The “dead air” secret used by the founding father of modern day info publishing

One of the single best business biographies I’ve read is Earl Nightingale’s bio: “The Story of Earl Nightingale and His Strangest Secret” It’s chock-full of tips, ideas, and inspiration. And if you do info publishing you can thank him for creating the industry as we know it with his Strangest Secret tape. Even the story about that is a power lesson in and of itself for all content creators especially. What happened was, he recorded an 11-minute training for his sales team (he owned an insurance agency) before taking a trip with his family out to sea. And that recording was such a hit, those salesmen started sharing it with other people they knew, and it blew up to the point where Earl became a nation-wide sensation without even realizing it. And this was pre-internet when this sort of thing never happened. Talk about going viral... All while sailing around, totally out of communication, for a few months. In fact, when he returned from his trip — since nobody could contact him out at sea — he saw the press and a huge crowd waiting for him at the dock. There were so many people, and there was so much chaos waiting for him, he literally thought he was under arrest! Earl even offered to turn himself in for whatever crime he’d been accused of. I always find that story fascinating. There were quite a few fascinating stories about the guy. (He was, for example, an honorary wise guy for the Chicago mob..) Here’s another fascinating story about Earl: He spent a lot of time hosting a radio show when he was a younger man. And one thing he learned, that you can witness in everything he recorded as far as content goes (audio or video) is… he was extremely cognizant of not allowing “dead air” in them. Dead air was and still is the ultimate snafu in any kind of broadcasting. i.e., not letting dead air linger, always filling it with content. But it goes way beyond just broadcasting. It’s a principle that can apply to many things in business. For example: Something I learned from studying the great Dan Kennedy, who learned it from studying (at least, these were the examples he gave) how TV air time revenue blew up with the introduction of night time commercials, fast food sales blew for restaurants serving breakfast, and in his own situation sales blew up when he was selling on stage at Peter Lowe conferences. Specifically, after he convinced Peter to let him speak when people are usually leaving and packing up — time when there was usually no speaker, but that room time had been paid for. This “something” is called: “Unused Capacity” I did an entire Email Players issue just on this at the end of 2019. So I am not going to obviously cover all that here. But I lost count years ago since first learning about this and applying it just how much extra “found money” this has created for my content sold via my business. Ways that have put literally probably 100s of extra thousands of doll hairs in my righteous coffers and probably even more than that for all I know. I think about this concept constantly. And, I am experimenting with new ways of doing it constantly too. And again, while I have already written about this before… I decided to include some extremely powerful & profitable ways to use this concept and approach with content specifically inside the April Email Players issue. Most content creators have no idea how much money they’re leaving on the table. I didn’t either, until really drilling deep into this topic. And I share some especially powerful ways nearly anyone who creates & sells content can use to potentially squeeze a whole lot more money out of content — including off the cuff content and content you didn’t think you could use for much — inside the King-Sized April issue. Frankly, it would not shock me if this ONE part alone inside didn’t pay for 10+ years of Email Players issues for a lot of my boys & ghouls who read it, think hard about it, and aggressively use it the very first time it’s applied. We shalt see. Whatever the case, if you want in on time the deadline is tonight in just a little bit. So if you want in then you best hurry - this link ain't gonna click itself: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. Here’s a lil’ taste of what’s inside this King-Sized issue: * A content creation secret used by famous actor Gary Cooper to turn otherwise boring, ordinary, bland, and totally “plain vanilla” scenes into fascinating & memorable moments people remembered for years afterwards. (Especially useful if content you sell is otherwise easily found free on YouTube or Google.) * A shrewd way used by everyone from Dr. Seuss to Mister Rogers to even Quentin Tarantino… for creating content people love to pay for and consume even if it’s not mind-blowingly original. * The “fights are bullshit” secret for writing emails that can potentially make lots of sales even if you hardly even mention your product or offer at all. (This is directly from the writer who helped make The X-Men a household name and a billion dollar IP for Marvel Comics. And it can work like a charm when creating other kinds of content, too — from sales copy and emails to books, courses, talks, and everything in between.) * An old school writing trick for making your content so compulsively engaging & hard to stop reading/watching/listening to it might even piss people off! (No joke — doing this not only pisses off Stefania whenever she reads or edits my content… but it even irked my book designer when she was creating the interiors of one of my books.) * 7 ingenious ways (based on what Dungeons & Dragons in the 80’s did to help stop IP theft in its tracks) to aggravate & foil content pirates who are probably drooling right now at the chance to steal and sell your hard work. * The “Scorsese touch” content creation & monetization secret I’ve been using for the last several years to help write emails that sell like crazy without having to constantly hard pitch my offers. (Including helping me sell scads of my perfect bound books that look like they should sell for $13 at Barnes & Noble for as much as a $1,000+ a pop…) * A content creation trick (that's gone all but extinct since the rise of “Influencer” culture) that can help you sell your offers on the sneak inside your content. (I also show you an example of an email doing this that got the highest clicks, opens, & sales for us during a highly competitive affiliate campaign… even though it barely even talks about “the product” or benefits or has all that many claims.) * 2 things amateur copywriters, coaches, & online marketers can do (starting immediately) to help grow a bigger and more influential business than their more talented & well-connected peers and competitors. (These are the exact 2 things I did over 20 years ago to quickly blow right past a lot of my own more talented, better connected, and far superior copywriter and/or marketer peers.) * A cunning way to craft content that can help your business stand out head & shoulders in niches overrun with competition and distractions. * An ancient kung fu fighting tip (used by the late, great copywriter Jim Rutz did a lot in his ads, believe it or not...) that can help make even the most mundane, ordinary, and typical content/information look & feel exciting and sexy. * A 3-point content creation approach pioneered by Earl Nightingale (when he was a radio broadcaster in Chicago) and later perfected by Dan Kennedy (when speaking on the Peter Lowe tour) that can help get your content ridiculously high engagement & sales. * Why always trying to be contrarian or a “rebel” is a recipe for ending up ignored at best or even an abject failure in the content creation game at worst. * How to use your content to seize the coveted “cat bird seat” (i.e., he to whom business seems to flow effortlessly) in your industry. (Old school Mad Men like Olgilvy, Burnett, Norman, Foote, Cone, etc were pros at doing this — and it’s one reason why each had their own horde of clients who gravitated just to them, only wanted to hire them, and often didn’t care how much it cost.) * How to approach content creation in a way where your name and brand can be all but “infused” so strongly in your customers’ braincells they start seeing you almost everywhere and almost in everything they look at! (I won’t say doing this is easy — it’s not — but it is the big secret to how you achieve true marketplace omnipotence where your content can spread to the four corners of the earth and all but sell itself.) * How to summon energy & excitement “on demand” to create content when you don’t feel like it, don’t want to it, and it feels like such a chore you’d rather be doing ANYTHING else but creating content. (The late Heath Ledger tapped into this phenomenon to help create his most memorable performance as the Joker. And I've been using for a long time to pound out all kinds of content even when I'd rather be doing something else. You can, too, if you take this approach to heart, apply it, and work hard at it.) All right that’ll do it. If you want in on time for this issue you have to hurry. Once the deadline hits tonight it’ll be too late. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA