really
thinking about it.
As long as I know the market and as long as I’m confident enough
about the subject to talk about it every day, that’s all you need. You’re
just talking about their pains and the things that they’re going
through. You don’t have to necessarily be teaching in these emails.
You do want to do a little bit. Just give a little bit of meat which
you’re already doing in the stories you tell and all that sort of thing.
Really it’s just knowing what their complaining about and what’s
making them painful.
You’re just talking about their crab grass. At the end of the email
you’re showing them where the weed killer is. It’s really that simple.
Even in my system I show people exactly how to get all these ideas.
There’s a Q&A section at the end of it which answers all the most
frequently asked questions and it also goes through a lot of the
principles that are discussed in the course where people really absorb
these things.
The thing is that it’s not hard to get these ideas. All you have to do is
learn to capture them and start writing them down in a very specific
way which I describe in the course and you’ll never really have to
struggle for ideas because as you get ideas you’ll have them all in one
spot and you just open it up and you say what do I want to write about
today. It’s really that simple. If you’re writing for a client who is in a
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market similar to what you’re already writing to, you can even
recycle some of the ideas you’ve already written about. I’ve done that
many times and it’s just such a no-brainer easy thing to do. Emails to
me are really where it’s at.
 
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www.getwsodo.com
To get hundreds more email marketing tips like
this go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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http://www.bensettle.com/
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www.getwsodo.com
Selling from the Trenches
By Ben Settle
Copyright 2016-2017 by Ben Settle
 
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Selling from the Trenches
 Table of Contents
Mr. Spock’s Sales and Marketing “Nerve Pinch”
Proof 2.0: How to be Taken Seriously
Wolverine’s Marketing Secrets
How To Make Red Hot ColdCalls
The “Other” 80/20 Sales Rule
Head Games That Kill Your Marketing Mojo
Mr. Furley’s “Macho” Sales Tips
9 Dumb-Dumb Email Marketing Mistakes
Evil Crime Boss Reveals His Sales and Marketing Tips
Bizarro Marketing World
Beavis & Butthead “Do” Copywriting
Big Foot’s Big Sales Chops
Lazy Copywriters Have Skinny Kids
Rorschach’s “Finger Snapping” Sales Secret
What Never To Test in Your Ads
Stinky Sales Pitches
How To Sell Like a Big Dawg
Phantom Pooping Prospects
Why Customer’s Don’t Buy
The George Costanza School of Selling
Fonzie Rumbles with the Marketing Gurus
Why So Many Sales Pitches Suck
Exposed: The “Value is King” Myth
Why Buyers Are Liars
My Uncensored Opinion of NLP4
Why “Ninja” Marketers Get Their Butts Kicked
Shutting Commander McBragg’s Big Fat Yap
Pulp Fiction’s Hidden Marketing Lesson
The World’s Most Violent Marketing Tip
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Allergic to Selling
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Chapter 1
 - 
 Mr. Spock’s Sales and Marketing Nerve Pinch
Have you seen the new Star Trek movie?
Not to spill too much “geek juice” on you, but it’s a great flick.
And you know what?
You can learn a ton about sales and marketing just by observing
James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock. Kirk being the main honcho on the
spaceship in the TV show, and Spock being his pointy-eared first
officer.
How so?
Well, when you watch the movie you’ll notice…
1. Kirk’s an impulsive, “leap-before-looking” kinda dude.
2. Spock is the opposite – analytical, logical, and thorough.
And you want to know what?
In some ways, they represent every prospect you’ll ever sell to.
And if you want to give yourself a nice “leg up” in business, all you
do is recognize whether the person/people you sell to are Kirks or
Spocks.
For example:
Let’s put on our dorky pointy Vulcan ears and robes for a second, and
pretend it’s the year 2,300 (or whenever Star Trek takes place) and
you sell cool phaser ray guns and want a big old fatty Star Feet
weapons contract.
And you know you’re going to deal with either Kirk or Spock.
Well, I don’t know about you…
But I’d sell to Kirk way differently than to Spock.
For one thing, I’d much rather sell to Kirk.
After all, Kirk’s impulsive, energetic and, if you can make a decent
case, will buy without hardly any resistance. In fact, as long as you
appeal to his ego, you can slather your sales pitch with all the hype
and excitement you want – the more the merrier.
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Not so with Spock.
If you get stuck selling to Spock it’s a whole new game.
Spock isn’t going to respond well to a high energy, hypey pitch. He’s
going to require a lot more proof and “reason why”. And you also
better have a super logical presentation that flows without a bump or
a bobble.
Plus, Spock is going to ask many more questions.
He’s not going to tolerate any “winging it”, either. You either have
your stuff wrapped tight or he’ll give you a nerve pinch and eject you
off the ship!
Anyway, here’s the point: It ain’t easy selling to Spock. But selling to
Kirk is like taking candy from a baby.
Chances are, you’ll often have to deal with both.
If you “custom fit” your sales and marketing to appeal to one or the
other (depending on the situation), you’ll make more sales.
And live long and prosper (big time).
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Chapter 2
 - 
 Proof 2.0: How to Be Taken Seriously
Recently a friend of mine decided to jump online and see if he can’t
start his own Internet marketing thang.
So, he wrote an eBook, built a list, yada yada yada.
Then… Bam!
He hit a brick wall.
The exact same brick wall almost everyone hits – where nobody is
taking him seriously in his niche, nobody believes his claims (even
though they are true) and nobody seems to want his product.
“Ben, what am I doing wrong?” he asked.
He isn’t doing anything wrong. In fact, he’s doing everything right,
from what I can tell.
However, we live in an extremely jaded world now. Everyone is
selling something these days. Everyone has been screwed over by
someone (especially recently). And, let’s face it, what most people
sell really is “Grade A” crap.
Which just happens to affect everyone else.
So the question is, how do you not only deal with the jaded skeptics…
but turn their skepticism to your advantage?
Luckily, there are lots of ways to do it.
One of my favorites is good, old fashioned (offline) media publicity.
This is probably the fastest way to get “knighted” an instant expert
(and be taken seriously) ever invented.
And I’ll prove it to you right now.
In fact, I’ll even use myself as the example.
Once upon a time (couple years ago) I wrote a book about dogs.
It’s a fun little read, with lots of great tips.
Yet, my only “credentials” are I had owned a handful of dogs
throughout my life. I never had any formal dog training or veterinary
education. Heck, I’d never even so much as been to a dog training or
obedience class.
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In short, I have zero credibility in this niche.
But…
I do know how to get on radio shows. And each time I got on the air, I
was an instant expert. Not just because I’d written a book… but
because I was on a “for real” talk show on the radio talking about dog
training and health.
Joe Vet and Jane Trainer down the street weren’t.
And so, I was the authority without question. And when I was actively
selling the book, I made sure my advertising displayed the fact my
book was endorsed by radio talk show hosts (along with their
testimonials).
Think that added some weight to my claims?
You cannot fake that kind of credibility. And it makes you stick out
like a sore thumb.
Anyway, this is why I call media publicity “Proof 2.0″. It’s older than
dirt… but hardly anybody understands how to use it.
Use it, and make yourself a star.
 
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Chapter 3
 - 
 Wolverine’s Marketing Secrets
So, I saw Wolverine last night and what an awesome flick.
I’ve actually been a Wolvie fan since I was a kid. And I really liked
this movie. Especially since (I bet you saw this coming a mile away)
it got me to thinking so much about marketing.
You see, the coolest thing about Wolverine isn’t just his claws.
Or his bloodhound-like sense of smell.
Or his indestructible metal skeleton.
All that’s cool but, IMHO, his healing factor kicks the most rumpus.
This means cuts, poisons, toxins, have no effect on him. As soon as
he’s shot or stabbed or run over by a car or whatever… he heals
extremely fast. And he basically doesn’t age.
Add that to his unbreakable skeleton and he almost can’t be killed.
And guess what?
If you want to make your business impervious to being killed off, so
it can survive (and thrive) the effects of endless copycats, law
changes, marketing conditions and shifting consumer demands…
then simply give your marketing its own “healing factor.”
And the way to do that is by… testing.
For example, testing new ads – including headlines, themes, offers,
openings, sub heads, PS’s, price points, and so on.
Testing new ideas – such as different products, auto-responder
sequences, product titles, email formats (i.e. daily), etc.
Testing new lead generators – like offline media publicity, ezine
articles, banner ads, offline magazine and print ads, tele-seminars,
social media, etc.
Testing new follow-up formats – by mixing and matching online,
offline, email, direct mail, fax broadcast, tele-phone, post cards, etc.
Testing new “voices” in your marketing – including using humor,
weird personalities, and other “off the wall” people talking to your
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customers and prospects via your marketing.
Anyway, these things are all pretty basic, eh?
And the more you test them, the harder you’ll be to knock off. The
faster you can grab top market positioning. And the more impervious
to marketplace changes you’ll be.
In fact, it’ll be like lacing your business with an indestructible metal
skeleton (just likeWolverine’s, baby) – complete with razor sharp
claws that let you tear through your competition.
 
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Chapter 4
 - 
 How to Make Red Hot Cold Calls
OK, here’s a question I’ve been getting a lot.
Especially since switching from a purely “copywriting” newsletter to
an all-kinds-of-selling newsletter:
“Ben, do you have any cold calling tips?”
My answer:
While people still cold call – some from necessity, others because
they missed the last 15 years of technological innovation – it’s mostly
not necessary anymore.
Especially if you know a few key sales and marketing strategies. Such
as the 101 ways I teach in Crackerjack Selling Secrets.
But, for a second, let’s pretend you have no choice.
You have to cold call or starve to death.
What’s a simple, painless way to do it? Is it to “psyche” yourself up
mentally, slapping your face and repeating positive affirmations in
the mirror 100 times? I guess that wouldn’t hurt (except for the
slapping part).
But what I’d suggest is taking a page from Jim Camp’s story.
Jim Camp is one of the most feared negotiators on planet Earth. His
near-magical negotiating methods have been featured on CNN,
CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Harvard Business Review,
Fast Company, Inc., and more.
And he once told a story about selling water filters door-to-door.
(A tad harder than even cold-calling, eh?)
He had his magical script the company gave him. Memorized all the
common answers to objections and questions. And was well versed in
all the latest sales “techniques” and sales guru scripture.
And for three weeks not one. lousy. sale.
Even though he was a walking sales technique encyclopedia. And
even though he was working neighborhoods with truly terrible water,
where people would be likely to want a water filter.
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So one day, Jim said screw it.
He threw his script away, knocked on doors and (basically) said:
“Just tell me you don’t want soft hair and I’ll leave.”
And guess what happened?
That’s right – people started opening the doors and letting him in.
Why?
Because he talked about their problems instead of his product.
Instead of wasting time trying to “convince” people, he quickly
qualified them – and separated the sheep from the goats. If they
weren’t interested in the main benefit, see ya later. No water filter for
you.
If they were interested, he gave them what they wanted.
In this case, it was softer hair.
Selling is selling is selling. Whether cold calling, eyeball-to-eyeball,
social media, copywriting, email, PPC, it’s all the same: Find out
what people want and then show them how to get it.
 
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Chapter 5
 - 
 The “Other” 80/20 Sales Rule
Unless you’re brand spanking new to marketing (or have been living
in a cave?) you’ve likely heard of the famous “80/20″ rule.
This is where 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
So, for example:
20% of your customers pay you 80% of your moolah. 20% of your
website gets 80% of your visitors. 20% of your time is when you get
80% of your real work done. And so on, and so forth.
But guess what?
There’s also another 80/20 rule nobody ever talks about. One you
probably won’t hear much about from the goo-roos or see in their big
ol’ fatty info-marketing products.
But it can make a huge impact on your sales.
And make selling far easier and even “routine” for you.
Here’s the story:
Several years ago, I was listening to some motivational speaker on
tape (can’t remember his name), and he started cracking jokes about
people who like to complain.
One of his jokes went like this:
“80% of people you know don’t care about your problems, and the
other 20% are glad you have them!”
Ha!
It’s true, though, isn’t it?
And believe it or not, this little joke reveals a gigantic opportunity for
you and me.
Because, to paraphrase the motivational speaking guy above:
“80% of the people your prospects know don’t care about their
problems, and the other 20% are glad they have them.”
Okay, so how can this help your sales?
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Well, it means nobody really cares about your customers. Nobody
wants to hear them out. And nobody is taking the time to see things
from their point of view.
All of which means…
If you’re the one person who does care about your prospects and
customers… who does hear them out… and who does take the time to
see things from their point of view… you’ll get their attention, their
respect and their business.
It’s so easy, too.
All you have to do is… well… care about them. Just like you’d care
about a loved one or friend. To see the world through their eyes,
emotions and challenges.
Hey, I know this caring stuff isn’t exciting.
It’s not nearly as sexy as the dopey “black hat” persuasion tricks
some people love to brag about using “on” their customers and
tricking them into buying.
But sexy or not… it works like gangbusters.
 
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Chapter 6
 - 
 Head Games” That Kill Your Marketing Mojo
Here’s a tip that’s been a loooong time coming.
In fact, I’m surprised so few people talk about this. Especially since it
can have such a nasty effect on your sales, profits and peace of mind.
Anyway, here’s the scoop:
For the past several months I’ve been doing a lot of work in the golf
niche. And since I basically don’t know jack you-know-what about
golf, I’ve been slowly but surely getting up to speed.
And one thing I recently learned about is “Gamesmanship.”
Gamesmanship is basically when someone tries to sabotage your
game both psychologically and emotionally. It’s done through things
like negative, jerky comments and innuendos while you’re playing –
trying to mess with your head to screw up your game.
It’s actually pretty insidious.
And it’s why even really good players sometimes choke for no reason.
And guess what?
We have gamesmanship in marketing, too.
There’s always some snarky, “a-hole” grandstanding, never helping,
and just driving peoples’ confidence into the dirt. I see this at least
once per week in my own business. I routinely get emails from know-
it-alls living in their moms’ basements telling me how I’m the devil
and everything I’m doing in my emails and business is “wrong.”
And trust me, nobody’s exempt from this.
In fact, “A-List” copywriter Doug D’Anna once talked about it.
In my Copywriting Grab Bag book he briefly tells the story about
when he was just getting started, slugging it out trying to get clients.
Yet one guy – who was well known in the industry – was actively
telling people to avoid him like the plague. Telling potential clients
that Doug was no good. That he had no clue what he was doing, was a
terrible copywriter, and not a good hire, etc.
That’s some serious mind games, if you think about it.
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(Bt the way, Doug got a written apology from this guy later when he
nabbed his first control).
Anyway, here’s the point:
Gamesmanship happens in business just like in sports. And when it
happens to you (and it will), recognize what it is.
Don’t let it rattle you.
And take it as a sign you’re probably doing something right.
 
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Chapter 7
 - 
 Mr. Furley’s “Macho” Sales Tips
Ever watch the old sitcom Three’s Company?
The show with Jack Tripper and the gang?
My favorite character is Mr. Furley – the dorky landlord. He was
played by Don Knotts and wore obnoxious leisure suits with loud
colors, thought he was a “ladies man” and was always bumbling
around making a jackass of himself.
Anyway, I recently got to thinking:
Mr. Furley may have been a social leper… but I bet he would’ve been
a selling stud. In fact, there are lots of lessons Mr. Furley can teach
us:
1. Confidence
At least, when it came to women.
He loved referring to himself as a “macho man” around the ladies
(with his characteristic loud sniff.)
And he had no problem letting people know he was God’s giftto
women – despite not having a date in years. (Kinda like the
consultant who tells you 300 ways to make love but can’t get a date
himself).
Anyway, confidence is key in selling.
And in this area, Mr. Furley had lots of it.
2. Bad Dresser
Let’s face it, Mr. Furley’s loud colors (and that dopey neck scarf)
don’t exactly scream “sales man!”
Which actually works in his favor.
There’s something about people too polished that’s hard to trust.
Yet, many of us have no problem trusting the poor slob who doesn’t
match his socks, wears his pants a size too short and butchers every
other word out of his mouth.
3. Un-Okay
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Mr. Furley is nothing if not “un-okay.”
And people who are un-okay are very easy to talk with (and buy
from).
A perfect example is the TV show detective Columbo. Detective
Columbo does not look like the world’s greatest detective. In fact, he
always appears to be bumbling and struggling. And it’s an act to get
people to lower their guards and reveal information.
But it’s no act for Mr. Furley.
No sir! He really is a buffoon.
But he’s also approachable and easy to hang with. Just like that weird
uncle who shows up at family picnics everyone loves being around.
Which, of course, makes selling much easier.
4. Landlord
Finally, as the landlord, Mr. Furley knows how to get paid.
And not only get paid… but get paid over and over and over each and
every month by dozens of people. If Mr. Furley were an Internet
marketer, I bet he’d have a great continuity program running on
virtual “auto-pilot” that requires as little effort as possible.
After all, he’s too busy being a mac daddy with the ladies to spend a
lot of time on it
And that’s all there is to it. Mr. Furely’s world-class tips for closing
sales. Learn ‘em, use ‘em, and profit from ‘em.
(Just don’t dress like him, necessarily.)
 
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Chapter 8
 - 
 9 Dumb-Dumb Email Marketing Mistakes
Emails, emails, emails.
 ‘O how I love emails.
 They’re short, they’re sweet.
 And the smackeroos they make is
 ‘Oooo such a treat.
Okay, I know that was just about the dorkiest poem ever written.
But it’s 100% true.
I love email, I’m a big fan of email marketing, and today, I’m going
to give you some extremely helpful tips on the subject I call:
“9 Dumb-Dumb Email Mistakes”
However, before you read them, just know this:
I call them “dumb” since they have cost me a lot of moolah. In other
words, they are dumb for me to use. Maybe they work for you, but
they’ve my hurt sales big time. Remember, what works for me may
not work for you.
So, that said, here are my nine dumb-dumb email mistakes to avoid:
1. Only mailing when you have something to sell
2. Following the herd (what everyone else is doing)
3. Being a controversy ‘fraidy cat
4. Caring what marketers (especially copywriters) think
5. Doing teasers, instead of full emails
6. Not being yourself – “warts” and all
7. Not having fun
8. Spending too much time writing your emails
9. Swiping other peoples’ emails instead of being original
Okay, there’s a lot more than that.
But if you simply avoided doing those 9 things for 30 days, I can
almost promise you will see your sales go up, your traffic spike, and
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have new opportunities thrust your way you didn’t even know existed
before.
That’s been my case.
And I suspect it would happen for you, too.
 
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Chapter 9
 - 
 Evil Crime Boss Reveals His Sales and
Marketing Tips
Not that you should care…
But my favorite all-time movie – by far – is Batman Begins.
There are many, many reasons for this outside my pathetic geeky
fanboy Batman comic book collection. One of which is all the cool
selling lessons in it.
Such as (for example) the pacing of the movie being a perfect sales
letter “template.”
Or the way Batman makes “offers.”
Or how having a burning hot mission in life can help you move
mountains. (And the irrational things people will do to get what they
want.)
And so on and so forth.
But you know what?
The best sales lesson (in my never-humble opinion) comes from one
of the villains (Crime Boss Falcon Maroni) when he says:
“Money isn’t as interesting to me as favors.”
Why is this a powerful sales lesson?
Because (at least in the business-to-business “make moolah” niches)
this is what almost Everyone gets wrong. Hey, it’s something I used to
get wrong big time myself. If you look at most of the sales letters and
ads all they talk about is how much moolah you’ll make if you buy
such-and-such a product.
Bzzzt!
Wrong-o.
Money is almost never the main hot button for anyone.
What all those smackeroos can do for people are the real hot buttons.
Like time freedom, the ability to “get back” at someone who said
they’d be a failure their whole lives (huge hot button), humiliating
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their competition, etc.
Crime Boss Maroni didn’t really care about having more moolah.
What he wanted was favors.
What do your prospects really want?
It’s different for everyone. And this is why researching your market is
so ultra important. It’s also why the “A-list” copywriters I
interviewed for The Copywriting Grab Bag (Doug D’Anna & David
Deutsch) harped on the market, the market, the market – and not so
much “technique”.
Powerful stuff when you understand what people really want.
 
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Chapter 10
 - 
 Bizarro Marketing World
You can learn a lot about marketing living in a small town.
Not lessons for what to do. But lessons for whatnot to do.
Here’s what I mean:
As much as living in a small town suits my introverted, Big Foot-
hunting ways, it’s sometimes painful watching the local businesses
commit suicide. It’s like they do the exact opposite of what smart
businesses do.
In fact, it totally reminds me of “Bizarro” Superman. Bizarro
Superman is like Superman’s exact opposite who lives in the
backwards Bizarro world.
In other words…
Up is down, down is up, he says hello when he leaves, says goodbye
when he arrives, has freeze vision (instead of heat vision), flame
breath (instead of frost breath), etc.
And that’s exactly how many of these local businesses operate.
For example, we got Bizarro customer service.
Instead of making you want to come back and even tell your
friends… you get yahoos at the counter purposely making people
stand in line for several minutes while they talk to a friend in line or
on their cell phones.
We also got Bizarro hotel staff.
Instead of hiring competent people who, you know, tend to do a good
job, some of these locals only hire cronies and family members who
know they can’t be fired and treat people (especially tourists – the
town’s “bread ‘n butter”) like lepers.
Heck, we’ve even got Bizarro investors around here.
This one dude’s pouring $30 million smackeroos into a new, high-end
hotel/spa/thingy seemingly without much accountability or strategy.
Believe it or not, a chamber of commerce person actually said:
“We don’t need customers, we got $30 million.”
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Dumb.
Anyway, here’s the point:
All of this is the exact opposite of what (most of us) do in marketing
– where we test, measure and bend over backwards to make
customers happy.
And it really puts things in perspective.
It also proves the late Earl Nightingale right when he said:
“If you want to succeed, just look around at what everyone else is
doing, and do the exact opposite.”
That simple advice has served me well for a long time now.
And it can serve you well, too.
When you see the “bizarro marketers” out there doing things you
know are hurting them, even if they have “goo roo” status, do the
opposite. Fight that urge to blindly follow people, and do what’s right.
Do that, and you’ll probably never go wrong.
 
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Chapter 11
 - 
 Beavis & Butthead “Do” Copywriting
Can Beavis & Butthead make youa better copywriter?
I believe so.
They did for me, at least. In fact, each and every episode contains a
powerful copywriting secret you can use to make your ads far more
likely to be read, understood and bought from.
Here’s the story:
About 14 years ago, just after I graduated high school, I took a job at
Office Max.
I often worked late, and didn’t get out until about 10 pm or so. So I’d
go home, flip on the boob-toob and, lo and behold, the only thing I
felt like watching was… you guessed it… Beavis & Butthead.
Now, if you’ve never seen Beavis & Butthead, let’s just say it’s
“raunchy”. Not nearly as raunchy as some of today’s cartoons (it’s no
“South Park”). But it was still a pretty raunchy show for its time.
Raunchy… but oh so entertaining.
Anyway, so I’d watch the show and, like most people who watched it,
would find myself sometimes quoting the show. As they would make
up such colorful words to insult each other: Dill hole, butt munch,
monkey spank, etc. – and the list goes on.
There was never one intelligent word spoken.
Never anything to increase your IQ.
Certainly, never anything you’d ever get confused about.
And you know what?
Strange as it sounds, I’ve sorta “recruited” Beavis & Butthead to help
me write better ads since. Because whenever I write an ad (depending
on the market), in order to make sure my ads are 100% crystal clear
to read, digest and respond to… I tend to ask:
“Would Beavis & Butthead get what I’m saying here?”
“Would they understand this word?”
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“Could they grasp that I want them to click on this link to order?”
And so on, and so forth. Hey, it may sound stoopid (let’s face it, it is
stoopid). But it works like gangbusters to make ads clear and easy to
read.
Maybe you’ve heard the statistics about how the average person (at
least here in the U.S.) reads at a 5th grade level. And that, when
writing ads, that’s the level to write at.
But I say take it a step further and write at the “Beavis & Butthead
level.”
If they can understand it, anyone can.
And the easier your ads are to read, the more moolah you’ll make.
 
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Chapter 12
 - 
 Big Foot’s Big Sales Chops
I ever tell you how I live in “Big Foot” country?
In fact, I’m just a hop, skip and a jump from Del Norte County,
California – near where that famous Big Foot clip from the 1960’s
was shot.
And for a split second yesterday… I thought I saw him!
Here’s what happened:
My wife and I were driving along a back road outside town, minding
our own business, when we saw this tall, and extremely hairy, thing
walking along the road. From a distance it looked exactly like what
I’d read of Big Foot.
But as we got closer we saw it wasn’t Big Foot.
It wasn’t even a bear or some other animal.
Just a scraggly-looking hippy trying to thumb a ride.
Bummer.
Even so, the event got me thinking about something. Something I
believe can help your sales big time.
Here’s what I mean:
Believe it or not, Big Foot is big business for some people.
Since nobody has ever caught him (or them, whatever), and nobody
has even gotten a 100% authenticated photo or movie of him, he’s
truly become a legend. Not only here in the Pacific Northwest – but
around the world.
Almost everyone knows exactly who he his.
Exactly what he looks like.
And exactly what you mean when you mention his name.
In other words, he’s got massive personal branding.
And because of that, money is attracted to him like a magnet.
And guess what?
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You and I can use this strategy in our businesses, too. In fact, we have
some “Big Foots” in the business world now. Think of guys like Bill
Gates. Or Donald Trump. Or (in marketing) Jay Abraham and Dan
Kennedy.
All “Business Big Foots” – instantly identifiable (and even
recognizable) by name, face and reputation. Only question is how do
they do it? And (even more importantly) how you can you and I do it?
There are lots of ways to build your personal brand like this.
For example:
You can do what Walt Disney said – and run your business in such a
way others can’t help but tell everyone they know about you.
You can also run the speaking circuit and get known real fast.
Another good way is to position yourself as the person at the top of
the mountain in your niche – such as with outrageously expensive
prices/fees (remember those $25k Jay Abraham seminars – whoa!)
There are also a few ways in my Copywriting Grab Bag book.
Such as routinely getting yourself in the mass media – TV, radio and
print – the way I explain in appendix 11. Or using ordinary articles
like marketing genius Mike Winicki does on page 195. Or using
email the way Terry Dean reveals on page 271.
Really, there are lots of ways to be the “Big Foot” of your niche. The
person everyone wants to meet, do business with… and even pretend
they “discovered” when talking to their friends.
Whatever the case, it’s worth some serious thought.
It’s the ultimate in market positioning. And makes selling a breeze.
 
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http://www.copywritinggrabbag.com/
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Chapter 13
 - |
 Lazy Copywriters Have Skinny Kids
I think it’s high time I tell you about something.
Something extremely important if you write ads.
Something that was drilled into my head while interviewing the “A-
List” copywriting masters who contributed to my Copywriting Grab
Bag book.
Listen, you might find this weird, but I wrote my last two ads without
even seeing the products. Instead, I just sat down and cranked ‘em
out. No product to study and no real details about what was in them.
The results?
One is (so far) kicking booTAY.
And the other has yet to be tested (but will likely do very well, or else
completely bomb – as I went for the “touchdown pass”.)
But… how is this possible?
How can you write an ad without seeing the product?
The answer:
I didn’t need to see them.
Because I knew the markets.
I spent hours on the phone with the clients. Asked tons of questions
about how their markets behave and make decisions. And pored
through all the high-selling ads in their markets – analyzing and
studying their benefits, colloquialisms, offers, appeals, etc.
In the end, I banged out both ads (except for the bullets) “blind.”
Anyway, here’s the point:
I know it doesn’t sound “cool” – but copywriting is not about pulling
a magic headline out of your hat. Or memorizing all the latest super
duper persuasion tactics. Or slapping the “ballziest” guarantee on the
end.
Yes… those things are awesome.
And they can dramatically boost your response.
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But in the end, it’s about the market, not the “technique.”
It’s about what you say, not how you say it. And it’s about taking the
time to dig up facts about the market your lazy competition can’t be
bothered with. It’s no coincidence the two “A-List” freelance
copywriters featured in my Copywriting Grab Bag harped on knowing
the market more than the coolest copywriting “tips and tricks.”
Because in the end, all selling basically comes down to this:
“He (or she) who knows the market best, wins.”
Words to live by no matter what kind of product you sell.
 
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Chapter 14
 - 
 Rorschach’s “Finger Snapping” Sales Secret
A couple nights ago, I saw the movie Watchmen.
The movie was a lot of fun… and had the added benefit of containing
a very powerful sales lesson any one of us can benefit enormously
from.
Here’s what I mean:
One of the reasons I like the story so much (I’ve read the comic
several times over the years) is because of the bizarre characters.
My favorite being “Rorschach.”
Just a fascinating guy. He’s short, kinda gangly and (from the story)
smells bad. Yet, the bad guys are scared to death of him. Whenever he
walks into a bar, the music stops and people tremble in fear. Reason
why is because Rorschach has no problem walking up to the biggest
goon in the joint, grabbing his finger and breakingit before asking
any questions – sending even the nastiest thug to his knees begging
for mercy.
The point?
Rorschach doesn’t have to be the strongest, tallest or heaviest guy to
kick azz.
He’s got leverage.
In this case, the bad guy’s ever-so-delicate fingers.
All he needs is one finger to control and dominate someone.
And guess what?
We can do this in selling, too.
You don’t necessarily need the best written ad, the most eloquent
style or the smoothest voice and look. Nope. All you need is leverage.
To grab your competition’s fingers (figuratively!) and send ‘em into a
fetal position crying for their mamas.
Here are some simple (really simple) ways to do it:
1. Be the most honest and ethical business
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2. Avoid using hype or shady manipulation tactics
3. Write your advertising to the skeptics
4. Write like you talk – and not like some robot
5. Have the best customer service
6. Show the real you in your emails, ads and other communications
7. Sincerely care about your customers (what a concept, eh?)
8. Always value your customers’ time
9. Think up better (more gutsy) offers than your competition
10. Contact your list every day (or at least almost every day)
There are more, of course. But if you focus on these ten you should
see a major sales bump.
How do I know?
Because since focusing on these ten things over the past year, I have
noticed a fat spike in my sales and my customers’ happiness.
As well as gaining powerful, long-term leverage.
 
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Chapter 15
 - 
 What Never to Test in Your Ads
“Test!”
The marketer’s favorite answer to any question.
What color headline do you use?
Test.
Where do you put the opt-in box on the page?
Test.
How many order links should be in the ad?
Test.
What is the capital of Nebraska?
Test.
Hey, I have nothing against testing. I actually love testing things and
believe everyone should do it (and often). However, there are some
things you cannot test – no matter how sophisticated Google’s newest
brain fart is.
Things that can have a huge impact on your sales.
What I’m talking about is the “intangible” stuff. The “supernatural”
parts of marketing you can’t see, touch, feel, smell or hear (much less
test).
And you know what?
If you start focusing on these intangibles, you will almost always see
a dramatic bump in sales – without testing a single word of your
copy. For example, here’s what I mean by the intangibles:
• Personal branding (not corporate branding, personal branding – how
people think and feel about you personally)
• Bonding with your list & customers (so they come to feel like they
really know you)
• Keeping your list familiar with you and your patterns (i.e. frequency
& consistency of contact)
• Positioning in your market
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• Personality (that both attracts and repels)
Anyway, I know this stuff is “touchy feely.” And much of them
overlap with each other.
But they can make a big difference in sales over time.
Focus on them, and you can’t help but see major improvement.
 
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Chapter 16
 - 
 Stinky Sales Pitches
Got kind of a weird sales tip for you today.
In fact, it may even stink a bit.
But if you sell a product or a service of any kind (especially if you
sell in person or over the phone) I think you’ll find it very helpful.
Anyway, here’s the story:
Last week, I was walking Zoe (my dog) down by the beach like I do
every night when, a couple hundred feet away we see this big ol’ fatty
skunk.
Now usually, this is no big deal. I mean it’s not like it could spray us
from that far away.
But there was something different about this skunk.
For one thing, he wasn’t scared of us like most skunks.
In fact, the little stink-bag came towards us with his tail up – as if he
wanted to spray us with his stink-shooter. (Which would actually
make my dog happy. After all, one person’s stink is another dog’s
perfume…)
Anyway, it totally reminded me of Pepe Le Pew.
Remember him from those old Bugs Bunny cartoons?
Pepe was the skunk who was always speaking charming words to the
ladies, wanting to kiss and hug and romance them… but, due to his
horrendous odor, would chase them away, despite his charm and
loving intentions.
In fact, the more he pursued the ladies… the faster they’d run.
And we see a lot of that in sales and marketing, too, don’t we?
Where marketers are trying to “romance” people with charm, well-
rehearsed scripts and by saying all the “right” things… but one look
and we see how they stink to high heaven.
The “stink” can take any number of forms, too.
For example: It could be neediness (this is often the case).
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It could be the arrogance of the salesman or marketer (we have a bit
of that in the Internet marketing world, don’t we?)
Or it could even just be the prospect’s fear of the unknown if the
marketer’s new to business and doesn’t know how to remove that
objection before it becomes an issue. (This plagued me big time early
on.)
Anyway, here’s the point:
If you’re having trouble making sales, and can’t figure out why (since
you’re doing everything “right”) you may be spraying some kind of
“odor” that’s making people run away.
And you’re #1 job is to figure out what that stink is.
Otherwise, if you don’t find it, then your sales will continue to tank.
And when that happens, it’s like what Pepe Le Pew’s pal Porky Pig
says…
Th-th-th-that’s all folks!
 
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Chapter 17
 - 
 How to Sell Like a Big Dawg
I swear… sometimes I think every business owner needs a dog.
Why?
For companionship? Exercise? Vet bills?
No.
Because of the extremely useful sales and marketing lessons a dog
can teach you. Heck… it seems like every day my dog teaches me a
new trick. And I could probably write a full year’s worth of these
emails just observing her.
For example:
When we first got Zoe we were warned right off the bat:
“Since your dog is part basenji, do not chase after her if she gets
away. In fact, do not even so much as walk towards her.”
“Why?” we asked.
“Because of her breed, she will be way more likely to keep running.
In fact, the best thing you can do is actually run away from her… and
let her chase you.”
Interesting, eh?
Even though (thank God) we haven’t had to put this to the test, I
believe the guy was right.
And guess what?
Most prospects are that way, too. I know I am when I’m looking to
buy something. Right when someone starts chasing me down with a
new offer, deal or whatever, I bolt like Zoe running from the dog
catcher. And I do this even if I want what’s being offered… and really
need the product or service.
And I ain’t alone, either.
Most other people I know are the same way.
Which is why it’s my contention you should just automatically
assume your prospect is like a revved up basenji ready to dash off.
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And if you run towards them, chase them or “hound” them in anyway,
they’ll vanish like a fart in the wind.
But…
If you position yourself so prospects chase you (instead of you
chasing them) then it’s like doing the “Zoe dance” above – where they
may run towards you, instead of bolting away from you.
Which makes selling like shooting fish in a barrel.
 
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Chapter 18
 - 
 Phantom Pooping Prospects
I have a rather strange (even by my standards) tip today.
But, if you take it to heart, I think you’ll find selling your products
and services a whole lot easier… and even “routine.”
Anyway, here’s the story:
It tends to rain a lot in my neck of the woods.
And for the longest time, when taking my dog out during long rain
stretches, if she didn’t do her “duty” quick, it got really frustrating.
Usually, she’d take her time sniffing and looking for a spot until, at
last, she’d squat like she was going to do her thing… only to suddenly
stop and stand back up again.
Notjust once… but several times for 15 or 20 minutes:
Sniff, squat, stand back up.
Sniff, squat, stand back up.
I call ‘em, phantom poops, and, as you can imagine, it can get really
annoying out in the cold rain.
And you know what?
This exact same thing happens all the time in business, too.
Customers have their credit cards out and are seemingly ready to pull
the trigger… ready to buy… only to stop at the last minute and decide
not to buy until later (or maybe not at all).
It can be extremely frustrating.
Especially if you’ve been trying to land a big client or contract.
And if you don’t know how to deal with this, you’ll end up walking
around in the rain with people for days and weeks as they sniff around
for a good spot, with no guarantee they’ll ever “go.”
Hey, I admit I do the same thing.
I often read and re-read sales letters, email and call with questions,
and sometimes “sniff” around for months until I buy. This is
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especially true before I hire a service provider or buy a high ticket
product.
It’s perfectly natural and understandable.
So what’s the solution?
Well, after a few months of my dog pulling this stunt, it dawned on
me to simply not take her outside in the rain unless she’s really and
truly ready to “do the doo.”
That way, she goes immediately.
No dawdling. No hemming and hawing. No sniffing around or
“phantom pooping.” She goes out, does her thing, and that’s that. End
of story.
And that’s how I approach business, too.
In fact, I once heard Dan Kennedy (I think it was him) say he doesn’t
get on the phone with anyone who isn’t already 80% “sold.”
And I’ve done just that ever since with lots of success.
In fact, if you simply only started focusing on those ready to buy,
instead of trying to sell those who aren’t ready to buy yet, you’ll find
your sales go up, your stress go down, and your entire business
getting a lot more fun.
Simple?
Yep.
And that’s the reason why it works so well.
 
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Chapter 19
 - 
 Why Customer’s Don’t Buy
Saw a pretty cool movie on Valentine’s Day with an old acquaintance.
A movie that explains why a lot of customers don’t buy. And reveals
a “secret” way to automatically make more sales.
Anyway, the movie is called Fire Proof.
It is an unabashedly Christian movie about a fireman and his wife on
the path to divorce – but whose hearts are changed by a 40-day “test”
the fireman’s father gives him.
Whoa!
I can already see some peoples’ eyes rolling reading this. “C’mon
Ben! Why are you wasting my time with this!”
Patience, grasshopper.
All will be revealed in a second.
You see, there are many themes running through this movie. Some are
obvious (such as, “never leave your partner behind, especially in a
fire”.) And some are not-so-obvious.
The sales lesson is one of the not-so-obvious ones.
It goes like this:
When the main character (the fireman) first tries to save his
marriage, he only goes through the motions as he follows his dad’s
40-day plan. In fact, he goes the first 20 days without his heart being
in it at all – only thinking of what he will gain from his efforts.
And his wife (not surprisingly) sees right through him.
She doesn’t buy his act.
And as a result, she distrusts him even more.
Which is where the sales lesson comes in:
How many of us go through the motions like this when selling?
Without truly caring about our prospects? Without caring about their
pain and challenges? Without caring about anything except “sucking
as much moolah as possible from their bank accounts”?
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I’m not saying this attitude can’t work.
Especially when selling to the low-hanging fruit (who buy anything).
But most people see right through it.
And will naturally distrust you (and not buy from you) as a result.
This is why I believe if someone wants to take their business to the
“next level” they can’t just go through the motions. You gotta care
about your customers. Your heart has to be into helping them first.
And you have to believe (really believe) what you’re selling is going
to change their lives for the better.
I realize this is kinda “touchy feely”.
But when your heart is into helping your customers like this, success
is almost automatic.
You automatically do what’s in your customer’s best interest.
Automatically create (or pick) the best products to sell.
And automatically do things that position you as someone who cares
– and is therefore trusted and believed.
This caring stuff ain’t always “sexy.”
But it works like gangbusters.
And in most cases, your competition is probably not doing it.
 
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Chapter 20
 - 
 The George Costanza School of Selling
Ever watch the TV show Seinfeld?
Years after its cancellation, and seeing every episode several times…
I still never grow tired of it. The other night was an especially funny
episode. It was the one where George Costanza did everything in
opposites.
For example:
He saw a hot, sex woman in the diner, walked up to her and, instead
of lying and conning her into a date, said he was a short, bald,
unemployed man who still lives with his parents.
She immediately went out with him.
Later, he gets a job interview with the New York Yankees.
And instead of kissing the owner’s “boo-tay”, tells him how much the
team sucks, and why his every decision is stoopid.
“Hire this man!” the owners says.
Anyway, here’s the point:
Every time George did the opposite of what he would normally do –
what logic and common sense dictated – he “won.”
And you know what?
In a lot of ways, it’s the same with selling, too.
Frankly, methinks a lot of sales advice is not only B.S.… but can hurt
you big time.
Like, for example, all these so-called “black hat” tactics. Or
consciously “tricking” people into buying. Or, in copywriting,
looking at all the “successful” ads on the Internet and blindly copying
and studying them.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
First off, black hat is just a “cool” term for “manipulate.”
And while you can manipulate people into buying, it’s a terrible way
to run a long term business or get someone to buy from you again.
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Same with using “tricks.”
(And by “trick” I mean literally “tricking” them into doing something
they wouldn’t normally do – like buy your product.)
You don’t need tricks if you have a solid understanding of the way
human beings think, behave and make decisions. In fact, you can
usually only “trick” someone once. After that, the chances of them
buying from you again (where the real moolah is) are null and void.
And don’t even get me started on copying Internet sales letters.
There are some really good ones out there.
But there are some really bad ones, too.
And unless you know the fundamentals first, you’ll never know the
difference, and copying them can cause you far more harm than good.
Anyway, here’s the lesson:
Doing the opposite as everyone else can give you a big “leg up”. In
fact, just for kicks, next time you have something to sell, consider
doing it the “George Costanza way” – the opposite of what everyone
else does.
You just might be surprised by the results.
 
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Chapter 21
 - 
 Fonzie Rumbles with the Marketing Gurus
Once upon a time I wrote an email about “gurus” and how one way to
tell the fakes from the real thing is the fakes are always publicly
counting their money.
And that email prompted the following question:
“Ben, how can you tell if someone’s legit besides the publicly
counting money thing? I have started noticing that sometimes the
better the marketing is the worst the product is. Any other tips?”
Well, I have a theory about this.
It’s a bit on the weird side (actually, more like the “retro” side).
But I have found it to be true 9 out of 10 times.
Ready?
OK, well, it’s kinda like Fonzie from Happy Days.
The Fonz didn’t have to go around telling people he was cool. He
didn’t have to pick fightswith people to show he was a tough guy.
And he didn’t have to brag about being with a million chicks because,
frankly, he always walked into Arnold’s with a hotty in each arm.
In other words, he didn’t have to say he was cool.
People just knew it.
Just like everyone knew Potsy was a dork. Or that Ralph Mouth was a
jackass. Or that Richie Cunningham was a square. And whether it was
because of his reputation, his actions or the “air” about him – when
people said Fonzie was cool, there was no argument.
Same goes with the goo-roos today.
The good ones don’t have to tell you how cool they are.
You just know it.
Because if there’s any doubt their products will do what they claim,
they won’t just tell you how wonderful their stuff is… they’ll prove it
to you.
And not by flapping their gums, either.
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But by demonstrating it to you via their knowledge, reputation, the
company they keep and, yes, a solid sales pitch that’s not packed full
of fluff, lies or exclamation marks.
Anyway, my point is, all you gotta do is observe.
It’s the best way to tell between the Fonzies and the wannabes.
 
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Chapter 22
 - 
 Why So Many Sales Pitches Suck
I don’t know about you…
But usually, when I go to buy something of a significant price tag, the
sales presentation just really, really bites.
And it ain’t just me, either. Everyone I’ve asked about this says the
same:
It really is hard to find good help these days.
Question is, why?
Well, I think I know at least one reason.
And I suspect if everyone who sells for a living (whether in person,
on the phone, in an ad, retail, whatever) stopped doing it… they’d not
only sell more, but have customers that are far happier.
What is this “thing” of which I speaketh?
Pressure:
Let me ‘splain:
Let’s pretend you’re out buying a car (always fun, eh?)
So you go to the first dealer and it’s the same old jazz: Some slob
comes running out with a half-eaten donut in one hand and a
Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other, and immediately recites you his
“shady salesmen’s book” chapter and chapter and verse by verse.
He tells you how great each car is.
How this car just got in and the low price won’t last long. How that
car is one his own daughter wants to buy. How you came at just the
right time because they never had this many cool cars to choose from
before and aren’t you lucky?
And on and on it goes… lies flowing so easily and naturally from his
lips it’s spooky.
Barf.
Then… you go to another dealer that’s completely different.
Instead of the usual shtick… the sales guy says:
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“Look, I don’t know if we have the right car for you. I’ll do
everything I can to help. But if at any time you don’t think we have
what you need, will you do me a favor and just let me know? That
way we don’t waste any of your time…”
Now, in this case, which salesman will you trust more? Which one do
you think has your best interest at heart? Which one are you more
likely to buy from?
Anyway, ‘nuff said.
Pressure sucks!
Remove it, and watch your sales almost go up automatically.
 
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Chapter 23
 - 
 Exposed: The “Value Is King” Myth
This little ditty might make a few people angry.
In fact, I bet some will shake their fists at me while reading it.
Or maybe even barrage me with emails saying how “wrong” I am.
Why?
Because I’m going to dispel 4 big myths about what’s “king” when
selling online. Myths that are spreading like wildfire (especially in
social media). And (in my never-humble opinion) are hurting
peoples’ incomes.
Ready?
1. Myth #1: Value Is King
Bzzzt!
True, value is important. And we should deliver loads of it.
But is it “king”?
If it is, then it must be hiding amongst the peasants.
Because there are millions of people delivering value on the Internet
right now who are dirt broke. I know I spent many years delivering
value with very little to show for it. And if value is “king”, all the
hyper value providers would be rich beyond their wildest dreams.
But most aren’t.
In fact, many are struggling and wondering why.
2. Myth #2: Content Is King
Ditto with #1.
There are lots of people working like mules putting out massive
amounts of valuable content each day who still haven’t made any
moolah. If content was the end-all-be-all, then all of these people
would be raking in the dough.
But they’re not.
Because again, while content is important, it’s not king.
3. Myth #3: Copy Is King
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No matter what the chest-beating copywriters say… copy is not king.
In fact, as “for real” marketing genius Mike Winnicki (one of those
“under-the-radar”marketing experts) said when I interviewed him for
my Copywriting Grab Bag book, copywriting is much lower on the
totem pole of importance.
Like under your list, offer and positioning for starters.
4. Myth #4: Teaching Is King
Is it?
We pay teachers almost nothing in our society.
If teaching was this magical money-making skill, then great teachers
would all be fabulously wealthy, no? I know some mega talented
teachers online who couldn’t make a sale if their lives depended on it.
Yes, teaching is hugely important.
It can do wonders for your credibility and positioning.
But it’s not even close to being king.
 
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Chapter 24
 - 
 Why Buyers Are Liars
Here’s a neat copywriting tip for ya:
Back in late 2004 (or maybe it was early 2005) after the Bush/Kerry
election, one of my co-workers at the time went on a cruise with his
wife, and told an amusing story with a powerful copywriting lesson.
Here’s what happened:
They were on deck sunbathing next to a couple guys who were also
soaking in the rays, sun glasses on, relaxed and having a good time.
Then, out of the blue, one of the relaxed sun bathers said – without
moving, raising his voice or even so much as changing the relaxed
expression on his face:
“Man, I don’t know what I’m going to do now that Bush is back in
there. We’re all screwed. Not sure if I’ll even have a job anymore.
Can you pass me the lotion?”
No anger.
No fear.
No clenched fists or even expression change.
And that’s the point:
Despite his words… the dude obviously wasn’t that distressed about
Bush 2.0.
In fact, according to my friend, the guy was out each night laughing it
up and having a good time with the ladies, ordering pricey meals and
drinks on the house.
Which leads us to the copywriting lesson:
People will say they like certain things. They will say they hate
certain things. They will say they want to buy certain things. But what
they say they like… what they say they hate… what they say they
want to buy… ain’t always so.
I’ll even pick on myself as an example.
I love reading the Bible. I enjoy studying it. And I do consider it the
most important book I own. But I’d be lying through my teeth if I
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said it’s the most read book I own.
The reality is, I’ve only read it cover-to-cover one time.
Yet, I’ve gone through certain copywriting and marketing products –
top to bottom – 10, 15, even 20 times. And so, if you wanted to sell
me a book, would you send me an offer for a Bible… or another
copywriting/marketing book?
Which do you think I’m more likely to buy?
Anyway, just something to think about.
Find out what your prospects really want to buy – and not what they
“say” they want to buy – and you’ll sell far more.
 
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Chapter 25
 - 
 My Uncensored Opinion of NLP
Lately, people have been asking me about NLP (Neuro Linguistic
Programming).
Is it really some near-magical persuasion technique that lets you all
but control someone’s mind?
Or is it just more overhyped goo-roo nonsense?
My answer?
I have no idea, either way.
All I know about NLP is the subject bores me to tears – despite trying
to learn about it from people I consider to be excellent teachers.However, I will say this:
While it may indeed be the second coming of John Caples or Frank
Bettger, I seriously doubt it’ll do as much for you as just mastering
the fundamentals.
Let me give you one of my favorite examples.
Something I originally heard while interviewing top copywriting and
marketing pro Doug D’Anna for my Copywriting Grab Bag book.
He gave what I call his “dog cookie secret”, and it goes like this:
Let’s say you have a dog and you want him to come to you. You can
try to coax the dog to come to you using all the latest “cutting edge”
persuasion and manipulation tricks. Or… you can just hold up his
favorite cookie.
Which do you think will get the job done better?
Anyway, here’s the point:
If NLP works for you, then by all means use it.
But whether you use it or not, you can never go wrong with this
“oldie but goodie” sales principle that’s worked for thousands of
years:
“Discover what folks want and show them how to get it.”
It’s simple and works like a charm every time.
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http://www.copywritinggrabbag.com/
www.getwsodo.com
 
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Chapter 26
 - 
 Why “Ninja” Marketers Get Their Butts
Kicked
I saw this extremely cool TV show the other night.
It was on Spike TV, and it was called Deadliest Warrior.
Basically, the show created a theoretical fight between a Spartan
warrior (i.e. the movie 300) and a ninja. And what they did was, they
took both their common attacks and defenses, and created a fantasy
“death match” between them via computer and expert analysis.
So who won?
The Spartan impaled the little ninja dude with his spear!
It wasn’t evenclose.
And this was despite the ninja dude having steel armor and weapons
(compared to the Spartan’s bronze armor and weapons)… and despite
him having more advanced “technology.”
Anyway, all this blood and carnage got me thinking about marketing.
I believe every marketer falls into one of two categories:
“Spartans” or “Ninjas”?
Just like in the show, both can do lots of damage.
But, just like in the show, the Spartan marketer wins hands down.
Why do I say this?
Because like his warrior counterpart, the Spartan marketer uses
ancient (yet 100% reliable) principles that work as effectively today
as they did 2,500 hundred years ago. While the ninja marketer (like
his warrior counterpart) skulks around in the shadows, using tricks
and “black hat” techniques that rely on cheating, lying and constantly
gaming the system.
This is sort of how it was in the show, too.
At the end, the ninja expert even admitted it when he said
(paraphrased): “The ninja wouldn’t even fight the Spartan. He’d just
wait until nightfall and kill him in his sleep…”
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Whoa!
Anyhoo, just something to think about.
There are lots of idiots teaching the ninja marketing stuff.
But when you look closely, they’re always forced to create new,
questionably ethical tricks (as their old ones become obsolete) to
keep in the game. And because of this, they always seem to be on the
run (from Google slaps, bad reviews, the law, etc).
The Spartan marketer doesn’t Mickey Mouse around like that.
Instead, he dominates his market using timeless sales and marketing
principles that work no matter the product, market or economic
conditions.
With no black hat tricks needed.
And no sneaking around required.
In the end, he kicks the ninja marketer’s butt.
 
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Chapter 27
 - 
 Shutting Copywriter McBragg’s Big Fat Yap
This may sound dorky…
But one of my favorite ways to “unwind” is watching old cartoons on
YouTube.
And recently I came across one of my childhood favorites –
“Commander McBragg.”
I get such a kick out of this dude.
His show starts with an image of a revolving globe and the title “The
World of Commander McBragg.” And each time, the Commander is
hanging in his gentleman’s club with a friend (who always tries to
make an excuse to leave), points to a country on the globe with his
pipe, and says something like:
“There! Australia! Did I ever tell you about the time I…”
… and then tells some cockamamie story about busting the Chicago
mafia or becoming the all-time rodeo champion, or bringing down 5
enemy planes single handed in the War, etc.
You can actually learn a lot about story-telling from The Commander.
But at the same time, he’s also an example of how not to sell. In fact,
he reminds me of some of the ads submitted for my recent “Mob
Critique.”
Nothing but brag brag brag brag brag.
“Me! Me! Me!”
“I am the best!”
“Look at all the stuff I have!”
“I’m like a little money-making god!”
I won’t say this never works. But I learned this the hard way a few
years ago when one of the world’s highest-paid copywriters gave me
an ad critique.
It was written in the product creator’s “voice” and started out talking
about all the money he had, his boats, his cars, all the golf he plays,
and so on.
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www.getwsodo.com
The copywriter read a few lines, and threw it back to me:
“Ben, you make this guy sound like an asshole. Rewrite this!”
He was soooo right, too.
I was basically “Copywriter McBragg” – pointing at a photo of all my
client’s cars and toys and money saying:
“There! Did I ever tell you about all the money I make…
all the boats and cars I own…
the big house I live in…?”
Dumb.
Anyway, since then I now do regular “brag checks” on my ads and in
any other selling I do. And I highly suggest you do, too.
Just ask:
Is this ad talking about solving someone’s problem? Or is it just
yammering on about how wonderful I am?
You might be surprised how much difference this makes.
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Chapter 28
 - 
 Pulp Fiction’s Hidden Marketing Lesson
Ever see the movie Pulp Fiction?
If not, it’s one of the single most bizarre movies ever created. My
favorite part is called “The Bonnie Situation.” Not only because it’s
funny (in a disturbing sort of way)… but because there’s a huge
marketing lesson in it.
Here’s what I mean:
The “Bonnie Situation” is the movie’s third “act” where two of the
main characters (played by John Travolta and Samuel Jackson – hit
men for an L.A. gangster) accidentally kill a man in their car by
shooting his head off – splattering his brains and blood and face all
over the windows and seats.
(I told you it was a bizarre movie…)
Obviously, they can’t drive around in broad daylight like that.
And so they pull into a nearby friend’s garage.
Naturally, this friend (whose name is Jimmy) ain’t too happy.
For one thing, it’s only seven in the morning, and Jimmy’s still in his
robe. But even worse is, Jimmy’s wife, Bonnie, is coming home in an
hour and a half from her job at the hospital. And Jimmy makes it
crystal clear if she finds a dead body in the garage, he’s going to get
divorced.
No marriage counseling.
No trial separation.
He’s gonna get divorced.
Which gives them less than 90 minutes to clean the car (and
themselves), dispose of the body, and get out before Bonnie arrives.
An impossible situation?
That’s what they thought.
Until they call their boss – Marsellus Wallace – and beg for help.
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www.getwsodo.com
Nine minutes later a short man in a tuxedo named “Winston Wolf”
shows up. And Winston Wolf ’s one and only job (as far as we know)
… is to solve problems.
In fact, “The Wolf” has a reputation for pulling off near-miraculous
feats for getting Marsellus’s goons out of impossible situations. And
needless to say, they were extremely happy to see The Wolf at that
exact time and place in their lives.
Which brings us to the movie’s hidden marketing lesson:
If you want to be a top copywriter, marketer or sales professional of
any kind – your one and only job is to be the “Winston Wolf” of your
niche.
The guy (or gal) who solves problems.
Period.
It’s not dazzling people with fancy benefits and claims. It’s not
capturing email addresses and phone numbers. It’s not even
necessarily selling anything. Yes,those things are important – and
must happen. But they will happen much faster, easier and more
naturally…if you focus first on your prospect’s most urgent
problem(s).
Frankly, if you adopt this mindset – of being the #1 problem solver –
I can virtually guarantee your response will be far higher.
Even if you don’t have the strongest sales pitch or product. And even
if you’re just starting out, with no experience.
Anyway, be the “Winston Wolf” of your niche and you almost can’t
lose.
Even if you aren’t the “best” marketer on the block.
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Chapter 29
 - 
 The World’s Most Violent Marketing Tip
Ever hear of the “shake and bake”?
There’s actually a bunch of definitions for this.
What I’m talking about is the military version as told by one of my
clients in the self-defense niche.
He ‘splained it like this:
When certain soldiers are on the battlefield, locked in mortal combat
with someone trying to kill them, one thing they are trained to do is
“shake and bake.”
Here’s what that means:
(If you’re easily grossed out you best turn the channel…)
They plunge the knife into their enemy’s chest and then shake the
living hell out of that knife (while it’s still inside the enemy), causing
him excruciating pain and suffering.
Zowie!
Pretty gruesome, ain’t it?
But guess what?
You can also use this extremely violent combat principle (in a non-
violent way) in your marketing, copywriting, advertising and selling.
How?
There are lots of ways to do it.
For example, when writing bullet points, you can fire off as many of
them as you possibly can (assuming they’re not boring). Each one
shaking and baking that “persuasion knife” inside your prospect’s
psychology and mind until they can’t stand it anymore and buy.
You can also do this withemail, too.
One reason why some of us email almost every day (or have a
gazillion emails pre-loaded in an auto-responder) is because we’re
doing a “shake and bake” on our market’s desires and needs until they
buy something.
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www.getwsodo.com
And what about phone selling?
I once heard about this guy (who sells high end financial services)
who calls his prospects an average of nine times before they buy.
Talk about a shake and bake!
This dude just goes after them over and over and over – shake and
bake, baby – until that persuasion knife reaches his prospects’ sweet
spot and they write him a check.
Anyway, just something to think about.
Gross?
Maybe.
But what were you expecting with the above headline? Cookies and
milk?
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Chapter 30
 - 
 Allergic to Selling
Oscar (not his real name) writes:
“I was hoping to receive more tips and free advice. [You] seem to
send mostly promo’s for other people’s stuff. I don’t want to buy
anything. I just want to learn from what’s available on the net for
free. If I want to pay for anything, I’ll sign up for a course at my
community college to learn about copywriting.”
Sigh.
Forget for a second that I barely ever send affiliate offers to my list.
That when I do send an offer it’s never in a way where I’m just
tossing poop at you hoping some will “stick.”
Or that you can probably count the number of community college
teachers who can write copy on one hand.
Let’s forget all that for a second and get to the heart of “Oscar’s” real
problem:
His “allergy” to selling.
It’s almost spooky how many so-called “business owners” have this
condition.
Frankly, it doesn’t make sense.
How can anyone possibly hope to sell their own products or
services… if they shriek like scared little girls when someone sends
them a sales pitch? Maybe I’m wrong here. But I don’t see how
someone can be a good seller if they’re not a good buyer.
For example:
How else are you going to know how it feels to stare at an order form,
credit card in hand, hearing those two voices in your head – one
telling you to buy, the other telling you to put it off until “later”?
Seems to me unless you experience that feeling yourself (and often),
you won’t know how to silence the “procrastinator” voice and
magnify the “buyer” voice in your prospect’s mind.
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Whatever the case, here’s some free advice for anyone who goes into
cardiac arrest when someone – Gasp! – tries to “sell” them
something:
Quit being such a pussy and read the sales pitches.
All of them – good, bad or ugly.
Why?
For one thing, you might learn something. Heck – you may even buy
something. And when that happens, make sure you keep that ad and
dissect it line by line. Figure out exactly what it did to sell you… and
then start using it in your sales pitches.
Trust me, it’ll be one of the best “sales” educations you ever get.
And it won’t cost ya a dime.
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
If you enjoyed this book, there are 700 pages of free
articles about selling, web marketing, copywriting and
email marketing at: www.BenSettle.com
 
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http://www.bensettle.com/
www.getwsodo.com
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Newbie-Proof Traffic Secrets
9 Easy Ways to Drive All the Traffic You Can Eat to
Your Websites
By Ben Settle
Copyright 2016-2017 Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
http://www.bensettle.com/
www.getwsodo.com
WAIT!
Before reading, please take a second and go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
... to access the hundreds of free email & web marketing secrets waiting
there for you.
There’s nothing you must buy... no sponsored links... and no opting in
required.
It’s all yours, free for the taking if you go there today...
 
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http://www.bensettle.com/
www.getwsodo.com
Newbie-Proof Traffic Secrets 
 Table of Contents
Introduction
Traffic Secret #1 - The Hair Raising Blog
Traffic Secret #2 - The Scientific Joint Venture
Traffic Secret #3 - Use The Phone
Traffic Secret #4 - Get Interviewed on Podcasts
Traffic Secret #5 - Postcards
Traffic Secret #6 - eBooks!
Traffic Secret #7 - Seminars/Workshops
Traffic Secret #8 - Solo Blog and Ezine Ads
Traffic Secret #9 - Mix ‘n Match
Final Thoughts...
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Introduction
If you market online, chances are you’d like more traffic.
Without traffic, you aren’t going to make any money.
And with lots of traffic, your chances of making money go up
dramatically.
This book shows you nine simple (although sometimes hair-raising)
ways to get lots of new visitors inside your online store.
You don’t have to do all of them. Instead, just pick the ones that
appeal to you and seem interesting and run with them. The more the
better, but it’s possible to get more than enough traffic with any one
of these methods...
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Traffic Secret #1 - The Hair-Raising Blog
I learned this from my friend and colleague Ryan Healy.
He’s a naturally “contrarian” kind of guy and so this fits his
personality and style like a glove.
If you happen to be controversial and contrarian, then this will be
right up your alley too.
Basically, what I mean by “hair raising” blog is you write blog posts
that are so controversial and contrarian other people can’t help but
read it and share it and talk about it on their blogs and in social media
and to their email lists, etc.
In fact, if you do this right, you will have half your readers singing
your praises and the other half slamming their fists against the desk as
they read it!
Yeah baby!
That’s what you want if you use this technique.
And when you do this, your blog post takes a life of its own.
People start sharing it all over the blogosphere and writing about it
(to give their “take” on what you said) and chirping about it on
Twitter and FaceBook, and so on. Ryan said one time he did one of
these and he saw his traffic spike tremendously (something like 8,000
views).
It made him a lot of new friends, and some new enemies (one goo-roo
he offended calledhim a “horses’s ass” haha). And that, by the way, is
one great way to do this. Find some of the bad things the goo-roos in
your industry are doing and call them out on it.
In Ryan’s case, he names names! (I always said Ryan had big,
clanging ballz, and this is just one example of why). What Ryan did
in that instance was he called out some of the shady people in Internet
marketing (naming their names and everything) and (this is
important) backing up his blog post with hard proof and evidence.
You do not want to go in half-cocked on opinion and hearsay.
If, for example, you want to tell the world how your worst enemy is a
cross dresser then you better have proof first.
By the way, this is a very hair-raising way to get traffic.
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www.getwsodo.com
You probably won’t sleep well for a while.
This is no joke, either.
I remember Ryan saying he almost regretted doing it.
But besides being on all the bad guys’ hit lists, you’ll also probably
make new contacts with other people you would not make friends
with normally. Friendships that could turn into joint ventures and
other opportunities later down the road.
Incidentally, Ryan has done this more than once, so I think maybe
he’s the guy to read if you want to see how to do this.
Below are two examples of how he’s done this.
And, in both cases, he got a ton of website traffic, with blogs linking
to him, people sharing on social media, etc., (and if you use the right
words in the post, the search engines will dig the blog post, too,
which can only help your traffic even more...)
Anyway, here are the two blog posts:
http://www.RyanHealy.com/internet-marketing-life-support
http://www.RyanHealy.com/lifelock-selling-lie
Note: This second link doesn’t look like it got a lot of action, but it
was originally hosted on a different blog platform and between the
two posts it did well for getting him attention and traffic.
Okay, on to the next traffic tip...
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
http://www.ryanhealy.com/internet-marketing-life-support
http://www.ryanhealy.com/lifelock-selling-lie
www.getwsodo.com
Traffic Secret #2 - The Scientific Joint Venture
Chances are you’ve heard about joint ventures before.
And you probably also know about how powerful it can be for
generating new traffic when done right.
In fact, just about every high level Internet marketer I know (not all,
but most of them) use JV’s to generate new traffic and leads.
It’s smart, too - as it lets you get the endorsement (implied and direct)
of someone else to their own list of customers and prospects.
You get to tap into all that goodwill and the wall of skepticism is low
and easily hopped over. And if you do these with the right people,
they can help you build your business very, very quickly. (I think
almost half of my list at http://www.BenSettle.com is a result of
various joint ventures and endorsements.)
Okay, but here’s the thing:
We all know about JV’s but what’s most important is doing it in a
very systematic and even scientific way.
Just like you sell to your own customers.
Getting JV partners for traffic generation is a “sale” like any other
sale.
It takes strategy, planning and a little bit of creativity.
For example, you need to study each person before contacting them.
Find out what they want or even if they’re interested in doing JV’s
(why waste your time with someone who’s not?)
Doing this sort of homework can potentially send hundreds, even
thousands (or even tens of thousands) of new leads to your site -
ready to buy with credit card in hand (or at least ready to subscribe to
your list).
Now, the thing I want to focus on here is how to contact potential JV
partners.
This is the most important part since, after all, if you don’t get their
attention and talking to you, then nothing else counts.
There are several ways to do this.
But I’m going to cover three here:
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www.getwsodo.com
1. Don’t contact them yourself.
One of my favorite sales “gurus” (not a goo-roo) is a guy named Stan
Billue.
His thing is telephone sales and when he was selling his “How to
Double Your Income Selling on the Phone” product (via cold calling
sales managers) he would not do the call himself.
You see, he said Stan Billue hates rejection.
(Who doesn’t?)
So he would call them and say his name is “Pat Murphy”.
This gave him better positioning, and is a very powerful sales
technique.
It also works for getting JV partners.
Don’t contact them yourself - have someone else do it.
It could be your secretary or even an intern (maybe hire an intern to
contact them by phone and/or email and pay them a percentage on the
sales that result from the JV).
My friend Daniel Levis does this and says it’s a huge factor in his
success.
2. Go Offline.
I love email, but the reality is, it’s easy to delete and ignore.
Especially coming from a stranger.
By all means try email first (see #3 below).
But if it fails have some offline backup ways to use. Maybe FedEx.
Or a ball (go to SendABall.com). Or make a YouTube video giving
the person a testimonial (make sure it is authentic!).
You could even try using a message sent by courier or telegram if you
wanted.
The point is to think outside the box.
3. Email template.
What’s that?
You just want to use email?
Okay then, I’m going reprint the exact email my friend David Dutton
(WhoIsDavidDutton.com - I HIGHLY recommend you get on his
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
list!) who bills himself “The Most Connected Man on the Internet”
used to get joint ventures with everyone from Joe Vitale and Jim
Straw and David Frey... to television celebrities.
Don’t let the simplicity of this email fool you, either.
David used it to go from a broke-as-a-joke college student driving
around his “ghetto fabulous” car that was ready to break down... to
being extremely successful online in a very short period of time. 
Anyway, here it is:
Subject Line: Quick Question
Hey John,
My name is David Dutton. I wrote a book with Joe Vitale, Jeff Walker
and others who you may know. I am also an internet marketing
consultant. I really liked your book on growing tomato gardens and I
wanted to see if there is somehow we can work together. I have some
ideas you might like.
My number is 615-796-0104.
I look forward to speaking.
Thanks,
Dave
My but that was short and sweet and to the point, wasn’t it?
Hardly looks very “sexy” at all, does it?
No, it doesn’t.
In fact, it looks like something a person would send to another person
without using any sales letter, copywriting or “persuasion” tricks at
all. Yet, it laid the foundation for his entire business. But, that doesn’t
mean there isn’t a lot going on in this bad-boy.
Following is partly what I wrote about this email in my “Email
Players” newsletter last year about what makes it “tick”...
• Respects the Reader’s Time
• Warm and Friendly
• No Hidden Agenda
• Social Proof
• Phone Number
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Incidentally, according to Dave, his phone number is the real
backbone of this email.
The social proof is important, but he said it was including his phone
number that really sealed the deal.
For one thing, nobody else online does it.
And for another, nobody else online does it!
And what would happen is, some (not all) of the people he sent it to...
called him back. Imagine that!
To paraphrase copywriter John Francis Tighe - “in the land of emails,
the dude who still uses the phone is king.”
Now, did this work every time he sent it out?
Of course not.
But it worked a lot more than you might realize.
A big reason for this is he chose who he contacted very carefully.
He didn’t just load his email program up with everyone and anyone
and throw caution to the wind and push “send.”
No, he found people whose products he’d bought and who (as he told
me) he was a fan of already.
That made his email 100% genuine, warm and safe to spend time
reading.
How can you not at least read an email from a genuine fan of your
products?
Youcan do the same thing.
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Traffic Secret #3 - Use the Phone
This is not something I’ve done a lot of.
But I’ve seen it done so many times by people I know, that I know it
works like gangbusters if it’s something you enjoy doing.
Anyway, one great way to get more traffic is to do teleseminars (free
or paid) and drive people to an opt in page to register for it. Then
during the teleseminar, you either sell something (which puts them on
a buyers list) or you can offer to give something away for free in
exchange for opting in to your list.
Actually, there are probably many other ways to monetize
teleseminars, too.
But again, since this is not something I’ve done much of, I will just
stick with the ways I can confidently teach to you.
Also, there are two great tips I’ve learned about doing them from
someone much smarter than I am when it comes to teleseminars.
The first tip is from my friend Ray Edwards (RayEdwards.com) and
he said he noticed he gets the best results (i.e., number of people
attending the teleseminar) when you promise to teach something
specific, instead of something generalized.
So, for example, instead of saying you’re teaching “copywriting” you
would promise to teach them how to write bullets or headlines, etc.
The more specific, the more people will likely want to be on the call
and hear what you have to say.
Another thing you can do (which may seem obvious, yet how many
do it?) is to then put your recorded teleseminar on iTunes and
YouTube.
(Maybe a multipart YouTube playlist).
This way you tap into more traffic sources, get to use SEO to your
advantage (with keywords, etc.) and get it in front of people who
normally would not have seen it.
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Traffic Secret #4 - Get Interviewed on Podcasts
This is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite ways to get traffic.
It’s so easy, too.
And what you do is make yourself available to be interviewed by
other people in your niche/marketing/industry. Or, it could even be
people in related markets, too.
The important thing is that the listeners are in the market for
whatever solution you offer.
Doing these interviews gives you what is often called “the halo
effect.”
This means all the credibility, trust and likability the audience has for
the host is transferred to you! You are automatically positioned
higher than you would be from any other kind of advertising.
And what you do is just give away good information.
Personally, I do not hold back on these.
This is your chance to demonstrate you know your stuff, that you’re
someone who is a source of great information, and that you can help
solve their problems.
Now, you may be wondering, “how do I get people to want to
interview me for their podcasts?”
There are a lot of ways to do this.
Here are two very simple ways.
In fact, they are so simple I would be surprised if you did NOT get
booked with an interview or two by the end of today if you did it right
away (I mean literally, if you put this book down for 5 minutes, go to
your computer and do the following).
First, ask your list!
How’s that for easy?
One thing I did a while back was tell my list, “hey, I’m open to doing
interviews for podcasts...” and gave a few conditions so nobody
wastes my time.
Here is exactly what I have on my site now:
Attention Podcasters:
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
I’m sometimes available for website/podcast interviews.
Some of the well-known Internet marketers and websites I’ve been
interviewed by include Ken McCarthy (for his elite “System Club”)
… Copyblogger Radio… Glenn Livingston… Terry Dean (For his
“Ultimate Interview Solution” product)… Michael Senoff…
Doberman Dan Gallapoo… Daegan Smith… Mike Dillard… Tim
Erway… Daniel Levis… and the list goes on.
To book an interview for your podcast click here to contact me.
Also, one more thing:
I don’t like turning interviews down.
But I don’t like wasting time, either.
So in your email please tell me the topic you want me to talk about,
how you plan to use it and some details about your audience (how big
is it, what do they most want to learn about, etc.
See how that works?
Pretty easy.
It helps to throw some social proof in if you can (and if you can’t
now, you will be able to later as you do more podcasts). But just tell
them you are willing and watch what happens.
Incidentally, doing this has landed me interviews (text and audio)
with some pretty cool sites like, for example, Experian.com which
adds a lot of credibility to me as a source of information.
So that’s one way to get interviews.
Another is to go to this website: RadioGuestList.com
This is a great site where both real radio shows and podcasters post
notices looking for people to interview!
They even give you the topic, audience size and who to contact.
It’s very easy and simple to get interviews that way.
Whatever way you use, the important thing to realize is you’re
getting very high quality prospects (usually).
These are people who have listened to you, and were impressed
enough by you to go to your site and seek out your opt in form to hear
more.
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
So make sure you give a plug for yourself at the end when appropriate
(you may even want to make sure before the interview the host has no
problem plugging you - most are happy to do it, but it never hurts to
ask just so you don’t waste your time).
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Traffic Secret #5 - Postcards
Not a lot of people are doing this, but it is a potentially huge traffic
source that’s also cheap.
Although, it does cost some money to get started, if you have your
funnel set up and know your numbers it is well worth testing.
What you can do is find a list broker to help you find offline lists of
people who have proven (with their wallets) they are very interested
in whatever topic you teach about in your products and on your
websites.
There are thousands of lists and chances are, no matter what you sell,
there’s a list out there with people who would be very interested in
knowing about you and your products.
These lists get very detailed, too.
The trick is to find a good list broker.
The industry is kind of a swamp.
So what you want to do is do your homework when seeking a broker
out.
Another thing you can do is go to other people in your market with
customers and ask them if you can mail (snail mail) their list. You
can rent their list just like anyone else’s. Not everyone will go for
this, but some will (it’s easy money, after all).
The key reason this can work so well is you’re mailing buyers, not
just subscribers or people who are aimlessly searching the Internet
for something.
These are people who have opened their wallet and paid money for
something similar to what you sell.
That is an infinitely more valuable lead than free leads gotten via free
methods.
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Traffic Secret #6 - eBooks!
Speaking of selling to buyers instead of free subscribers, eBooks are
perfect for this.
What you do is sell inexpensive eBooks online. (Most of these books
can be written in just a few hours, or you can even use content you
already wrote in many cases).
And you simply fill those eBooks with links back to your site.
This gives you a double whammy - you make money from the book
sales and the backend sales (when your readers opt in to your site),
plus anything else they buy from you in the future.
Some partners and I do this in the weight loss niche and we get
dozens of leads per day sometimes (it fluctuates).
Your results may vary (we have a lot of books up).
But these are awesome leads and proven buyers.
And guess what?
Luckily for you, I’m here to help simplify the process for you.
This way you can do as little “thinking” about it as I do (I put barely
any thought into this, except cashing a check every month). So here’s
what you do: Find a company who will publish and distribute eBooks
for you.
They areall over (just Google them and talk to many and find the
best one for you).
Or, you can do it yourself.
It’s not very difficult and all the eBook sites show step-by-step
directions on how to do it.
Whatever the case, you want to focus (in my opinion, at least) on
something that is mass market.
If you sell a niche product, try to find a related mass market topic you
can write about.
Custom fit any existing content you have to your topic.
A good eBook publisher will help you with this so I don’t want to
spend a lot of time on this here.
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Again, what you want to do is fill your book with lots of links back to
your main capture page. Don’t put links to anything else inside - just
the capture page.
The idea is to build your list, not to get one time sales here and there
(as you know, with email, you can get far more sales if you mail a list
than sending leads to a page and hoping they buy, right?).
 
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Traffic Secret #7 - Seminars/Workshops
This is probably not going to drive a ton of people to your site, but it
might.
It just depends on how big your audience is. But the idea is to put on
local teachings about whatever problem you solve.
If it’s small then I suggest taking the advice of Mike Winnicki in my
book “The Copywriting Grab Bag”
(http://www.CopywritingGrabBag.com) and going to your local
community colleges.
They often have state-of-the-art (funded by the tax payers)
equipment, etc., and clean rooms.
And they will (many times) let you use their rooms and equipment
either free or really cheap!
So definitely worth looking in to if you want to go this route.
I have found this to be particularly useful if you sell a service, rather
than a product.
But either way is fine and you just send people to your website from
there (maybe even while they’re there, on their laptops).
 
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Traffic Secret #8 - Solo Blog and Ezine Ads
This next one is a potential goldmine for you.
Running ads in ezines and on blog sites related to your niche (I prefer
solo ads, so you’re the only person they see) can send qualified traffic
to your site very quickly.
By qualified I mean, ezine readers are used to reading emails and, in
many cases, used to responding/buying from emails.
After all, they are reading an ezine (or blog article).
So it’s not like you’re writing ads to people who don’t know what an
optin page is or what to do when they see one. As for specifics, there
are two sources I would recommend checking out if you want to start
testing this.
(And there are likely many, many more than the two I’m going tell
you about, these are just to get started.) The first is a membership site
called “The Directory Of Ezines.” (DirectoryOfEzines.com).
It’s full of ezines in various markets that accept ezine advertising in a
multitude of lists.
It’s not cheap, (it was around $300 when I bought it, not sure what it
is now).
But there are a lot of ezines in there.
And they list everything you need to know about an ezine before
contacting them about advertising.
They even tell you if the publisher is open to doing joint ventures!
That’s sort of the holy grail of ezine advertising.
If you have a converting offer, sometimes the publishers will become
your affiliate instead of accepting an ad fee.
I mean, think about it, let’s say it costs $300 to run your solo ad to
their list.
And let’s say you have a great offer that converts like crazy.
If they were your affiliate then they’d make a lot more than the
measly $300 methinks (again, the smart ones are open to this if you
have a proven offer, you just have to ask).
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One great list to test if you sell to mass market is Arcamax
(Arcamax.com). Just contact them and ask to talk to a guy named
Richard Young and he’ll get you squared away.
I’ve used them and it’s a compiled list (not very targeted).
But you can definitely do a good split test and get some great intel.
Finally, I would also encourage you to check out Jonathan Mizel’s
“Traffic Evolution” course (TrafficEvolution.com).
That course opened my eyes to paid advertising and how it’s not
nearly as expensive as you might think.
 
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Traffic Secret #9 - Mix ‘n Match
Finally, mix ‘n match, baby!
Like it or not, “1” is the most dangerous number in business.
That’s an old Dan Kennedy saying and it’s 100% true.
Relying on one of anything can be devastating to your business.
And this is especially true if you are relying on one traffic source.
People who relied on Google AdWords learned this the hard way if
they were “slapped” or outright banned (like a lot of people were).
One day they got a great pipeline of traffic coming in and making out
like bandits... the next they’re shut down without so much as a word
of warning!
Not good!
So the best way to use the information in this book is to mix it up.
Test them all.
Then see which ones yield you the most results.
It could be for your particular list and website and market that some
of these won’t work nearly as well as others.
I’m a big fan of testing lots of different methods (whether it’s traffic
or anything else) and then noting what’s working, what’s not working
(or what’s not working that well) and then only using what is giving
the best bang for my buck.
It’s a good way to go through business (and not just the traffic
aspect.)
So, mix and match them, find the right combo and then run with it.
 
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Final Thoughts...
What you just read are some very simple (and quickly implemented)
traffic tactics. They don’t require years of training. They don’t
require lots of practice. And they don’t require a lot of time. In fact,
you can start using many of them right away. For ongoing persuasion
and marketing tips (mostly around email marketing, but also other
topics) go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
 
 
 
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http://www.bensettle.com/
www.getwsodo.com
 
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Negotiation Secrets of the World’s Most Persuasive
Men and Women
Written by Ben Settle
Copyright 2016-2017 by Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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Negotiation Secrets of the World’s Most
 Persuasive Men and Women
 Table of Contents
Introduction
The “Make Me an Offer” Secret
Show ‘em Some Pain
Lend Them Your Ear
The Nerd Gets Hot Cheerleader Phenomenon
Hit the Road, Jack
Release the Pressure
Right to Veto
Know the Tricks
How the World’s Greatest Salesman Did It
Tell ‘em Straight Up
Explore Their World
Is This the Best You Can Do?
Gary Halbert’s Secret Negotiation Strategy
 
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Wait!
Before reading, please take a second and go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
... to access the hundreds of FREE email & web marketing secrets
waiting there for you.
There’s nothing you have to buy... no sponsored links... and no opting
in required.
It’s all yours, free for the taking if you go there today...
 
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Introduction
As a direct response copywriter, sales trainer and email marketing
specialist, I’m just fascinated with negotiation. Many of my biggest
Ah-Ha! moments about marketing, selling and persuasion came not
from a copywriting goo-roo or sales ex-spurt – but from studying the
world’s greatest negotiator. 
Whether you’re selling something on the Internet, trying to flip a new
client or just want a more peaceful existence with your family,
friends, boss, co-workers, business partners or anyone else, the 13
tips inside this (very short) book are some of the easiest (and most
reliable) ways I know. 
And the next time you sit down to write an ad, are “wheeling and
dealing” for a client, or are just trying to get a better dealon a car or
house (or anything else, for that matter), methinks these simple ideas
inside this (very short!) book will come in very handy.
But, don’t be fooled by the simplicity.
Many of these ideas comes from the world’s greatest sales and
negotiation trainers.
No, they’re not complicated.
They’re actually very simple.
And, if you apply them to your sales, marketing and other persuasion
activities, I believe you’ll see a healthy bump in your sales and
response.
With that said, let’s begin...
 
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Negotiation Secret #1: The “Make Me an
Offer” Secret
A while back, one of my friends in business was trying to get a big
Internet marketing contract with a major talking head in the political
world (Newt Gingrich) and they wanted me to do the emails. 
And while Newt isn’t exactly my favorite talking head, it would have
been a cool gig if for no other reason I could have slapped his name
on the sales letter selling my “Email Players” newsletter (as a nice
proof element). 
Anyway, the deal fell through on Newt’s side. 
But when I was negotiating with my friend about what I’d get paid,
we had that... awkward moment. 
You know of what I speaketh, right? 
Whenever negotiating something (especially in business, when
money is involved) there’s that awkward moment where everyone is
sort of dancing around. 
The one person doesn’t want to pay more than they have to, and the
other doesn’t want to ask for too much for whatever they got, and risk
turning the other person off. 
Very common... and very awkward for the untrained. 
The solution? 
Well, we did the dance for a while until finally I just came right out
and said, “Why don’t you guys make me an offer?” 
Pretty simple, isn’t it? 
One sentence that not only cuts through all the awkward stuff, but
also gets the tennis match started, with you having served up the first
shot...
 
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Negotiation Secret #2: Show ‘em Some Pain
This again is more of a “technique” than a principle (most of these
tips are principle based, which are far more reliable). 
But it’s very clever and I’m amazed at how many times this was done
to me over my business career without even realizing it. 
In fact, when I learned it, I felt as if I was the last person on earth to
know of its existence! 
Anyway, here’s how it works: 
Whenever someone makes an offer to you (no matter what you’re
negotiating) your first, instant reaction is “ooohh.” 
Or “ouch.” 
Or some kind of verbal wince where you give the appearance what
they said kinda hurt. 
What does this do? 
Well, for one thing, you’ll know right off the bat how badly the other
person wants to do business with you. 
If they say, “That’s okay, let’s just end it here, no need to go further”
(or if they show superior posture, which we’ll cover in a second)
you’ll have valuable information about how badly they want to play
ball with you. 
On the other hand, what usually happens is the other person will start
back peddling. 
They’ll start going, “wait, okay, we’ll give you this instead...” or “that
must be too much, how about you take it for only this much...” or
something to that affect. 
It obviously depends on your unique circumstances and what’s being
negotiated. 
But if, for example, you’re buying a car and they say the price is
XYZ, you can go “ouch!” and start walking away. 
This is very powerful stuff I’ve used myself and it works like
gangbusters. 
But you will definitely have to use it at least one time to get the full
impact of just how effective this sleepy little technique is.
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Negotiation Secret #3: Lend Them Your Ear
Methinks you’ve probably heard the old adage, “God gave you two
ears and one mouth for a reason.” 
Meaning, listening is far more important than talking. 
Well, you know what? 
This is especially true when negotiating. 
It’s amazing how few people listen and just blab on and on and on
during a negotiation or sale or any kind of persuasive activity. 
As if they talk enough the other person will magically do their
bidding. 
It just doesn’t work that way. 
The best way to win in a negotiation (including selling) is to do as the
late great copywriter Eugene Schwartz taught, “talk little, listen
much.” 
The best negotiators hardly even open their mouths. 
They let their “adversary” do all the talking, reveal all their info and
tell them what they need to hear in order to close the deal.
 
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Negotiation Secret #4: The Nerd Gets Hot
Cheerleader Phenomenon
If I had only one negotiation strategy I could use, I’d pick this bad-
boy every day of the week and twice on Sunday. 
And that is... Posture. 
No, I’m not talking about how you sit in your chair. 
I’m talking about having an “air” (and intention) about you that you
simply don’t care about the outcome either way. 
People who “need” are eaten alive during a negotiation. 
Frankly, they might as well wear a sign on their chest that says “Take
advantage of me, I’m in a position of weakness.” 
No good. 
You have to do the opposite. 
You really have to not care about the outcome. 
To not need them or their deal. 
I even wrote about this in my book “Crackerjack Selling Secrets” (it’s
one of the seven “lynchpins” of persuasion that make all your other
sales and persuasive activities ten times more powerful than they
would be otherwise). 
Here is what I wrote, as I think it will get the point across:
Interesting story:
Back in High School, there was an extremely “nerdy” guy-who the
women laughed at and the guys tortured and humiliated at every
opportunity―who once got a date with one of the prettiest girls in
school. 
The rest of the guys were in total awe.
People wondered: 
How did this guy get that kind of woman to go on a date with him?
Plus, not only did she go on a date with him... but she practically
hounded him wherever he went. She called him two or three times a
day. Her friends thought she was crazy and nobody in the entire
school could understand how this nerdy, pimple-popping guy was able
to do this.
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Then one day, one of the guys asked him what his “secret” was.
His answer:
“I stopped caring if girls told me no or not,” he said. “I stopped
taking it personally. So I asked her out as if I didn’t care one way or
the other if she said yes or no. A couple days later we went out.” He
continued, “Then, when I saw how well that worked, I kept doing it.
When we talked on the phone, I would end the conversation half way
through as if I didn’t really care she was the prettiest and most
popular girl in school. When we made out, I would sometimes stop
just when she was getting into it and go home. And I just keep this
attitude all the time now. She knows I don’t really need her. It drives
her crazy.”
Amazing, isn’t it?
Of course, this is nothing new. In sales, we call it...
Posture.
And top sales people have maximum posture all the time. 
There is no argument when they’re told no. No blubbering or begging.
They simply have the attitude, “Okay, good luck” and remove
themselves emotionally from the outcome.
And you know what?
When you start having posture like this―where you don’t care if they
say yes or no―people feel an almost...
 Irresistible Desire to Comply With Your Wishes!
There’s something magical that happens when people know you don’t
“need” their money. You don’t “need” their deal. You don’t “need”
their contacts or whatever you are trying to persuade them to give
you. If they don’t say yes, someone else will and you don’t care. 
Period.
Only question is, how do you develop this kind of iron-clad posture?
Especially when you really do want the sale and, in fact, really do
need it? The answer is to always have enough “irons in the fire” (i.e.
deals going) so if one or two or three don’t work, you really don’t
care. In my direct response copywriting business,for example, I have
many people wanting to hire me. So I really don’t care if someone
says no or decides to flake out or whatever. 
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I mean, who cares? And that’s the key:
Use the secrets in this book to have so many prospects interested in
buying,...
You Won’t Care If Someone Says No!
In fact, you may have to start telling other people no (Crackerjack
Selling Secret #14). When this happens, believe me, people will
practically smell your posture. 
And in some cases, even people who would normally not buy will
change their minds.
 
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Negotiation Secret #5: Hit the Road, Jack
Speaking of posture... it’s one thing to believe you have it and say
things to give someone an indication you have it... but it’s quite
another to SHOW them you have it.
Let me give you a real life example. 
Back in the summer of 2008, my car engine pretty much imploded. 
It was a 7 year old car and it would have cost more to fix the dang
thing than what it was worth. So I ventured out into the jungle of car
dealers to look for a new car. 
When I found one worthy of pursuing, I went in, test drove it and let
the dance begin with the dealership. Now, besides all the stoopid sales
tricks they were using (even blatant lying – it’s incredible what these
chumps get away with in that industry) I noticed something else. 
And that is, these car vultures are incredibly needy themselves. 
I remember sitting in the office with the car salesman and the finance
guy. 
I did not necessarily “need” the car they were selling me. 
I wanted it, yes. 
But need it? 
No. 
And so they would tell me a price I had no intention of paying and I
would simply stand up, shake the guy’s hand and say, “well, we tried,
but looks like it’s not going to happen...” 
Something like that. 
The truth is, the dealership was three hours away from where I live
(in the boonies) and I wanted to get back before traffic got too bad. 
Anyway, it was funny because every time I stood up, they would get
up and physically block the door and lower the price. 
It was almost like Pavlov’s dogs. 
They would cite a price, I would say no and get up, they would make
for the door. 
This happened probably three times (at least). 
In the end, I got ‘em down to the barest low price possible. 
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And that’s the point: 
Never be afraid to walk away. 
Once you get that posture, show it with your actions. 
It can make all the difference.
 
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Negotiation Secret #6: Release the Pressure
Pressure sucks. 
I know this goes against what a lot of people do when negotiating
(“keep the pressure on!”), but I think the best way to persuade,
negotiate, and sell is to go the opposite way. 
This goes back to the law of the jungle: 
When you pursue, the prey runs away. 
And it’s the same in business. 
When you put the pressure on... and pursue... the other person is
going to back away mentally, emotionally and even physically. 
Let’s take our car example above.
Like I said, they were using all the usual tricks and sales choke holds.
And none of them worked. Frankly, had I not wanted the car I was
looking at and had I had more patience, I probably would have left on
sheer principle of how sucky their sales presentation skills were. 
But instead of lying about how the manager’s daughter was looking at
buying the car (yes, they used that one), what if they’d gone the
opposite way, and not used any pressure tactics at all? 
In other words, what if they’d said, “Look, I don’t know if we have
the right car for you. I’ll do everything I can to help. But if at any
time you don’t think we have what you need, will you do me a favor
and just let me know? That way we don’t waste any of your time…” 
I guess we’ll never know. 
But I’m inclined to think I not only would have been a more eager
buyer... but also probably would not have haggled the price down as
much (after all, I would have liked, trusted and respected the sales
man, and not looked at him as a vulture who I have complete reign to
low ball as much as possible – which I did.) 
There are many benefits to removing pressure when negotiating and
few (if any) drawbacks. Plus, if you truly have posture (and don’t
“need” the deal) and know you have something great to offer, why
would you need it anyway? 
Pressure is usually a sign someone is insecure – either in themselves
or in that which they are trying to sell.
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Negotiation Secret #7: Right to Veto
This is straight from the Jim Camp “school” of negotiation. 
In fact, Jim is the negotiation expert I mentioned at the start of this
book who I have learned so much from. 
Anyway, a while back Michael Senoff interviewed Jim and they
started talking about this “right to veto” and how powerful it is when
negotiating. 
And what he said was...
Jim: It’s really a principle. Now let me go back to the definition of
negotiation. Again, I did not invent this, Mike. This comes right out
of the Oxford dictionary. It’s “the effort or work to bring about an
agreement between two or more parties with all parties having the
right to veto”. Now think about the right to veto. What do we do to
someone who destroys someone’s right to veto? What happens in our
society? Let me give you an extreme. When you think of rape, is
that not ultimately destroying or taking away someone’s right to
veto? And if we catch that person, and we convict that person, the
punishment is terrible. Now think of the person going in to meet with
someone they don’t even know and they’re trying to close. They’re
attempting to tactically take away that person’s right to veto. They’re
building terrible barriers and they don’t even realize it. The amazing
thing is if they give the right to veto, openly and honestly and really
own it as a principle of life, which it is, again, I didn’t invent it;
amazing things happen. Barriers come down, checkbooks come out
and real solutions are found.
This just changed everything for me when I learned it. 
It’s all about giving people the right to say no. 
This goes hand in hand with removing the pressure. 
Again, these are not “tactics”, they are principles that have worked
for thousands of years. 
If you want to download the PDF transcript of the entire interview (I
highly suggest it), just go to:
http://www.CryptoMarketing.com/gratis/camp-transcript.pdf
 
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http://www.cryptomarketing.com/gratis/camp-transcript.pdf
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Negotiation Secret #8: Know the Tricks
Now, let’s switch gears here a bit. 
I’ve been railing against using “tricks” and “techniques”, right? 
Well, guess what? 
Just because I don’t think you should use them doesn’t mean I don’t
think you should learn them. You see, the fact is most people don’t
know anything about negotiation. 
They only know the tricks and tips and don’t think the principles
we’ve been discussing are sexy enough. 
So they resort to all the manipulation and choke holds. 
And, like with the “ouch!” technique, if you don’t know them... you
may be susceptible to falling for those tricks! 
So it’s good to be aware of what your adversary (i.e. the person you’re
negotiating with) might be using. 
You can learn about the popular ones someone is likely to be using
with a simple Google search. 
You should also be thoroughly familiar with Robert Cialdini’s book
“Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion.”
The principles in that book are like a knife: 
They can be used for good (like a surgeon’s scalpel) or evil (a
psychopath’s weapon). 
And knowing how people might use these 6 concepts in that book
(social proof, reciprocity, authority, liking, scarcity, consistency, etc)
really helps when dealing with people who are aware of those
concepts and use them. 
So definitely get your learn on about the tricks, too, so you’ll see allthe BS coming from a mile away.
 
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Negotiation Secret #9: How the World’s
Greatest Salesman Did It
I heard this story from the world’s greatest living advertising
copywriter.
Many years ago, there used to be a show called “The Johnny Carson
Show.” 
And like all late night television shows, Johnny had lots of interesting
guests on. 
Well, one guest he had on was the late Fred Herman who Earl
Nightingale called “American’s greatest sales trainer.” 
He was also the guy who coined the term K.I.S.S. (for “keep it simple,
stupid!”) 
Anyway, while I did not see this happen (and have been scouring
YouTube trying to find a clip of it), old Fred gave perhaps the greatest
sales and negotiation presentation one could ever hope to learn from. 
Basically, what happened was, Johnny had Fred on and challenged
him to sell him something. When Fred asked Johnny what he’d like
him to sell to him, Johnny said, “how about this ash tray?” 
So Fred picks it up (with an ash forming on Johnny’s cigarette) and
hardly says a word except to ask some questions. 
Like, “why would you want an ash tray like this, Johnny?” 
When Johnny would give his reasons, he would then basically sell
himself on buying it (very clever, isn’t it?) 
From what I understand, Fred even did the classic, “are there any
other reasons you’d want an ash tray like this?” This is important
because, as even the MLM companies teach, the first reason is never
the “real” reason someone wants something. 
Anyway, long story short, after Johnny gave all his reasons for
wanting to buy his own ash tray Fred simply asked, “how much would
you be willing to pay for it?” and the sale was made. 
Now, obviously, this could have been a made up bit they planned out. 
But it so perfectly illustrates how to negotiate – and how to get the
other person selling themselves on what you have (again, Fred did
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almost zero talking) and on how using no pressure, and just finding
out what someone wants before trying to persuade them of anything
is the best and most reliable “technique” you can ever use. 
 
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Negotiation Secret #10: Tell ‘em Straight Up
This is something that works extremely well if you’re negotiating a
higher fee for yourself or selling a high ticket product (even if in an
ad). 
And that is... just tell them right up front: 
“This is expensive...” 
I love doing this. 
Especially in my ads. 
In fact, I do it with anything I sell that is higher ticket. 
Why? 
Aren’t I turning people away? 
Not at all. 
Usually what will happen is one (or both) of two things: 
(1) You will have more credibility in their eyes (you’re being 100%
honest with them, after all) and (2) You create a kind of irresistible
curiosity that is extremely hard to ignore. 
For example, how many times have you heard of crazy gimmicks like
$50 cheeseburgers or $5 milk shakes (remember that in Pulp
Fiction?) 
You almost have to see what the fuss is about. 
It oozes high quality and prestige. 
There was a very high pulling ad the great copywriter Gary Halbert
wrote with the headline: “Warning: Do Not Read This Unless You
Are Already Rich!” 
I seriously doubt that turned even the cheapest of cheapskates away. 
It demanded readership by anyone with a pulse. 
More: you are also taking the objection away later. 
When you set the expectation from the start that you’re expensive
(and have given them 100% permission to tell you “no” at any time),
you open up their minds to hear you out. 
Plus, if you’re not as expensive as they think, the price will seem
lower anyway which can work to your advantage. 
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So just by being honest up front that what you have is not cheap puts
all kinds of forces in motion that work hard for you. 
Now, just one caution: 
I would not recommend giving the exact price before value is
established. 
What you want to do is give them a vague idea that you are not
cheap. 
Maybe, “Look, before we go any further, understand I’m expensive. 
In fact, I could be very expensive depending on what you need. 
So if at any time during our talk you don’t think I’m a good fit, just
let me know and we can both go home...” 
See? 
No pressure, yet you establish posture, credibility and value. 
 
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Negotiation Secret #11: Explore Their “World”
Another Jim Camp-ism I have never forgotten (and that you can learn
more about in the PDF I linked to earlier) is the importance of getting
in your adversary’s “world.”
As Jim says, “you are always safe in your prospect’s world.” 
Meaning, if you are asking them questions (sincerely, to gather info
to determine if you can help them or be a benefit to them), and
learning about them from the point of view of someone with value to
share, you almost can’t lose. 
This goes back to the old adage, “don’t tell me about your weed
killer... tell me about my crabgrass!” 
Whatever you are negotiating, you have to ask questions and gather
info. 
Find out what the real problem or issue is and what they want and
need before offering any kind of solution. Otherwise you are just
assuming everything and you could be 180 degrees off. 
This is the big problem with relying too heavily on tricks and tips
instead of solid psychological principles. 
For example, if you assume price is an object and start presenting
everything around price, you’ll either look like a fool or leave a
bunch of money on the table. 
If you assume they are wanting to make more money when they
really want more time, you’ll miss the mark completely. 
Or if you assume someone wants to buy your car because they want
good gas milage instead of to impress their friends, you’ll simply
spin your wheels (no pun intended). 
So probe. 
Ask questions that let you into their world like, “So how can I help
you?” 
Or “What made you decide to contact me?” 
Or “What is it exactly we’re trying to solve here?” 
Or “What do you want from this deal?” 
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Or “Okay, you tell me what’s going on and that way I can better
understand what the real issue is and offer some possible solutions.” 
And so on, and so forth. 
As the Bible says, “Ask and ye shall receive.” 
Get in their world. 
But never, ever assume.
 
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Negotiation Secret #12: Is This the Best You
Can Do?
Here’s another “tactic” that works so extremely well when
negotiating price or terms, I can’t resist including it. 
I actually heard this years ago on a Brian Tracy tape where he was
covering 24 ways to close a sale. 
I remember using it to sell my car at the time and I ended up getting a
few hundred dollars more than I would have otherwise. (If I’d known
then what I know now and am teaching you here, I probably would
have gotten an extra $1,000 for it, but be that as it may...) 
Anyway, it’s pretty simple. 
What you do is, when they make their offer you say (without any
emotion), “is that the best you can do?”
Think about what that does. 
You are not manipulating them. 
You are not trying to pull a “fast one” on them. 
And you are not pressuring them or insulting them. 
You are simply asking them (without saying it), “I know you can do
better, are you going to be honest about it?” 
Most likely (unless they have super posture themselves) they will
fold. 
I remember the car guy saying, “no... that’s just what I wanted to
offer you for it.” 
And you’ll find that happens a lot. 
People will back pedal, and start adjusting the price as if you
“caught” them (and in a way, you did). 
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Negotiation Secret #13: Gary Halbert’s Secret
Negotiation Strategy
Once, I heard Gary Halbert (the late, great marketing genius) tell the
story of someone he knew who used to buy expensive things (I think
it was boats) and then re-sell them at even bigger mark ups. 
So we’re talkingbuying something that sells retail for $500k but
buying the product for only $350k and pocketing the rest. 
How did he do this? 
He would contact someone who had something he wanted to sell. 
And, instead of trying to nickel and dime them, he would say
something basically like this: 
“Look, I know this widget is worth every single penny you are selling
it for. It’s a great widget, and very high quality. However, I really
want it, but cannot afford the price you are asking. Would you take it
for XYZ price instead?” 
Okay, this sounds very simple, doesn’t it? 
That is because it is simple and it works like crazy! 
And the reason it works is because (1) you are not arguing or
haggling the price. In fact, you are saying right up front that yes, you
know it is worth that much, and a great product and (2) this lowers the
other person’s defenses, and in a weird way, often prompts them to
want to help you out and give you a deal. 
Very shrewd way to negotiate if you really think about it. 
It’s sort of an under-the-radar way to persuade someone to do what
you want and get a better price for something you would not
ordinarily probably get it for. 
You can apply this next time you buy anything expensive – a car, a
boat even a house. 
Or, you can turn this into a business in and of itself by acquiring
products at a discount and selling them for full retail somewhere else
(eBay, Craigslist, your own website or store, etc.). 
Try it and watch what happens!
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Final Thoughts...
What you just read are some of the best, most powerful and easiest-
to-use negotiation tactics you can find. They don’t require years of
training. They don’t require lots of practice. And they don’t require a
lot of time. In fact, you can start using many of them right away – or
the next time you need to negotiate something (no matter what it is).
For ongoing persuasion and marketing tips (mostly around email
marketing, but also other topics) go to: http://www.BenSettle.com
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
http://www.bensettle.com/
www.getwsodo.com
 
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www.getwsodo.com
12 “Mish-Mash” Joint Venture Secrets You Can
Profit from In as Little As 60 Minutes or Less
Copyright 2016-2017 Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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http://www.bensettle.com/
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12 “Mish-Mash” Joint Venture Secrets
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Sleep with the Enemy
Trade Your Way to Success
Wheel and Deal, Baby
Advertise
Tune into YouTube
Create a Breakfast of Champions
Endorsed Mailing
Mine Your Master Mind
Avengers Assemble
Hold the Clipboard
Phoning in ClickBank
Be a Pinch Hitter
“Do’s & Don’ts”...
Final Thoughts
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Introduction
There are few ways to quickly make money fast in business that rival
setting up joint ventures.
A joint venture being you teaming up with another business, and
leveraging each other’s resources, skills, and time for mutual profit.
However, before we begin, a disclaimer:
This short book is not intended to be a structured teaching on JV’s, by
any means. Instead, it’s a “mish-mash” of 12 powerful strategies I’ve
learned, used and profited from over the past 8 years. Not all will
apply to you and your business. But methinks there’s enough in here
to get your mind on fire with ideas and your business on fire with
sales.
In fact, if you really have a fire under your bootay, you can apply at
least two or three to your business as early as today. (And maybe even
in under an hour in some cases!) 
One last thing:
This book is very short and to the point.
You do not need a long tome of theory and fluff to learn how to set up
profitable joint ventures. You should be able to read this book in one
sitting (easily) and start applying at least a couple of the tips inside as
quickly as today.
So my friend, start your engines and let’s roll...
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Mish-Mash JV Secret #1: Sleep with the Enemy
According to Lois Lane’s military father in the TV show Smallville,
there are only two “wars” where you’re allowed to sleep with the
“enemy.” 
The first one is marriage.
And the second one is business. 
He’s definitely right about the business part. Your competitors are all
potential joint venture partners. Take my colleagues Ryan Healy and
John Anghelache, for example.
They both sell “how to get copywriting clients” products.
They both sell to the exact same people.
However, instead of clawing out each other’s eyes... they teamed up
and created a big ticket coaching program on the subject. So they
leveraged both their lists, both their time and both of their skills to
create far more content (videos, tele-seminars, reports, etc.) to deliver
a much more superior product than they could have on their own –
and for a much bigger profit.
You can do the same thing.
Find a competitor (or more than one competitor if you want) and
combine your skills and talents to create a bigger, more expensive
and more powerful product you can sell to both your lists (and each
others’ friends lists if they are willing.) 
In this case 1 + 1 can literally equal 100!
Remember, you have no competition – just joint venture partners.
Keep that in mind and you will open a whole new world of
opportunity to grow your business you never knew existed before.
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Mish-Mash JV Secret #2: Trade Your Way to
Success
There’s tremendous power in simple barter (i.e. trading your products
or talents for something someone else has).
You can barter your skills, for example, to grow your list or get
someone to mail your offer to their list. A while back, I did this with
a product I was selling. My friend Michael Senoff and I made a deal
where I’d write a series of press releases for him in exchange for him
mailing his list about one of my products a certain amount of times.
The result was growing my newsletter subscriber list by a few
hundred new subscribers overnight. And over time many of those
subscribers become paying customers.
The total cost?
A few hours of my time.
If you have a skill someone can really use, it can’t hurt to make them
a similar offer.
You can trade a product if you want, too. I’ve traded products in
exchange for having transcribing done, for example. There’s no
reason why you can’t do the same thing to kick start a joint venture.
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Mish-Mash JV Secret #3: Wheel and Deal,
Baby
Are you someone who likes to make deals? 
Then you can make out like a bandit simply being a joint venture
“broker.” 
In other words, you see a list owner and a product owner who should
be doing business with each other, but aren’t, and you bring them
together in marital business bliss with you getting a cut of the action.
Now, there’s a whole art and science to doing this.
And I encourage you to find people who are more versed in how to do
this than I am if you are interested in making them work without a
hitch (i.e. to make sure you never get shut out of the deal after doing
all the work). But for now, know this can be as comprehensive as
setting up multi-million dollar deals (something I have never done) to
just sending leads to a service provider. 
For example, I used to be a full time direct response copywriter, but
today often times I turn down new copywriting clients. (I have since
started doing my own ventures and no longer have time to do client
work.)
But instead of letting those leads go to waste, I will hook them up
with another copywriter.
If he takes them on, he pays me a cut of the money for setting up the
deal and making it possible.
I essentially “brokered” the deal.
Very easy, and very clean.
You can do the same thing in a plethora of different ways with a
plethora of different markets and niches and products (the example
above is just one of thousands of ways).
This sort of thing has goneon for centuries and is, again, great if you
like wheeling and dealing.
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #4: Advertise
Another great way to get some joint venture action... is to simply
advertise for JV partners.
Whether you’re a list owner looking for products to sell, a product
owner looking for someone to help fund selling your product, or a JV
broker looking for more deals... there’s a lot of leverage in
advertising your deal. 
There are all kinds of people out there you can joint venture with and,
depending on what you’re selling and to which market, chances are
there is someone looking to team up in a similar fashion.
So find where they might be online, or what offline publications they
read, and go forth and advertise. Tell them you have a product but no
money to market it. Or that you are a marketer looking for a product
to sell. Or that you work in XYZ industry and are looking for a
product to sell to one of your contacts there, etc.
The sky’s the limit if you’re willing to shell out some of the green
stuff and advertise.
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #5: Tune into YouTube
I learned this from interviewing my friend David Dutton, who bills
himself as “The Most Connected Man On The Internet.” 
David started his business career as a broke college student with no
connections, no money and no contacts (just a cell phone and a
“ghetto-fabulous” rattletrap car).
And he figured out a bunch of ways to connect and do deals with
people (including “players” the legendary marketer Jim Straw, Joe
Vitale, David Frey, Willie Crawford and even some of the stars of
(former) Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice.” ) 
Anyway, one of the ways he does it is, whenever he buys and uses
(extremely important) a product that gets him results, he will make a
YouTube video review about the product and how it helped him (with
his own contact info in the video, of course). 
Then, David sends it to the person to let them know about it.
How can someone ignore that? 
Of course, many times the product owner will feel compelled to tell
his list about the video (it’s the ultimate testimonial, after all) which
often grows David’s list while getting the product owner more sales.
Then, later on, if something makes sense as far as a joint venture,
David has an “in” with that product owner. It doesn’t mean he will
always get a deal set up, of course. But he at least gets a fair hearing
which is far more than what he would probably get otherwise
(especially from people who are bombarded with JV offers every
day).
This is a great “sneak attack” way to get a potential JV partner’s
attention.
Use it and watch what happens...
 
www.getwsodo.comwww.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com
Mish-Mash JV Secret #6: Create a Breakfast of
Champions
This mostly applies to local businesses, but it’s possible to apply it to
other businesses as well with a little strategy.
Anyway, I’m talking about breakfast clubs. 
I first heard about this back in my network marketing days.
Here’s how it works: 
Basically, you contact five or ten (or however many you want) other
local businesses in your area – all non-competing, with no two the
same kind of business – and ask them to join your business breakfast
club.
So, for example, you can have the copywriter, the web designer, the
bankruptcy lawyer, the accountant, the mechanic, the roofer, the
printer, the AmWay rep, etc. And maybe once per week you meet at
the local coffee shop or whatever… and just exchange leads.
For instance: 
You have Mike the mechanic at the table with Abby the AmWay rep,
and Mike’s friend is afraid of getting laid off and is looking for a way
to make moolah in his spare time. So Mike gives his buddy’s contact
info to Abby.
Or, Chester the copywriter might know someone who needs their
books done and gives that person’s contact info to Al the accountant.
Or, Luke the lawyer knows someone looking for a good roofer, and
gives that person’s contact info to Roland the Roofer.
Or, Paul the printer has clients desperate to start marketing online but
don’t know how (there are probably lots of businesses like this in
your hometown), and gives Ike the Internet marketing consultant all
these clients’ info.
And so on, and so forth.
Anyway, so instead of y’all selling each other… you’re simply
exchanging leads. And when you get a lead, you just contact that
person and say: 
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“You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend. His name is Al
Accountant and he suggested I contact you…” 
See how that works? 
Not only do you get hot leads already looking for a business just like
yours... but they come with a juicy blessing from someone those leads
know. Very powerful stuff for prospecting and selling.
Just be sure you establish the rule of no pitching to each other.
You’re only there to exchange leads.
Nothing more, nothing less.
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #7: Endorsed Mailing
This is where you mail out a promotion for someone else’s product
and share in the sales.
Or, you can ask other list owners to mail their list about your product
(and either split the sales or let them have all the money and you just
build your list – there are many ways to profit from this).
I estimate about 25% of my list was generated by a couple mailings
from a publisher with a big list a couple years ago. We were doing a
tele-seminar series together about copywriting and, to “edify” me to
his list, he plugged my site a few times. It was crazy successful.
And guess what?
When someone with a big enough list does this, you can grow your
list very quickly and make far more sales than usual. It’s not always
easy to do these deals if you don’t already have a relationship with
the list owner (list owners get JV pitches all the time as it is). But you
can ask to do a JV like this, barter for it (remember #2 above?) or
even pay for it.
There’s nothing wrong with paying for an endorsement like that if
they are willing and abide by all applicable laws for doing it.
Later in this book I will give some ways to contact people to get
attention that can up your chances of people (even strangers) at least
hearing you out.
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #8: Mine Your Master
Mind
You ARE in a mastermind group (or two) aren’t you? 
If not, I highly suggest you get on the stick and either join one or
create one. And once you do, you have a natural joint venture engine
ready to be started and revved up.
For example, I’m in two groups now and have done JV’s with them
both.
In one case, we are doing a “round table” call to create a product.
This is where you have a host or moderator who just sort of goes
“around the the table” with a set of questions. Each person answers
each question, gives their unique tips on the subject, and, before you
all know it, you have a product you can all sell or use however you
want. You combined the talents, experiences and skills of multiple
people to create a product far more powerful than if just one of you
did it.
Again, 1+1+1+1 can equal 50 or 100 in this case.
You can also do other deals.
For instance, in one of the groups I’m in, we have a PPC expert and
he and I are always looking for deals to collaborate on.
You can do the same.
Leverage off each other.
Don’t just meet and rap about the weather, make some deals.
Mail to each others’ lists, combine your talents, create a mutual
product, and make some more of the green stuff than you would
otherwise working all by your lonesome selves.
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #9: Avengers Assemble
Every two or three years, we have a gigantic superhero movie event
starring “The Avengers.” 
Basically (if you have no idea of what I speaketh), The Avengers is a
super hero group in the Marvel Comics universe made up of various
super heroes who have banded together.
Each of these characters has their ownadventures and movies apart
from The Avengers.
But they team up for the greater good in their big movie events.
The primary characters are The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Ironman and
Captain America. Each brings a different power, ability and set of
experiences to the table. And those unique abilities are what them win
the day (which is why they had to come together).
It’s the same in business. 
There are always people looking to “assemble” a team to launch a
product or service. For example, last year one of my clients created a
product and started assembling a team of people – a marketing
genius/manager, a copywriter (me), a website coder/techie guy, a
tester, etc.
The result is a team made up of various experts at what they do and
we all work towards growing the business for a cut of the action. It’s
the ultimate joint venture.
You don’t have to worry about doing anything but what you can bring
to the table.
I’ve done this in smaller ventures, too.
Like, when I worked with Michael Senoff on a few deals. He had
some products, he had a list and he had the website stuff all set up.
What he didn’t have was a copywriter to keep things tweaked and
growing. So we teamed up and split the profits.
You can do this, too.
Doesn’t even have to be info publishing, either.
Any business that has lots of “moving parts” is ripe for deals like
this.
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Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. When you see someone
putting something big together, and you know they have a vision and
a mission, see if they are interested in bringing you on (with whatever
unique talent you bring to the table – copywriting, deal making,
accounting, designing, PPC, SEO, customer service, whatever it is).
Doing so can potentially give you a “super hero” income over time,
and with way less hassle than doing it all yourself.
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #10: Hold the Clipboard
Here’s another way to joint venture on the product creation side.
One of the best ways to leverage other peoples’ knowledge,
experience and even their credibility is to create a book you don’t
write yourself.
Instead, you interview various experts on the topic by phone,
transcribe it, and edit it into a book or info product. This way
everyone wins – the contributors get extra publicity from being in
your product and they get a copy of their interview for their own use.
Plus, you have a product that is far more comprehensive than it would
be otherwise.
Here’s a “real life” way this can work.
Recently, I wanted to publish a book for Christian entrepreneurs
(http://www.ChristianBusinessSecrets.com).
Instead of writing it myself, I sought out several Christian business
owners whom I respect and asked if I could interview them for it.
The result? 
A book that is 100 times more powerful and insightful than anything I
could have written on my own. Plus, again, it’s not “you” you are
selling – it’s the credibility and expertise of those you interviewed.
You can piggy-back off them and let all their experiences ooze into
your marketing. I did this with The Copywriting Grab Bag book also.
It’s a 300-page book, but I only “wrote” about 110 pages or so.
The rest of it is interview transcripts with various respected and well-
known experts. That not only makes the book far more valuable to the
reader, but makes the marketing of that book far easier for me. 
And the best part is you aren’t doing all that much work – you’re
mostly just holding the clipboard (so to speak).
 
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Mish-Mash JV Secret #11: Phoning in
ClickBank
A few years ago, I interviewed one of the savviest marketers I know:
Ray Edwards.
And during the call he revealed all kinds of cool info I had never
heard of before. Including a really powerful joint venture secret. But
instead of me blabbing away about it, I’ll let Ray tell you himself.
Here is an excerpt from the interview (explaining how he helped one
of his friends in the pet training niche):
“Go on clickbank and look for products that are targeted toward your
prospects. So Dr. Andrew went online and went to clickbank and
some other places, and he looked up people who are selling stuff to
pet owners. And I told him to find the contact information on their
website, or in the whois database – which you can look up who owns
a particular website, and often it’ll have the phone number on there –
and I said don’t email them, call them on the phone. And just say, ‘Hi,
my name’s Dr. Andrew Jones, I have a product that is about
homeopathic pet remedies, and I noticed that you have a site that’s all
about pets. And you have lots of pet owners that probably subscribe
to your email newsletter. And here’s the deal: if you will send an
email introducing me to your subscribers, any of them who buy I’ll
give you a 50% commission.’ And not all of them, but many of them,
said yes....now here’s the thing. He went his first week – I may not
have these numbers exact right but they’re pretty close to accurate–
in his first week he went from having zero people on his list to having
over 3,000 people on his list. So all it takes is asking.”
Who would have thought the best way to build your list is not with
your computer... but with the phone? 
Hey, it may be simple, and if you hate the phone maybe not ideal.
But what a great way to get started fast.
And a phone call will often go a lot farther than by hiding behind an
email address.
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Mish-Mash JV Secret #12: Be a Pinch-Hitter
This is a commonly taught JV method, but it definitely works so it
bears repeating here.
Every day more and more blogs and newsletters are coming online.
And guess what? 
Many of these publishers need... content.
They need people to come in and “pinch hit” and write content when
they can’t or don’t want to or whatever. So one way to JV with them
is to offer to guest write articles for them.
Now, realize not everyone is open to this.
For example, I don’t do guest articles on my site except in very rare
circumstances.
But many site owners do, especially since many of them don’t want
their sites dependent on they themselves constantly pumping out
content.
The SEO benefits and just plain old list building benefits can be
awesome, too.
Especially if you guest write for a big list.
Of course, if you hate writing, this may not be the way to to go. But if
you love writing then why not do it? You get to leverage off someone
else’s hard work (their list) and grow yours, while making the search
engines happy to send you even more traffic over the long haul.
Just make sure you pick reputable sites in your niche to do this for
(go for ones that are highly trusted, avoid the black hat idiots, or it
could work against you in the search engines, and in overall
marketplace credibility).
And if you can’t get any big ones to let you guest write, just start with
small sites and work your way up to the bigger fish.
Plus, if you do a lot of writing on your own site, chances are
eventually some of these sites will contact you, anyway (yes, this
DOES sometimes happen when you write a lot).
 
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www.getwsodo.com
Mish-Mash JV Secret #13: “Do’s & Don’ts”...
Following are some more JV ideas.
Not necessarily ways to do JV’s, but more like how to contact JV
partners and make the process easier and more “smooth.”
Sell To Buyers:
Sales 101, my friend.
Don’t waste time contacting everyone with a pulse to JV with you.
Seek people ALREADY doing a lot of JV’s and affiliate offers in your
market. They will be far more likely to hear you out and/or JV with
you. Frankly, they may even be waiting for you! 
And, whatever you do, never take it personally if someone says no or
doesn’t even contact you back about it.
This is business, not personal.
Use Social Media:
I’m not the biggest fan of social media.
I think mostly it’s a waste of time.
BUT... it’s GREAT for putting JV’stogether. For one thing, it’s often
easier to contact people via sites like Twitter and Facbook (no help
desk hell, spam filters, etc – it’s usually the actual person you’re
contacting reading it).
I’ve put together more than a few JV’s using Facbook alone. I’m not
saying to spam people with your JV offers (PLEASE do not do that).
But it’s a great way to contact people initially (with no agenda) and
start a dialogue with people in your market about mutually interesting
topics.
In other words, get to know people first, then, if it makes sense, float
your JV idea by them.
Sublists Are Your Friend: 
Sometimes you may want to mail an offer that only a section of your
list will be reasonably interested in.
So, if you mailed your entire list, you risk boring or angering the rest
of the people who could not care less about that particular subject.
So what do you do?
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www.getwsodo.com
Create a sublist! 
This is a list you create out of your main list.
For example, I have my main list, but I also have a sublist of people
from my main list who are interested in, say, copywriting. These
people are on my main list, but have also raised their hand and said
they are interested in the subject of copywriting.
I’ve done deals selling other peoples’ copywriting specific products
just to that sublist (often multiple mailings over the course of a few
days) while not bothering the rest of my main list.
It’s great list management etiquette and keeps people from leaving
your main list due to sending them too many offers for something
they could not care less about.
Get Successful: 
No duh, right? 
Well, maybe so, but it’s true.
When I interviewed Brian Clark (one of the most successful bloggers
on the Internet) he was blatantly honest about how half the battle is
just getting people to take your calls.
And if you’re successful and becoming more well-known in your
niche, you are far more “safer” for someone to spend time listening to
than someone who is not. 
So get ye a name in your market as fast as possible, and JV’s will
come much, much easier.
Turn Off Your Email: 
Yes, it’s easier to just send an email to someone you want to JV with.
But it’s FAR from ideal.
Emails are better than nothing, obviously. But what you want is
impact. Especially if you are wanting to JV with someone you do not
know or someone who is a celebrity of sorts in your market.
Some alternatives to email include the phone (see the ClickBank
section above). A telegram is a great way to get attention, too. FedEx
is almost impossible to ignore. You can also take it a step further and
send them food like a box of Omaha steaks (people love food, let’s
face it).
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And finally, another “David Dutton special” I learned from talking to
him is sending people a ball.
Yes, a ball.
There is a site called sendaball.com that will send someone a big ball
in the mail with a message on it.
Now THAT’S impact! 
Don’t Be Afraid To Start Small: 
You can also do reciprocal JV’s with people of similar sized lists as
yours.
So if your list is 200 people, cross promote with someone else with a
200 person list (they’ll be more likely to JV than someone with a list
of, say, 20,000). If you’re hell bent on JV’ing with a goo-roo, then try
this:
If you have 300 people on your list ask if they’d do an offer to 300
people on their list and you’ll send an offer to your 300.
This would also give you some potential social proof action for later
(see below).
Social Proof: 
As you do more JV’s, start using that “social proof” to your
advantage.
It’s much easier to JV with Goo-roo Bob if you already JV’d with his
best friends Goo-roo Joe or Newbie Nick (and vice versa).
You’re more “safe” to do business with when you have that
connection.
Exactly What To Tell Them: The one thing you should tell someone if
you want to JV with them as far as selling something to their list is: 
“I’ll do all the work.” 
In my opinion this is mandatory if you want someone to sell your
product or service to their list.
Give Them The Right To Veto: 
Finally, and most important, whenever you are trying to sell someone
something (even on doing a JV) always give them the right to “veto.” 
This is right out of the Jim Camp book of negotiation (Jim Camp is
the world’s greatest negotiator, with the track record to back that title
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up).
Always give them the right to say no, take away all pressure and,
above all else, qualify them.
Not everyone is a good fit for you and vice versa.
Go into all JV situations with that attitude and you can’t go wrong.
 
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Final Thoughts
And that’s all there is to it.
What you’ve just read is a “mish mash” of proven ways to set up
profitable joint ventures quickly, easily and in a way people want to
be approached and do business.
It takes no particular genius or talent.
Just the will to get the job done and the effort to follow these steps.
For hundreds of web and email marketing tips, go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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How to Write, Produce, and Profit from Print
Newsletters
Copyright 2016-2017 by Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
 
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How to Write, Produce, and Profit from Print
Newsletters
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Table of Contents
Introduction
How to Write, Produce, and Profit from Print Newsletters
Step Number ONE: What’s Your Strategy?
Step Number TWO: Writing Your Newsletter
Step Number THREE: Producing Your Newsletter
Step Number FOUR: Promoting it
Part FIVE: Other Odds & Ends to Keep in Mind...
Final Thoughts...
 
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WAIT!
Before reading, please take a second and go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
... to access the hundreds of free email & web marketing secrets
waiting there for you.
There’s nothing you have to buy... no sponsored links... and no opting
in required.
It’s all yours, free for the taking if you go there today...
 
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Introduction
Following is a training showing how anyone can create (at minimal
expense and time investment) a profitable print newsletter, as well as
all the financial advantages having such a newsletter can give you.
There is nothing more valuable to a business than continuity income
that comes in month after month, like clockwork. It creates true
residual income and is the backbone of almost every successful
multi-million dollar publishing company.
Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be a publisher or sell information
products to profit handsomely from a print newsletter. You can be a
service provider, information publisher, retail seller, professional,
and so on – it doesn’t matter.
And after you read this (short) book, you will have the knowledge you
need to create this secure form of income very quickly and easily.
So sit back, follow the guidelines below, and enjoy the ride.
Publishing a print newsletter is not only profitable (and will bring
more financial security to your business), but it is also fun for you to
do and for your customers to consume.
~ Ben Settle
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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How to Write, Produce, and Profit from Print
Newsletters
Of all the lessons I’ve learned in business over the past couple of
decades, nothing has been more profitable and helpful to my business
than starting a print newsletter. 
There are so many benefits to having a print newsletter it almost
mind boggling to think about the potential.
And by the way, when I say a print newsletter, I don’t necessarily
mean four color, glossy, fancy or “professional” in any way. You can
do that, but as I demonstrate each month in myown newsletters, it’s
not necessary. 
You also don’t even have to charge for it, either (more on that in a
second). 
But the advantages you get with a print newsletter are awesome. You
get to bond with your market in ways none of your competition is. If
you charge for it, it turns into a nice continuity income stream. And
you can include ads for other things (ride-along offers) each time you
send it out. If you do it right, you can even have those ride-along
offers offset the cost of printing and mailing and put some extra
coinage in ye olde pocket, too. 
In fact, if you get enough subscribers, you can accept paid ads in your
newsletter to create yet another revenue stream. 
And finally, it’s a client-acquiring gold mine. My friend Ray Edwards
does this. He has a newsletter he sends to clients (current and past
customers), friends and business colleagues. He does not charge for
it, either. It’s free. When he first published it I asked him about it. He
said the first issue he sent out was going to be worth... well, I can’t
divulge someone else’s income numbers, but let’s just say he isn’t
going to starve any time soon.
I’m not saying everyone will get results like that. But it shows the
power of putting a real, physical newsletter in someone’s hands each
month. It makes you stick out like a glowing thumb from the herd of
other people, keeps you on the right peoples’ radar and, if you charge
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for it, can bring an additional income stream with lots of potential for
other ancillary sales. 
Not too shabby, is it?
Anyway, my goal in this book is to demystify the process you so you
can not only do your own print newsletter very quickly each month,
but also profit from it immensely. Yes, I’m going to pull back the
curtain and show you everything I’ve learned about publishing (and
profiting from) two different print newsletters over the past two
years.
Much of what you’re about to learn was figured out via expensive and
time-consuming trial and error on my part. 
And some was based on simple observation (Gary Halbert, Dan
Kennedy, John Carlton, and other print newsletters I’ve subscribed
to). 
Hopefully after we’re done here you’ll be able to pound out your own
print newsletter a lot faster (and with none of the headaches) than I
did. 
Oh, and by the way... just because this issue is about print (offline)
newsletters, that doesn’t mean you cannot apply much of it to an
online membership site or any other kind of continuity – including
selling supplements or some kind of physical product.
Also, I’m going to be talking about doing a print newsletter you
charge for. However, you can also do a free one to give to customers,
prospects, clients, and others too. And even if you do a free
newsletter, practically all of the following applies to it. 
Whatever you decide, I highly urge you to start a print newsletter
ASAP. 
I think you’ll find it to be one of the most profitable things you ever
do. 
Let’s get crackin’...
 
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Step Number ONE: What’s Your Strategy?
This may sound like common sense, but hey, we need to cover all the
bases. 
And really, if you don’t have your strategy and end game figured out
before you start, you could confuse your subscribers and drive them
(and yourself) batty. 
So before doing anything else (with the possible exception of starting
a sublist – see below) you need to ask yourself some questions. 
Specifically: Who is my prospect for this?
Duh, right?
Well, you’d be shocked how few people put any thought into this.
Are you talking primarily to “newbies” in your market? More
sophisticated buyers? The worst thing you can do is get too jargon-
oriented or advanced when talking to beginners. At the same time,
you don’t want to throw the basics at people who crave more
advanced info. 
How do you want to monetize it? 
There are multiple ways to monetize a print newsletter. 
You can charge a subscription price for it, of course. 
You can accept paid ads in it, too. 
You can also include offers with the newsletter for your products or
services, as well as other peoples’ products and services (such as if
you are selling someone’s product as an affiliate, etc). 
You always want to know your numbers and realize there is a hard
cost involved. Even if you’re doing a free newsletter, I would suggest
selling something in it if for no other reason than to break even on
your costs.
A newsletter should not “cost” you anything, it should make you
money. 
Otherwise, what’s the point?
What kinds of bonuses/premiums should you offer to subscribers? 
Most newsletter sales are based on the immediate bonuses people are
promised rather than the newsletter. So having a nice pile of freebies
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is key, in my opinion. They should be based on what you know your
market wants. A good indication is to go to amazon.com and look at
the top selling books in your niche. Those titles and chapter titles are
great idea-starters for bonuses. 
Personally, I often (not always) make the bonuses for my newsletters
as diverse (covering as many topics within my market) as possible.
Doing that gives you a lot of freedom in your promotions to talk
about different hot buttons. 
For example, I have given away training on everything from article
marketing, affiliate marketing and email marketing... to copywriting,
joint ventures, AdWords, blogging, product creation, and local
selling. That gave me a huge pile of “fodder” for my promotions for
the newsletter. 
I would also suggest giving away bonuses that have a real retail value
attached to them (and not a made up retail value). 
For example, for one of my newsletters I gave away a product that
sells for $97 (I got the rights to it) as well as blog training you can
only access by buying a $1k+ product, a copywriting training that
costs $27, an email training that people paid $78 (as subscribers to
someone else’s continuity program), and so on.
Doing this can make your newsletter far more valuable – both in
perception and reality.
Next, how many pages should it be? 
Length should be based on your customer’s appetite for the info you
provide, and how much time and energy you can invest to deliver a
quality product. I don’t think you should go too high on page count
because people have limited attention spans, and also because some
months you may just not have that much to say.
It helps to look at competing print newsletters (if you can find any in
your market) and see how they’re approaching it. They took all the
pioneer “arrows” already for you and you can learn an awful lot about
what to do as far as length and format just by observing what they’re
doing.
How much to charge?
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This obviously depends on you, what you’re offering, what your
market is willing to pay, etc. 
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for this. If you have enough traffic
coming to your site or have a big enough list to sell to, and if you’re
set up with all the right tools, then you should definitely test this out.
As an example, I picked the price for my first newsletter based on a
combo of factors.
For one, I wanted it to be affordable for anyone who really wanted it.
And two, I also wanted quantity. However, this is not always the best
case for everyone. Some people (for instance) charge $200 per month
and so quantity might not be as important as having a list of paying
subscribers who are willing to spend mega bucks for other high end
products. Again, this is why you need to figure out your overall
strategy first.
What sections? 
Many newsletters have different “sections.” 
My first newsletter used to have multiple sections, like Q&A, ad
critiques, etc. 
But I ended up taking them out as I wanted to focus more on the main
theme. But still, if you want different sections this is something to
think hard on.
What sections does your market want? 
What’s going to make them happy?
You can survey your list forthis and, again, see what your
competition is doing.
Do you want other contributors or do it yourself? 
Personally, I think everyone should write their own newsletter, in
your own voice and personality. But that’s not always the best way
(take Bottom Line Personal, for example – it’s hugely successful and
has multiple contributors). 
Still, if you want contributors, I suggest picking people with the most
“celebrity appeal.” 
Yes, they need to be experts and leaders, but that celebrity appeal will
help you sell your newsletter much easier (their celebrity status will
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“rub off” on you, in a way).
So pick people with a known-name in your market for best results.
When do you want it to go out each month?
Is this going to mail out at the beginning of the month? The middle?
The end? I pick the beginning for pure simplicity sake. Whatever you
choose to do, make sure you stick with your schedule. Otherwise
you’ll only tick off and confuse your subscribers. 
Mix with other media? 
The beauty of print newsletters is there are no real “rules.” 
In some cases, you don’t even have to send a newsletter! For
example, some newsletter publishers alternate between a printed
newsletter one month and an audio CD or DVD the next to switch
things up and give themselves a break from writing. One particular
month, I even sent out a transcript of a private call I did with a
Google AdWords expert and that was the issue. 
Again, there are no rules. 
Okay, so those are some strategical ideas to figure out before doing
anything. It won’t take you long. But I can tell you from experience,
not having the answers to the above questions before you put a bunch
of work into your newsletter could cause you to waste a lot of time
and energy (and who wants that?) 
Now, on to the next part...
 
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Step Number TWO: Writing Your Newsletter
I will admit that this part will come easier for some people than
others. 
Thus, I’m going to approach teaching this as if you think writing is
the devil and would rather clean the bathrooms at Grand Central
Station with a Q-tip than write a newsletter each month. 
So here are some ideas that have made the process much easier and
more efficient for myself and others I know:
Get ahead of schedule. 
Your high school teacher was right about at least one thing:
It’s best to get your homework done early, rather than wait until the
last minute. Now, I realize some people thrive on deadlines and
pressure. And if that’s you, then fine, do whatever works. 
But if you’re like me and you hate pressure and deadlines, then the
best thing you can do is write several issues before launching it. In
my case I wrote the first 5 issues or so and had an outline of what I’d
write about (generally) for the rest of the year. 
It took a lot of the pressure off, to say the least. 
Now, if your newsletter runs on timely updates then you can’t really
do this. You can write the “evergreen” stuff, though, and that should
help keep you from rushing around at the last minute.
One hour per day schedule. 
Writing is hard for most people. 
So how do you make it easier? 
That’s simple – just commit to one hour per day, five days per week. 
If that means getting up an hour earlier, fine. If that means going to
bed an hour later, that’s cool, too. But really, a typical newsletter
issue should not take too long to write. Even for a slow writer a week
(five hours of actual writing) should be more than enough. So what I
suggest is picking a week each month and just sitting down and doing
it one hour per day. 
Write fast, edit slow. 
Another way to make writing easier is to write fast. 
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Don’t worry about spelling or syntax or grammar or anything. Just
fart out that first draft as fast as possible. Then, later, edit for length,
clarity, spelling, etc. 
The key to writing is... writing! 
And the more you do it, the easier it gets as your brain starts adapting
to the schedule. 
Put on emotionally-charged music. 
I picked this trick up from a friend who wrote some 1,000 articles in
eight months (that’s a lot of writing even by my standards!) He
basically has this “loop effect” where he puts a piece of music on
(he’s big on Mozart and classical, I do this with movie soundtracks –
you do it with whatever gets you going) and puts it on “loop” mode. 
In other words, it just replays the same track over and over and over
while you’re writing.
There’s something really weird about how this works to keep you
focused. I cannot explain it, but it works like gangbusters. Right now
I’m listening to a short 1.5 minute loop of a part of the score from the
movie “Kick Ass” as I write this. And it just keeps me focused like
nothing else and makes the writing a lot easier. 
Try it and you’ll see for yourself how it works. (By the way, I suggest
doing this with headphones if you’re not alone in your office or work
area, or you’ll likely drive anyone else around you crazy...)
Know thy fonts. 
Again, there are no rules for print newsletters. 
But, I would highly suggest using fonts that are designed for print and
not the web. In most cases fonts that are web friendly are not print
friendly and vice versa. Serif fonts (like times new roman, etc.) tend
to be great for print but suck online. At the same time, sans serif fonts
(like Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, and so on) are great online but hard
on the eye offline. Just something to think about, you don’t want
people going blind reading your newsletter each month! 
Create a template. 
This may seem like common sense (hey, it is) but it bears mentioning
anyway. 
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And that is, once you find a good template and layout for your
newsletter (and if you don’t know what to do, just look at other print
newsletters and see how they do it, but with your own “spin” on
things so it looks uniquely your own) just save it as a template and
use it each month. 
I don’t know about you but I hate the design part of anything. And of
course, if you can have a professional designer do it, even better. You
can probably find someone on eLance or a similar site to do a great
job without going broke in the process. 
Inject your personality into it. 
In a lot of ways writing a print newsletter is not that different from
writing a sales letter. You should write in a style that’s easy to read
(no hard sounding words) and that shows a lot of your unique
personality. 
Use your own figures of speech, colloquialisms, and slang. 
No need to conform to anyone else’s style. 
Be interesting and fun, never dull. 
Yes, you want to do hard teaching, but keep it fun and lively. 
Otherwise you’ll bore people and bored people often won’t return the
next time.
Photos. 
I don’t screw around with photos or pictures in my print newsletters. 
But, that does not mean you shouldn’t use them if it fits what you’re
trying to do. Sometimes graphical enhancements are a must or can
make your newsletter far more interesting and useful. 
It all just depends on what you’re teaching and who your audience is. 
If you do decide to use graphics, there are many sites online (just
google them) that offer royalty free graphics and photos. 
 
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Step Number THREE: Producing Your
Newsletter
Next, you want to start thinking about the production side of your
newsletter. 
You can relax, though. 
This is pretty painless and extremely simple (“push button” simple,
in fact): Outsource the entire deal.
Do not, and I repeat, do not, print and mail your own newsletter. 
If you are only sending a handful or something, or if you have staff
that can do it, then that’s fine. Otherwise, I would highly suggest
outsourcing it. You can do it via a professional printer (I use
http://www.SelbyMarketing.com) or you can do it right through the
USPS. Just upload your customer list and they’ll take care of it. 
I prefer having a printer do it,but you can do it either way. 
However, I would suggest not doing it yourself. 
It’s just too big a time-drain. 
Print extra issues. 
I learned early on to always have a few extra issues printed up each
month. 
Why? 
Well, you never know when you’re going to want to give away an
issue for free (to a new customer) or it could be someone doesn’t
even get their newsletter (the mail system is far from perfect). And in
those cases I like to get one out that same day to the person by
running it down to the post office myself. 
Use envelopes that thwart the Newmans. 
If you ever watched the TV show Seinfeld then you probably know
who Newman is. 
He was a bumbling postal worker who hoarded mail like a squirrel
hoards nuts and was always talking about he was too tired and lazy to
deliver the mail. 
Well, guess what? 
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Good comedy is always rooted in a core truth and the fact is, the
postal people do drop the ball on delivery a lot. I cannot tell you how
many times people would tell me they didn’t get their paid
newsletter. 
No good! 
You do not want that happening. 
So I asked my printer to prominently print “Your Paid Subscription
Newsletter Enclosed” on the envelope. This helped keep Newman
behaving himself big time – and only rarely hear from someone who
did not receive their newsletter. 
It’s a small, but important thing to keep in mind.
 
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Step Number FOUR: Promoting it
Finally, it’s game time – marketing your newsletter. 
This is the fun part, in my opinion. 
And while I’m no product launch goo-roo, there is a very simple
“caveman” way of doing it that’s worked well for me twice so far. 
And here it is: Build a sublist. 
This is task numero uno. 
Yes, in a way, this should come probably even before you do anything
else. And what I suggest doing is, the second you know you’re going
to do a print newsletter, tell your list about it. To do that, create a
separate page with nothing but an opt-in form. 
Nothing fancy or long winded. 
The headline can be as simple as “Sign Up For Updates About XYZ
Newsletter.” 
And maybe a little blurb about how early bird subscribers will get a
price break or cool unique bonuses, something like that. 
Do this first and tell your list about it. 
You’ll get a very good idea of the demand it has just by how many
people sign up. If you get a lot of people wanting to be notified that’s
great! Of course, they won’t all subscribe, but it’s a good sign.
Start telling your list about it regularly. 
I’m a big fan of daily emails but even if you only mail a couple times
a week you can still have a good launch. Because what you’re going
to do is, in every email (unless you have to sell something else to
keep your doors open, of course) you plug that sublist. 
I like to do a lot of teasing with this. 
Maybe a tease about what’s going to be in the first issue or some cool
benefit they’ll get from the bonuses, etc. It’s best if you can make it
relevant to whatever your email is already about, though (not a
blatant pitch to get them there). 
Below is an example of an email I sent out during the time leading up
to the launch to give you an idea of how to do this. You can see more
examples on my blog at http://www.BenSettle.com (just read the
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email-themed posts, especially those from about mid-February 2009
through March first 2009):
The Bible’s Secret Email Lesson
One of history’s coolest marketers is Bruce Barton. Back in his day
(early to mid-1900’s), he was a household name, a giant in the
advertising business and even an advisor to presidents.
And he was an awesome teacher.
One of his best teachings (in my humble, but accurate, opinion) was
in a 1924 radio broadcast about when the Biblical patriarch Joseph
was the second in command in Egypt.
Joseph was “it.”
Egypt’s top dawg.
Everyone was commanded by Pharaoh to follow his orders and his
name was as familiar to every Egyptian man, woman and child as
their own, until…
“And Joseph died…and there
 arose up a new king over Egypt
 which knew not Joseph.” (Ex. 1:6-8)
Boom!
In a matter of a couple decades, all Joseph’s power, prestige and name
recognition vanished like a fart in the wind. He went from being “the
man” to being a footnote in some hieroglyphic somewhere —
completely forgotten.
There’s a huge lesson here for entrepreneurs.
And that is this whole idea of how easy it is to be forgotten. Happens
all the time. One day you’re “Joseph” and everyone in your market
knows who you are… the next they’ve forgotten you or have found a
new king to hang with (and buy from).
Anyway, this is why I’m so big on email.
When you do it right, it’s almost impossible for your list to forget
about you (in fact, you’ll many times make “top of mind” status).
Yes… I’ve beat this drum to death this week.
But this is the #1 skill to have, IMHO.
Nothing else even comes close.
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Which is why the first Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue is all about
email, and contains some extremely simple (and fun) ways to write
emails people love to read and buy from.
But there’s no time for dilly-dally.
Once I send it to the printer Monday, it’ll be too late to get it.
So if you want in, jump in your chariot and giddy-up on over to…
www.CryptoMarketing.com
 Ben Settle
See how that works? 
Just pick a topic about the first issue of your newsletter or one of the
bribes each day and build your emails around it. 
And then do this as often as you can all the way up until the launch
time. 
Each time you do this, you will turn more people on to your sublist
and grow it. 
And by the time you’re ready to launch you could have quite a few
people ready to go. 
Then, on launch day, you can mail that sublist several times (they are
very interested if they are on that sublist). Mail your main list, too, of
course. But you can mail that sublist 3, 4, even 5 times or more. 
Plus, you know what the real beauty of launching a print newsletter
is? 
You have a “built-in” deadline (they need to get the first issue before
it mails to get the benefits you talk about). 
Even better: 
You can also continue to do this each and every month afterwards. 
Again, check out http://www.BenSettle.com to see how I do it. 
I do this all the time.
Very simple and effective. 
Finally, I also suggest setting a launch date ASAP. This builds more
anticipation for it, and makes it more urgent every time you write
about it.
 
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http://www.cryptomarketing.com/
http://www.cryptomarketing.com/
http://www.bensettle.com/
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Part FIVE: Other Odds & Ends to Keep in
Mind...
Finally, some more “odds & ends” about a print newsletter to think
about:
Great for any business. 
We touched on this already, but a print newsletter has multiple uses
even if you sell physical products, and especially if you sell a digital
or some other kind of continuity. 
Doberman Dan Gallapoo, for example, sends his health supplement
customers a free physical newsletter each month. He just sends it out
to keep them involved and “re sold” on the product (with customer
success stories, special offers, etc.). 
If I had an online membership site or any other kind of continuity I’d
definitely do the same.
Limited time. 
Some people do what’s called “micro-continuity.” 
In other words, the subscription only lasts a certain amount of time
like 6 months or 9 months, etc. This can be a good idea depending on
what you sell (especially if there’s only so much info you can teach
anyway). It keeps people in longer and is easier to sell. 
On the other hand, if you look at your customers as a life time
relationship, you may want to keep it going indefinitely. 
The way I see it, it’s like being a physical trainer. 
You don’t encourage people to exercise for nine months and quit, you
try to motivate them and help them indefinitely. 
But do whateversuits your business and customers, in the end it’s
about what they want.
Merge with cyberspace. 
One thing I did for one of my (now out of print) newsletters is, I also
gave subscribers access to an online members-only site. 
There you can download other lessons, ask questions, do JV’s with
other Crypto Marketers, access cool links, etc. 
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This is a great way to give more than you are promising, keep people
engaged and also to add updates or elaborate on things you did not
have room to in the newsletter itself. 
I used yahoo, but ideally would have made it on my own servers. 
Do whatever you think is right, but it can’t hurt to give them some
online content as well.
Give your subscribers better deals. 
Finally, I also suggest giving your subscribers better deals and even
free products when possible. For example, when I launched my
second print newsletter called “Email Players,” I gave them $20 off
the monthly subscription price.
That was a limited offer and quite a few of my subscribers took
advantage of it. 
I like doing stuff like that and will continue to do so. 
Yes, it technically “costs” some money via lost sales in the short
term. 
But I believe in the long-term relationship is far more important (and
profitable). 
Just something to think about.
 
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Final Thoughts...
I can’t encourage you to start your own print newsletter enough. 
The benefits dwarf any possible negatives (few that there are). 
Continuity is a great income stream very few businesses take
advantage of. But with this short book, you’re now armed with all the
info you need to get started.
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For ongoing web marketing tips, go to:
http://www.BenSettle.com
 
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http://www.bensettle.com/
www.getwsodo.com
 
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How to Quickly Get More Business by Being a
Local Celebrity
By Ben Settle
Interviewing Mike Dolpies
Copyright 2016-2017 All rights reserved.
 
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BEN: This is Ben Settle of www.BenSettle.com and today I’m talking
to Mike Dolpies. Mike is one of my favorie under-the-radar business
experts who’s also a public speaker, author, and a radio show host.
He’s also in one of the mastermind groups I’m in, and I’ve had a lot
of chances to talk to him about business and publicity and that sort of
thing.
He is no fluke when it comes to business, by the way. He’s not like the
rest of us kitchen table people. Mike actually generated his first seven
figures before he was 24 years old in a real brick and mortar business,
and he’s not an overnight so-called internet success story. He’s gotten
praise from guys like Ben Gay III from The Closer series, and Brian
Tracy. His big way of making money these days is PR. He’s gotten on
prestigious media outlets like Fox and Entrepreneur magazine and a
whole bunch of other ones, but these days apparently he’s focusing on
local media, as that’s where the real money is, so that’s what we’re
going to talk about.
Mike, thank you for showing up today.
MIKE: Hey, Ben. It’s good to be talking with your listeners and
your readers, and hopefully we can help them out.
BEN: We’ll start out with a question I’ve wanted to ask you actually.
I love PR. I love the whole idea, but I haven’t done a whole lot of it.
I’ve done enough of it to see how cool it can be.
Why local media as opposed to the big national ones? Why is that
better for most of us?
MIKE: There’s a few things. One is it kind of comes back down to
the big fish in a little pond theory. It’s obviously easier to stand out in
your local market than it is to penetrate and stand out in the bigger
market – although of course if you’re on bigger outlets, like let’s say
the national Fox News channel or Good Morning America or any big
network, it gives you enormous credibility.
You’re not going to take one over the other, but here’s the deal. The
local media has to be done and mastered. I’ve been a martial arts guy
for a lifetime, and what’s that all about? It’s all about moving up the
ranks. I just sent somebody an email today, a good mentor of ours,
Paul Hartunian. Unless you have a pet rock or the Brooklyn Bridge,
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you’re not going to get to the national outlets as fast as you want to
do it, so you have to lay the groundwork locally.
You master that locally and you practice locally and it becomes so
easy in a way. Then you look like, “Hey, this guy’s a pro or this girl’s
a pro.” That’s what you can do with local media.
Then when it’s time for you to step up to the national stage, guess
what. You’re just going to be so ready. You’re not going to be like 8
Mile and Eminem – you’ve got one shot, one opportunity. You’re
going to be able to blow it up when you get that shot and get that
opportunity, and you’re going to end up creating it anyway.
There’s a lot of reasons why local media is powerful, but that’s just
one. Does that make sense?
BEN: It does make sense. Will the information you’re going to give
us apply to people who are not necessarily selling locally? Maybe
they’re on the internet and they’re selling to people in other countries
for all we know. Does this all apply?
MIKE: It does, because these things live on. You’re going to get
local media whether you’re selling something that can be sold across
state borders, across the seven seas if you want, and it’s going to help
you sell those for sure.
Here’s the deal. We all have to live somewhere, so in a way we’re all
local, because we all live somewhere. Some people choose to be
hermits or choose not to go out and network, and that’s fine, that’s a
choice, but the truth is we still have to live somewhere.
What better way to network or connect with people than to be seen on
TV or heard on the radio, and you really don’t have to do much to do
that, except for know what to do to get it.
We just all have to live somewhere, so that’s why media applies to
anybody, because we’re all local. Would you sell an email marketing
course or your newsletter to your neighbor and subscribe him? If he
was a good prospect you would, so [inaudible] locally too.
BEN: It’s just as easy to sell something like that to someone who
lives 2,000 miles away as it is to someone who lives 2 feet away. The
order button’s going to be the same. It’s not more of an effort for
them to click the link because they live farther away.
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MIKE: Right, it’s all the same. That’s really what it comes down to.
I have clients that are here locally in the state I live, and I have
clients that are in different parts of the country and world. It applies
everywhere.
BEN: Now let me ask you this question, if you don’t mind. How
much profit has local PR brought you? You don’t have to give an
exact number, but just as opposed to other ways of marketing you’ve
done. Is it a big chunk of it? Is it better than traditional advertising or
is it about the same? How does that fit in your world right now?
MIKE: I told this to Doberman Dan. I said, “Dan, you sit down and
we all sit down and we do our sales letters and we do our marketing
pieces,” and I do a lot of direct mail too, so I sit down and craft my
direct mail pieces and I do my ads for the magazines and my emails
and my website and all that kind of stuff.
What you’re doing for PR is not that much different than what you do
when you sit down and do your marketing anyway. What you’re going
to do, though, is you have to take about 60% of what you do in your
marketing and you have to kind of throw away the other 40%, and
then you have to add the 40%, which is kind of the PR ingredients.
Then you end up with kind of getting your same message out, but in a
public relations, local celebrity media-type mentality.
That’s #1.Basically you’re going to do this anyway, and one way to
measure your PR is you measure it in what it would cost you. If you
get a five-minute segment on the local network affiliate, just do the
math on how much that would actually cost if you’d actually buy five
minutes of commercial time, or 30 minutes on the radio, or I have an
hour radio show once a week. How much would that actually cost, or
how much does it cost to get a full-page spread in a local business
publication or a local parenting magazine, whatever your target
market is. That’s one way to measure that, and we’ve heard all the
gurus talk about that.
The other way to measure it is actually the real dollars in the bank,
and I’ll just give you a few examples off the top of my head. I kind of
fall under the category that we all kind of gel together in our little
mastermind group that we hang around in. We all have good strengths
and expertise.
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There’s probably not one of us that’s really that great at kind of the
analytical tracking standpoint. Maybe I’m just assuming, but I know
I’m not the greatest. I usually rely on my memory, which is pretty
darn good. I did some math, and I’ve seen clients who are on average
worth about $13,000/year to my business, that I’ve been working with
for the past three years, that came from an article spread that came
out in a trade publication.
Then I’ve tracked where that particular client also referred me to
another person that spends about $13,000/year, so do the math on
that, and they’ve both been going for awhile. And it’s funny, but I just
talked to that woman today and she introduced me to somebody else
who’s got something going on, and they want to maybe do something,
so who knows what that door will open up.
And then there’s a lot of odds and ends. There are people who have
read articles in local publications that have come on board.
I’m not going to blow it up and say, “Oh, it’s seven figures.” I’m
going to say it’s easily into the six figures, and I’ve only been looking
at PR aggressively for the last 14 months, and before that I got some
exposure in my local trade publications going back a couple years.
That’s when I gave you that example and that story, but it’s easily
over six figures, probably close to $200,000. Like I said, that’s only
over the course of a couple years.
Is it like a guru number or a million dollars? No, it’s not. I’m giving
you real numbers here that I can think of off the top of my head.
BEN: Now how easy is it for someone who’s just starting out in the
business? They don’t have a reputation or anything and they think,
“Why would anybody want to interview me for TV or the newspaper
or magazine?” Can they still do this, or do they have to have any pre-
experience?
MIKE: Obviously if they’re in business, they’re in business. That’s
it right there. A lot of entrepreneurs don’t understand this, and it took
me awhile to understand this too.
The average working schmoe – even if you’re working and building
your business part-time – the average working corporate employee,
even if they have a nice cushy executive job, they still respect people
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that have their own business, even if that person is just starting out in
their own business and just struggling to get it going.
Everybody just has this enormous respect for people that have their
own business, so your initial credo or your initial title of how do you
get your foot in the door, a lot of people say, “Oh, you need a book,”
and books are great, they help, but you don’t.
Just the fact that you’re the owner of a particular business, owner of a
particular company, or you do a certain thing, you’re a professional at
a certain thing – I mean if you’re a chiropractor just starting off and
you went to chiropractic school and you learned about the human
body and how to whack and crack it so it feels better, that’s your
credibility and that’s obviously what you’re going to talk about in the
media. Does that make sense?
BEN: It sure does. One question people will always ask, and I
remember I used to think this question too until I learned about it and
actually did it and realized the truth of the matter, does somebody
have to be a good speaker or presenter to do PR?
MIKE: It’s a double-edged sword, because if you’re not somewhat
polished – what you need to do is you need to rehearse. I just read one
of Dan Kennedy’s newsletters yesterday about the sales people who
never practice what to say when they come to an objection, or they
never practice their script. They’ve got to do this stuff.
You practice every day by sending emails out. We practice our
marketing and we’re professionals at that and we study it. What
people have to realize too is that they do have to do some practice
with this.
If they’re writing articles or they’re being interviewed on the radio or
they’re being written up – obviously, there’s not a lot of practice that
has to go into being interviewed by a newspaper. The reporter asks
you questions and you answer them and you’re done pretty much, so
that probably doesn’t apply.
But radio, television, local TV – we could talk about details if you
want. You don’t have to rehearse for hours a day, but you’ve got to be
able to get your point across. This is really off the cuff that we’re
having this interview today, but to get your point across well,
especially in a short period of time, it’s a good idea to practice it.
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When I get on TV, what I do is I’ll work out the segment. I’ll go
through the segment and I’ll just pretend I’m the reporter and I’ll ask
myself a question and then I’ll answer it. I’ll set my timer app on my
Android phone for how long the segment’s going to be, and I’ll ask
the questions and I’ll answer it, I’ll ask a question and I’ll answer it,
and maybe I’ll do that once a day for a week. We’re talking about five
minutes a day leading up a TV interview.
Is that worth it, five minutes a day to be prepared for a TV interview
so you get invited back, so you come across really well on television?
Absolutely. That’s what you want to do. You want to prepare. You
don’t have to be great, but preparation beats natural talent a lot.
BEN: It’s been a few years since I’ve done those, but when I wrote
my dog book I just started getting on the radio, and the first time was
so nerve wracking. It was the stupidest thing. I don’t think anybody
was listening, it was such a small station.
You were talking about how much they charge and everything. I think
these people only charged like $8 for advertising. [laughing] It was
just a conversation. I mean you have to know your subject matter, but
you already do.
MIKE: Yeah, it’s assumed that you know your subject matter, but
even when we do – like I know my subject matter now, but I’m just
like anybody else, I get nervous all the time and I think nerves are
healthy. I’m nervous right now talking to you – not nervous like, “Oh
man, it’s Ben….”
BEN: I am an intimidating guy, it’s true. [laughing]
MIKE: No, seriously, nerves come across in a good way, like “Hey,
there’s people that are going to read this, people are going to listen to
this, and we want to live up to whatever hype we’re going to talk
about as to why people should listen to this interview.”
That’s where the nerves come from, and then of course that it’s kind
of off-the-cuff, but for the most part everybody is going to be a little
nervous, if you want to use that word, doing anything.
Sometimes it’s just the fact that the camera goes on. I get nervous
when my wife holds a Flip camera for me at times when I do a quick
little YouTube video. It’s just natural.
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You’ve seen me on television. Do I look like I’m the guy who gets
nervous when my wife holds the Flip camera? I don’t, but I actually
do.
Again, I’m just as quirky and inadequate as the next guy. You just
have to rehearse. You have to practice.It’s worth it for radio, it’s
worth it for television. Radio’s probably a little more forgiving, but
again, especially for TV, you’ve got to rehearse a little bit. It involves
taking five minutes out of your day for maybe a week.
I’m like the kid who listened to the teacher years ago, and that’s
probably the only thing I got from the school was, “Hey, if you want
to do good on the test, start studying Tuesday for the test that’s on
Friday.”
That’s one of the best things I got from my traditional education,
because I use it all the time. If you want to do good on Monday’s
segment, start practicing Tuesday of the previous week.
BEN: One of the things I noticed when I was doing some PR, and I’ve
noticed other people will say this too – and I don’t know if it’s the
same with TV, but I’m going to assume it’s even more so with TV – is
the hosts don’t want you to fail and flap around, so they actually
assist you through the interview.
They’re not trying to get you to screw up. They want you to make
them look good. Is that true?
MIKE: I’m sure Sarah Palin would argue this….
BEN: But I mean the average person.
MIKE: I know what you mean. The average guy, you’re on this
show, you’re going to ask good questions. You’re going to ask
questions to kind of put me on the spot, which are going to be good
for your readers. You’re looking out for your readers and listeners,
but you’re also not going to do things that are going to jeopardize the
outcome of that.
That’s the same thing that’s going to happen with a normal TV
reporter or radio show host or whatever, a newspaper reporter – they
want you to come out good because they have content they’ve got to
put out there, and they have readers. Again, unless you’re talking
about the highest level with tabloids and people who have agendas in
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the media – which again, probably anyone who’s listening to this is
not at that level; I’m not at that level, I know that, to have to worry
about anyone trying to corner me – but imagine Tiger Woods going
on the Pope’s TV. The Pope’s probably going to have some tough
questions for Tiger.
Every outlet is not like that. A great example again is Charlie Gibson
and Sarah Palin. People who are Sarah Palin fans are looking and
saying, “Man, he really cornered her. He really tried to make her look
bad. What was that all about?” And people who are Gibson fans are
like, “Yeah, go get em!”
For the most part you’re not going to be put under that kind of
scrutiny.
BEN: You’ve done a lot of TV. All I’ve done is radio. That’s why I
find this so fascinating. With radio it was like they wouldn’t even
respond to your press release unless the reporter themselves was
interested in that subject matter and really wanted to know more
about it just for their own benefit.
MIKE: Right, they had to do a show that was targeted towards that
subject matter. There’s a few different ways to narrow your targets
too, in terms of general approaches where you could definitely fit into
a generalized show, and those can be very powerful, or like you were
saying, the show is totally based on that topic.
We’re talking about a topic that applies to entrepreneurs here, no
matter what. We already cleared it out and said you don’t have to be
local to benefit from this. You’re getting publicity, but you’re starting
locally first and you’re going to increase your odds, and here’s how to
do it.
This applies to copywriters, this applies to chiropractors, this applies
to massage therapists and personal trainers and web designers.
BEN: One question I have, from looking at the information you sent
me, what I found really interesting – I can’t wait to put you on the
spot and grill you about this and make you nervous – is you don’t
seem to be a big fan of using press releases, right?
MIKE: Nope.
BEN: Okay, so what do you do instead?
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MIKE: Maybe I just haven’t seen the light on press releases. I don’t
know if you want to know why I don’t use press releases. What I do
first is I’ll throw a pitch out there, and here’s the really cool thing
about doing publicity.
Someone told me when I first started off, someone who kind of ran a
media company but kind of didn’t know how to get media because
they didn’t have their own track record, but I guess they were an
expert or studied in college, who knows –
One thing she told me was true. I didn’t notice it at first, but she said,
“Media begets media.” I’m thinking, “All right, I’m going to go do
my first newspaper interview, and then I’m going to get calls from all
the newspapers.” It didn’t happen that way. Here’s how it begets
media. This is about your press release thing. I booked myself for a
radio show – not anything crazy, a nice market on the west coast, kind
of a personal development-type radio show, who knows how many
people are listening, but I haven’t done a radio show in awhile so I
want to do it. It’s a good fit into one of my books and I can talk about
it and give a good interview, so we’re going to do it.
You hear people say, “Send those people a press release!” All I said
was, I looked at their show, it took me two minutes to go to their
website, I saw the recent few topics, saw the kind of show they do,
and I sent them a title and a subject line. I think it was Tom and Rich
who were the hosts.
I said, “Tom and Rich, here’s a show topic idea for you,” blah blah
blah. “By the way, my name’s Mike Dolpies. I’m the author of this
book, and I’d love to help your audience,” yada yada yada. “By the
way, here’s two clips of two recent television appearances so you can
get to know me.”
They contacted me back within 20 minutes and said, “Hey, can we
book you for Friday?” You’d think, “Hey, you need to send those
people a press release to get on their show,” and I was a radio show
host with a weekly show in a weekly market. People sent me press
releases, and that’s not how you book. I never booked anybody by
those press releases.
First I booked my friends, then I booked my networking partners, and
after they were all gone, then I booked people that had ideas for me.
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[laughing]
BEN: Would you have gotten that opportunity if you didn’t have
those two TV interviews to send them, though?
MIKE: Maybe, maybe not, but here’s what I would have done. I
wouldn’t have been so arrogant. [laughing] Those two TV interviews
made me more arrogant about it, and I was able to use more of a take-
away sell. “Eh, if you want it, great. If not, I don’t really care, man.”
That was kind of my approach. I didn’t say it in my email, but that
was the tone of my email.
Here’s how I got radio show interviews before I had TV interviews,
and it was the radio interviews that helped me get more TV
interviews. It’s like a professional cycle here.
If I wasn’t able to throw those links, what I would do is I would just
blow out my topic a little more and make it more compelling. That’s
called a pitch, and this again goes to what you said, instead of press
releases.
I’d do the same thing. “Tom and Rich, here’s a good show segment
idea.” You’re in business and you need to – especially if they’re
reading your stuff, they understand the power of words applied to
this. This goes back to my 60/40 thing. You’re already doing 60% of
this. You need to tweak it to the other 40%. If you’re studying
marketing, you’re studying copywriting, you’re studying email
marketing, and you’re in tune with the Ben Settle doctrine, you
already know the power of words.
BEN: God help you! But go ahead. [laughing]
MIKE: Basically what I’d do is I’d take the same thing, and I
wouldn’t start out with, “My name’s Mike and I’m the author of the
book…” – I would make my pitch lead into, “This would be a great
segment. Here’s what we would cover,” and I’d hit some bullet points
of what we would cover.
Then I would say, “My name is Mike. I’m the author of this book,”
with a short little bio and a link to my book. Done. That works whenyou don’t have anything behind you. Now you have to say, “How can
I get my foot in the door by giving them such a compelling pitch” –
it’s a pitch, not a press release.
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Subject line first: Tom and Rich, here’s a great show idea.
You blow out the idea, or maybe you say the problem, like
procrastination, blah blah blah. It kills a lot of dreams and it keeps
people fat, or whatever your subject line is, if you’re using
procrastination. Then you hit the bullet points, “Here’s what I would
cover. Let’s book this asap, because Procrastination Week is coming
up,” or whatever. This is not exactly how it unfolded yesterday, but
I’m just giving an example when you don’t have anything behind you.
You have to now think of pitches of how your topic ties in.
Like you’re big on email marketing. Where does that tie in right
now? It ties in because like in The Wall Street Journal last week,
“Will Facebook Email Kill Email Marketing?”
BEN: Yeah, that’s a boon for people like me right now to talk about
that.
MIKE: Yeah, because that was in The Wall Street Journal.
BEN: You know what, I wrote that subject line almost a year ago
actually, that exact subject line. [laughing]
MIKE: [inaudible] either know or you don’t know. The Wall Street
Journal yesterday was about how Facebook is actually going to be
offering an @Facebook.com email address. That’s what’s different
now.
Facebook messages, yes, I hear what you’re saying there. They’ve
been around since Facebook started, but now Facebook is offering a
new service, which gives you an @Facebook.com email address, so
it’s going to be BenSettle@Facebook.com. Don’t email him there, he
doesn’t have the account, but BenSettle@Facebook.com.
That’s going to be an email account that stores all your social media,
all your Facebook messages and whatever else you’ve got going on,
all the things from your ex-girlfriend, and all your other emails. Then
it actually has a spot for newsletters and stuff that’s not a priority.
As an email marketing expert, there’s a lot of companies right now
that are really ramping up their email. If you study big retailers, the
smart ones – Walgreen’s, Best Buy – they have great email marketing.
To your standards they don’t have great email marketing, but to big
company standards they’re aggressive with their email marketing.
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mailto:BenSettle@Facebook.com
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So for someone like The Wall Street Journal or say Fox Business
News type thing, you might have something there. “Email expert
speaks – Will Facebook email destroy email marketing and hurt our
economy more?”
I’m just throwing things out there, but you see where I’m going with
this?
BEN: Yeah, I do. That’s very interesting.
MIKE: This is how I think.
BEN: Now I’m going to ask you this. Do you recommend people
email their pitches and not call or mail, but email first?
MIKE: What a funny irony. Yes, you email your pitches, absolutely.
It’s still a major form of communication. If you find out the producer
or the person with the show or the editor has an @Facebook email
address, fire away to that @Facebook email address. Send them a
Facebook message if you want.
BEN: I shouldn’t say this, because we’ll say email and a few over-
zealous whippersnappers will go, “I’m going to get a big list, import
it, and mass mail.”
MIKE: No, no broadcast email here. Everything is personal if you
want it to work. So Tom and Rich got one email. Call me old-
fashioned if you want. Call me someone who’s not leveraging my
time right, because I have a broadcast email system, but I only email
Tom and Rich.
Man, what a sin I just committed because I didn’t email 1,000 Tom
and Rich’s. No! That’s the only show that it ties into.
If I emailed you, Ben, you have The Ben Settle Show. If I emailed you
with the topic I emailed Tom and Rich, you’re going to go like,
“Dude, that doesn’t fit for what my people want. What’s the matter
with you? Are you sick today? Is there something wrong? Can I help
you in any way?” That’s how you’re going to think. Again, it’s all
customized to the outlet. That’s the thing you’ve got to remember,
and that’s where the pitches come in.
Steve Jobs can send a press release out about the new iPad. Big
companies can do that. Wendy’s can say, “Hey, we’re changing the
recipe of our French fries,” and unfortunately for us as the general
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public, we’re going to have to watch that if we’re watching the news.
“Great. Wendy’s changing the recipe.”
They can send out press releases to these massive lists that they have,
because they’re big companies. As a small-time operator, you can’t
do that because nobody cares if your local burger joint is changing
their fries recipe. They don’t give a rat’s behind, but Wendy’s can do
that.
It sucks, but it’s true. It happens. Big companies can send press
releases. Big CEOs can send press releases. Bill Clinton’s PR people
can send a press release out that says, “Bill Clinton is now going on a
vegan diet,” – by the way, it was news about three months ago, just so
you know that – but we can’t. The vast majority of people can’t do
that. Does that make sense?
BEN: I just find this very fascinating, because I kind of came of age
in PR doing the Hartunian system, and yours is vastly different. It’s
interesting because I don’t see either one as necessarily being better
than the other, but this is a great other way to do it if you don’t want
to screw around with faxing out press releases.
MIKE: Yeah, I don’t know, I won’t say because I haven’t done it.
Here’s what happened. I looked at that same approach and maybe I
got stuck on the technology. I couldn’t find a good broadcast fax.
Then I also knew that the more personal I could make this, the better.
It’s Tom and Rich. That’s what I knew, and a lot of my mentors as
well also mentioned that. Target one at a time, and then let them call
you. That’s the approach on this, by the way. Target one at a time as
you go, and then as you build up this huge bank, then you let your
media start to work for you.
Here’s an example. I got Entrepreneur magazine only because my
local state business publication puts out articles in print that I give
them, and they maybe do one or two a month, because it only comes
out twice a month in publication. They do maybe 24-26 issues a year.
I don’t know what their exact publication schedule is.
That’s how I got Entrepreneur.com. You’ve already built a
relationship with the local people, and now all the sudden
Entrepreneur picked that up, so I didn’t have to go pitch Entrepreneur.
Does that make sense?
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BEN: Yeah. What I find very interesting about this is if somebody
really wanted to go balls out with PR, honestly, if I had more time I
think I would actually do this, if I had more of a mass market I was
selling to than who I sell to –
MIKE: Ben, you just gave me the email pitch.
BEN: You could do both. There’s this one guy, he sells special effects
cookbooks. He gets on the Food Network all the time, and he does the
Hartunian thing. He doesn’t fax, he just snail mails. He’ll send out
like ten a day, and you can do that. At the same time you can do the
targeting that you’re talking about. You can do the shotgun approach
to everybody, and then do your targeting thing with email, and you
could really clean up.
MIKE: I can’t knock the shotgun approach because it’s not
something that I’ve embraced and I’ve actually said, “Okay, this
doesn’t work,” but I’ll tell you what, here’s what doesn’t work. Press
releases to the targeting approach doesn’t work. It’s a weird irony,
isn’t it?
If you actually do a press release and you target it personally, that
hurts your chances. It doesn’t kill them, but it hurts them.
BEN: It’s kind of a waste of time.
MIKE: It’s a weird thing. You do the whole press release – For
Immediate Release – Contact yada yada yada, your headline and all
this kind of stuff – Iknow how to write press releases and I’ve
written some that I’ve picked up for clients too, but then on a targeted
or personal approach, that actually doesn’t work.
When it comes to local media, maybe like for you, you would fit
really good into your state business publications. You would fit good
into that. Some of your stuff I’ve read kind of has a personal
development flair in a way. I’ve read some of your emails, which
could easily be turned into articles, so you have some stuff that does
have some broad appeal. You could probably do an article for a local
newspaper if you really worked at it and if you wanted to do it. You
could do one for a local business publication. You’d fit in there
perfectly. 
 
And I think if you had your radar or your antenna up, now all the
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sudden you see that Facebook email made The Wall Street Journal
and USA Today, and now your head starts to spin like, “How am I
going to tie into this as an email marketing expert?” and there you go.
Now you’re hitting your email marketing topic to a huge audience.
There’s a percentage of people who read The Wall Street Journal and
USA Today that are interested in email marketing for sure. If they
hear from an email marketing expert who’s got something to say –
and you know Fox News is owned by the same company The Wall
Street Journal is, so there’s an interview on Fox News. I’m just
painting this picture for you. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed, but it’s
just an example of how you work it. This is your subject, so you have
your local stuff that you’re doing that’s evergreen. It doesn’t rely on,
“Hey, Facebook came out with their new email service.” That’s
something you would pounce on right away.
I usually jump on stupid goofy weeks, like the last TV segment I did
was “How to beat a path to your door week.” I do internet marketing,
so I said one of the best ways to get people to beat a path to your door
is to have a good internet marketing strategy. That was my whole
segment. The pitch was a lot better than that, but pretty much that
was it, to sum it up. Does that make sense?
BEN: Yeah. This kind of goes along with another question I was
going to ask you. Somebody who’s reading this or listening to this,
whatever they’re selling, they just need to keep aware of what the
mass media is talking about. If they can tie something in, that’s a
perfect opportunity for them to do what you’re teaching here.
MIKE: Yeah, and two examples. I have a lot of martial arts guys,
and bullying is something that’s on the national radar screen, so I’ve
had a few of them that it’s a slam dunk for them to get local segments
or get articles or get the newspaper to come out and cover their anti-
bully seminar.
The other side is you look at your evergreen. If you write an article
for a publication, I’ve got a couple clients on my roster right now that
came because of articles in the rinky-dinkiest papers, and then I have
other ones that came from trade journals, a couple other ones that
came from like state business publications, so writing articles is one
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way to get publicity. We can talk about that if you want for a few
minutes.
The other side of it is you have your kind of evergreen publicity
strategy. For me, the next thing on my radar screen is New Year’s
resolutions. We’re recording this the week of Thanksgiving, but the
next thing on my radar screen is New Year’s resolutions.
I know that I’ll be contacting producers and saying, “Here’s a
segment idea for New Year’s resolutions.” Obviously it’s going to be
a lot better than, and sound better than that. It’s going to be a sound
bite if you think about it, and hopefully they’ll say, “Great. Let’s book
you for December 27.”
So you have your evergreen strategy that doesn’t tie into anything,
and then, like you were saying, you jump on other things. With you,
we used the Facebook email example because you’re an email
marketing expert, and that would tie into business-type publications
like The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, or Fox Business Channel or
CNBC might cover that.
BEN: Let me ask you this, and you only have five minutes to answer,
so I’m putting you on the super hot seat. You talked about writing
articles and doing your own radio show. Somebody could take maybe
articles they’ve already written for the internet and they could turn
that into an article – they’ve already done most of the work – and
they could submit it.
How does that work? How do they get into these publications?
MIKE: Sometimes, some of us that put articles out there on the
internet, it’s kind of like the tree falling in the forest, to a point. So a
lot of times you probably aren’t going to worry too much about it.
There are some magazines that are really sticklers about they want
first priority for it, so you’ve got to check on that. It’s not just about
recycling your stuff, so you’ve got to be careful. You may want to
tweak at first, and you may want to do some independent research
whether they want first priority. Just call them as Joe Schmoe and ask
the question. Say, “For freelance articles, is it really important that
this is the first place it appears?”
Most times, if you get someone on the phone they’ll answer the
question, or use a different email address or something like that. If
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they don’t get back to you, great. Just draw the conclusion it’s better
if they get it first. A state magazine or a local state business
publication or newspaper, or even a big outlet – which obviously this
doesn’t apply to Entrepreneur, because it appeared in print before it
appeared on their website – but for most of them, assume that they
want first dibs on it.
You could basically take articles and you can do two things. How I
got my first article to appear in a local business publication, and then
after that on a regular basis, it was funny. I interviewed the editor on
my radio show first, so that was my in. I said, “Hey Bob, you want to
come on my radio show and talk about your newspaper?” and we did
a segment that highlighted his newspaper. He was happy about that.
He was getting a little media exposure. Then maybe about a month
later I had this article that I wrote, and I was going to either put it on
my blog or throw it out there somewhere, so I said, “Let me ask Bob.”
I sent Bob an email that said, “Bob, here’s a good article idea for
you,” and I put the nice catchy title in there. “This would be great for
this time of year because the New Year is coming and we need to get
business owners moving,” or something like that. I forget what I put.
He said, “Sure, send it over. Make sure it’s between 600-750 words.”
So I went and looked at it, it’s between 600-750 words, and I said,
“Oh, by the way, this hasn’t appeared anywhere else. Let me know if
you like it.” He said, “Great, I like it. We’re going to run it January
10.” Done.
That’s how you do it. You look at what they publish and then you
offer them something. Four or five years ago I got my first article to
appear in a martial arts industry trade magazine. I read the magazine
religiously every month for like six years, and then I realized I was
really good at selling martial arts. That’s what I loved to do – enroll
students, talk to their parents, enroll them as adults or whatever, and
get them started in the school. That’s what I enjoyed.
I noticed, “You know, there’s no darn column in this magazine about
enrolling people.” Duh. It’s only like one of the lifebloods of our
business.
So, I emailed the editor and I emailed the president of the trade
association and said, “Hey, you guys need an article on selling. Here’s
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a few ideas,” and they were like, “All right, you’re on, cowboy.”
So, I started writing an article for them every month until the
magazine changed hands. The new owners didn’t like me, so they
canned my column. Anyway, not to get off on a tangent, butdoes that
answer your question?
BEN: Yeah. I think this is very interesting. Thank you so much,
Mike!
MIKE: Mike, I can’t tell you how cool this conversation has been.
I’ve been wanting to ask you about this forever, and I’m glad that you
agreed to do this. Thank you.
 
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How to Get Clients in a Bad Economy
Secret ways to attract an endless flow of new clients
and customers in 21 days or less... even when the
economy tanks
By Ben Settle
Copyright 2016-2017, All rights reserved
 
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How to Get Clients in a Bad Economy
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Table of Contents
Introduction
How to Create Inexpensive Advertising That’s Simple, Fast and Will
Keep Making You Money...Even After You Stop Using It
How to Sell High-Priced Services to Complete Strangers
Advertising Secret of a Stinky Old Door-To-Door Salesman Explodes
Your Sales Fast
The Stunning “Business-Attraction” Secret of Rush Limbaugh and
Fidel Castro
1,000-Year-Old Business Secret Lets You Make Money Fast – No
Matter What Your Business, Product or Service
How to Cut Your Ad Budget in Half And Make MORE Sales At The
Same Time
10 Ways to Pull More Sales from Every Ad You Run
 
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Introduction
Dear Fellow Business Owner,
Thank you for reading this short manual about how you can attract
new business in 21 days or less.
This publication contains seven simple and easy ways to install ariver
of new clients and customers almost at will – whether the economy is
good, bad or ugly.
There is nothing complicated about these secrets.
In fact, I think you will be surprised by how easy they are to
implement.
I suggest starting with the first report – as it lays a nice “foundation”
– and then just read the rest of the reports that interest you.
If you follow the advice within this book you will have no problem
getting all the new business you want and leave your competition
behind in the dust.
Ben Settle
 
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How to Create Inexpensive Advertising That’s
Simple, Fast and Will Keep Making You
Money...Even After You Stop Using It
If you’d like a simple, fast and inexpensive way to create advertising
that consistently and reliably drags in money for years into the
future…even after youstop using it…this report will show you how.
Check this out:
No matter what you sell or who you sell to…no matter how big or
how small your business is…no matter how much or how little
“talent” you have at selling, marketing and advertising…you can
literally apply the few little “twists” you’ll get in this report to your
advertising today…and see results in your bank account...
By Tomorrow!
Doesn’t matter if you advertise in the Yellow Pages, in the
newspaper, on the Internet or even with a simple postcard.
When you apply these simply strategies to your advertising, your ads
will be infused with so much raw power… there won’t be any
question in the customer’s mind yours is the business to call.
And not only will people call you, but they’ll call you right now.
Today. Thisinstant.
No guessing, hesitating or “thinking it over.” 
When you apply what you learn in this report to even your weakest ad
you will watch it reach off the page, pinch the reader on the butt
and…
Get Him to Call You Immediately!
Best part: Only three simple things you need to be familiar with to
make this happen.
That’s it.
No complicated techniques to learn.
No advertising degree is needed.
No “creativity” required.
Ready?
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Okay, then. Let’s get started.
The first thing you need to know is what anyone outside of your
target audience (i.e. the people most likelyto buy your product or
service) thinks...is totally and completelyirrelevant.
This includes your colleagues, friends, family, spouse and especially
the sales rep for whatever media you are using.
In fact, most of these reps wouldn’t know a good ad if it fell out of
the sky and bit ‘em where the sun don’t shine.
Why do I say this?
Because these people are not trained to create advertising that sells.
And, while their intentions are good, they will almost always be more
concerned with “design” and “image” than making the sale.
Quite frankly, the better your ad is, the more other people will kick,
scream andplead with you to do it their way instead.
The second thing you need to realize is, with the strategy you’re
about to see, the goal of advertising is not “to get your name out
there.”
Instead the goal is to...
Get Your Customer’s Name “In Here.”
You see, the best ads don’t mess around with trying to increase
“brand awareness” (it will come naturally if you follow the advice in
this report) or build up the “image” of their business.
No-the best ads aredirect responseads.
They not only get people to come to you, but they get people to come
to you right now.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Not next year.
Not sometime in the next decade.
Today. Now.
And as you’ll see, this is not only the absolute best way ever invented
to make immediate, cash-in-the-bank sales...but it’s also the best way
ever invented to get people to keep buying from you over and over
and over – even long after your advertising has stopped running!
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And finally, the third concept you must know is:
“What” You Say Is Way More Important Than “How” You Say It!
In fact, “what” you say trumps everything else – including graphics,
design and even how much money you have to advertise with.
Don’t believe me?
Then let me put it to you this way:
If I was to tell you about a way to get a lifetime supply of gasoline, a
brand new car (of your choice) and lifetime insurance for that car –
all for free – would it really matter “how” I told you?
Would it matter if I shouted it… whispered it… or even if I wrote it
down for you in the sand with a stick?
I doubt it.
Because “what” I had to say would be much more important than
“how” I said it.
On the other hand, what if I said I wanted to give you a 1989 Yugo
automobile (remember those?) without brakes and a stench in the
back seat that smells like something died back there?
Would it matter how beautifully or “professionally” I presented this
offer to you? How great my suit looked, how clear my voice sounded?
Of course not.
“What” I say would be of…
Zero Interest to You!
To fully illustrate my point, I want to show you some “ads” (for
various different businesses) in front of me.
Some of them are from the Yellow Pages and some are from a local
newspaper.
Here’s what their slogans (marketing messages) are:
“We do it right from start to finish!”
“One stop service!”
“Friendly, knowledgeable & honest care!”
“Where quality at a fair price can still be found!”
“Large enough to serve you...small enough to care!”
“Experience the difference!”
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“An experienced company you can trust!”
Hmmm. None of them are really “saying” anything unique, are they?
In fact, I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you can tell me exactly what
each of these businesses sell just by looking at their main message.
You can’t do it, can you?
Because these slogans can pretty much all be adopted byany business.
And, to make matters worse, not one of these cute little “feel-good”
phrases passes...
The “Who Cares?” Test!
Pay close attention here, my friend. This is very important:
If someone can, at any time while reading your ad, say “who cares?”
you’ve lost the sale.
Why?
Because 99% of customers need “meaningful specifics”…instead of
“vague generalities”… to make a buying decision.
They need to be told why they should choose you instead of the other
guy. And a slogan – especially the ones above – won’t do that.
So how do you tell people why they should choose you over everyone
else? And how do you accomplish this in a fast, punchy way in your
advertising?
The answeris simple.
All you have to do is create a “Unique Selling Proposition.”
The Unique Selling Proposition (or USP for short) answers the
question:
“Why should I do business with you, and not theother guy?”
It’s the one single thing onlyyou are capable of doing (or willing to
do) for the customer none of your “competition” can or will.
A really hot USP willforce someone to peel his lazy can off the
couch, search around frantically for the cordless phone…and literally
call you as fast as possible!
In fact, if you don’t have a message that makes it irresistible to do
business with you (literally), you shouldn’t even bother advertising at
all.
Why?
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Because all the empty “me too!” advertising out there is totally
ignored by today’s busy customer and you’re simply wasting your
money.
For example, there’s a bank in my area whose marketing
message/slogan is...
“Bring us your dreams!”
Now, c’mon.
You can’t get more empty and vague than that, can you?
This kind of “advertising” is completely tuned out by people.
Yet this is the kind of advertising most businesses rely on.
You and I can do better.
A lot better.
Like by creating a USP that motivates people to extreme lengths to
order from you. The kind of offer no serious prospective customer
could possibly ignore.
I’m talking about constructing a deal so hot – and so precisely
matched to your customer’s needs and desires – he’d drive through a
severe ice-storm to get to your store before it closes. Or spend several
hours thumbing through the phone book (one page at a time) to find
your name and phone number if he lost your contact information.
My friend, if your main message doesn’t have that kind of impact...
It Ain’t Gonna Cut It!
So how, you ask, do you create your own totally irresistible USP?
Try this:
Pretend you had to sell your product or service door-to-door. No
phones. No faxes. No emails. No newspapers. No yellow pages. No
classified ads. No nothing. Just hitting the streets and slugging it out
door-to-door.
And the only advantage you have is the people whose doors you
knock on have made it known they might be interested in purchasing
a product or service related to yours.
And so...when the door opens...you have about 3 seconds to say what
you have to say before the guy slams the door on your face, grabs the
shotgun and tells you to get the hell off his property.
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Now, what’s the one single mostimportant thing about your business
you would say to get him to - instead of slamming the door in your
face - actually open the door for you and say…
“Really? How do you do that???”
Would you blurt out some dorky slogan like “bring me your dreams”?
Or would you pack your best reason, offer or benefit of doing
business with you into one tightly-packed phrase that makes buying
from you truly irresistible?
Think about it.
What makesyou unique?
There has to be something.
And if there really is nothing unique about your business – that
separates you from the rest of your competition – then you need to
create an offer, condition or deal only you are willing to offer and...
Make Your Business Unique!
Listen:
Creating a “for real” irresistible USP will change your life.
Your advertising will suddenly force customers to hear you out and
compel them to blow right on by all your competitors’ advertising -
no matter how fancy their graphics or how big their budget.
To give you a taste of what I’m talking about, here are some examples
of real, live unique selling propositions used by real businesses with
astonishing success:
“If I don’t remove your stain, or get you sparkling cleaned
carpets...I’LL PAY YOU $50.00 for your time. Plus: I’ll find another
company for you and pay the bill!” (From White Glove Carpet Care)
“If you’re not absolutely delighted with the results you’re achieving,
we’ll refund your purchase price, refund your shipping cost and send
you an additional $10.00 FREE...just for trying our course!” (From
Green Tree Press, selling a computer course)
“We’ll bring the samples out to your house and give you next day
delivery with no payments until next year!” (Empire Today Carpets)
“You’ll get relief from your aching back, or your visit to my office is
FREE!” (Abne-Cena Health Center)
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“I’ll give you a free month of street fighting lessons. And if you
aren’t 100% thrilled with what you learn, I’ll reach into my own
pocket…and buy you a month of martial arts classes at any school of
your choosing!” (Elite Defense Systems, Inc.)
“We fix your car right or we’ll buy your car!” (Technical Tune-up.
Talk about agutsy offer!)
“For $198 per person, $396 per couple, I’ll put you up in a luxurious
mini-suite in an exciting Las Vegas hotel, right on the strip...give you
tickets to a show with name entertainers...put a chilled bottle of
champagne in your room...let you drink as much of whatever you
want whether you’re at the gambling tables, playing the slots, or in
one of the lounges...hand you $1,000 of my money to gamble
with...let you keep all winnings...and, as a bonus, guarantee you’ll
win either a color TV, a DVR, or a faux-diamond ring!” (Bob Stupak’s
Vegas World Hotel)
“I guarantee to sell your home within just 45 days...or...I’ll pay you
$50.00 cash just for your trouble!” (I forget where I saw this real
estate agent’s ad...but you can’t ask for a better guarantee than that,
can you?)
Okay, those are great examples of what I am talking about here.
And if you want to eliminate your competition in just one or two
sentences, a USP is how you do it.
Okay. You got your USP.
Now let’s switch gears and talk about the next part of this advertising
strategy.
Strange as it sounds, you should not “advertise” your business.
Instead, you should advertise what’s called a “lead-generating tool”.
Lead generating tools do two things:
First they weed out people who aren’t really serious, and prevent
them from wasting your time and money.
And second, they do all the “selling” for you...
Without Any Pressure!
And not only that but, people are much more likely to respond to
information in a lead- generating tool (when assembled correctly)
than they are to “advertising”.
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Why?
Because “advertising” by its very nature is negative. Nobody likes a
sales pitch. People are, in fact,conditioned to tune them out from
childhood. It’s practically a necessity, or we’d all go crazy from the
gazillions of ads we’re exposed to every day.
On the other hand, a properly created lead generating tool will, by its
very nature, build trust and credibility. Instead of springing a sales
pitch on everyone, it gives away real, useful information they need,
and therefore opens their minds to what you have to say.
Now, there are a lot of different lead generators you can use.
But the one I personally use almost exclusively is…
A Free Report!
Free reports are incredibly effective because they teach people
exactly what people need to do to solve whatever problem they are
trying to solve...but purposely leaves out exactly how to do it.
For example: A report could tell people to take a certain herb or
natural remedy to get rid of their urinary tract infection. But it will
deliberatelyleave it ambiguous as to whichexact brand of this special
herb works best, where to get it cheap and how to even properly use
it.
You can do the same thing. 
And if you do it right, people reading your report will decide to hire
you (or get your products) to solve whatever problem they have.
Here’s how to apply this to your business:
In all your advertising, have the customer call a phone number with a
voice mail (so they know they won’t talk to a live person) and leave
their name and address, so you can send them your free report. You
can also do this on your website with a simple form that captures
their information.
And when the customer requests your report, simply send it to her.
It’ll do all the “selling” for you. It’ll