The lone wolf howling at the sheep in the masterminds

Few months back I wrote an email with the subject line: “Mr. Settle gets blacklisted by Hollywood?” And it was about some people I’d sent my screenplay (based on my first novel Zombie Cop) to some professionals in the industry. And how, even if it gets outright rejected across the board from everything and everyone… I will simply spin that into a way to make more book sales — which was the whole point of writing the screenplay in the first place. That can happen whether it gets made, optioned, or even (especially...) if rejected/blacklisted for some reason. After all: "Blacklisted by Hollywood!" would make a great line on the cover.. Just like "Banned by Amazon!" would if it ever got de-platformed from there. The older I get the more I realize Matt Furey ain't just whistlin' dixie when he says: “nothing bad ever happens to a writer” To which an Email Players subscriber chimed in (not sure he wants me naming him): === I wish I was aware of why, but this is an outstanding email for me. I read it slowly as my mind kept darting down other paths like movies, Bible, old roommates, etc. It made me think more per line than any email in a while. I've never heard this before: “nothing bad ever happens to a writer.” Love it. I've put my entrepreneurial dreams on pause in the past year and haven't been creative writing as much, which has left a hole. This will get me back into it. Thanks! === And that got me thinking about something else. Something I believe anyone reading this can use, apply, profit from. And that is this: I have long been like the lone voice howling in the forest to the sheep at masterminds especially — that a lot of the most profitable insights & approaches in marketing cannot be tracked with a spreadsheet or Google or analytics or by testing. And how, if anything, it's the “intangibles” that are most important for the long game. My entire what I call "Sociological Marketing" (term I invented to describe it several years ago) approach to my book & newsletter publishing model is built around this phenomenon, for example. Case in point: The reply above from my Email Players subscriber. No sale was made to him in that email (i.e., content) he replied to. No link was necessarily even clicked. No dramatic sequence of upsells presented and bought from. Just a shot of inspiration delivered at the right time to a receptive fan, an exchange of value for time spent reading the email, with a legitimate change in his thinking & forward progress initiated. i.e., nothing "trackable" had occurred. Just a seed planted and nothing else. But because of that, if/when he is ready to buy one of my offers in the future he does not yet possess, the likelihood of a sale is much higher. As is the likelihood of him consuming/using/benefiting from the offer. That then “ups” the likelihood of word-of-mouth referrals to others who seek out & join my list, with them coming in correct, reading, buying, consuming, referring, yada, yada, yada.. I've experienced this phenomenon over and over and over up in this business. No, I’m not anti-tracking or metrics. This is not about not tracking or testing. And ROI obviously still rules the day. But a spreadsheet can't track the intangibles that make up the bulk of sales over time. Like, for example: Relationships with list/market/JVs, industry reputation, enthusiasm that makes you excited (vs just going through the motions — a chore) to sell a particular offer or for serving a particular market, sales manufactured over months/years/decades of daily emails, market/offer timing relationship, current events/news cycle, developing a sensitivity & instinct to what your list will or will not buy (and when they will or will not buy) via consistent daily contact over time, testimonials & endorsement acquisition from others with loyal followings or market affinity, referrals from those who benefited or had lives changed from one or more of your offers... even trolls who drool and rant about you thereby putting you on the radars of high quality customers who think the trolls are idiots watching who then gotta check you out now... And the list goes on. Reminds me of something I heard Dan Kennedy say about Disney: The money made from the 5 cents per sale they get or whatever from licensing a character out to a company selling orange juice is a pittance compared to the money ultimately made from kids seeing that character each day at breakfast nagging mom & dad to buy the character's movies, toys, games, and ultimately take a trip to Disneyland... which can then lead to future visits, toys, movies, games purchased - including to those kids growing up and repeating it with their families (Disney has entire generations of customers), and on and on and on it goes. Anyway, don't know where else I am going with this. Except, maybe for this: You cannot control what someone does with content you create. Whether they buy it, engage with it, click a link in it, love it, hate it, want more of it, are bored of it, don’t understand it, couldn’t care less about it, tell others about it, keep it a secret (annoying when that happens — but ultimately a compliment, I suppose), give you a testimonial about it, troll you over it, even set fire to it... whatever it may be. But one thing is for sure and you can take it to the piggy bank: The more content you float the more successful you’re likely to be. It should be good content of course. But lots of good content = money in the bank. The way I see it and have experienced it, it really comes down to this very simple rule: “To make more money than you are making now, create more content than you are now, faster than you are now.” Content is like “tentacles” you put out in the market place. Some of them won’t grab anything. Some will die on the vine. But still others may just grab hold of something — money, response, engagement, going viral, whatever it is. And so it’s only logical that the more tentacles you put out there the more this is likely to happen. And the more this is likely to happen the more sales your business is probably more likely to make. And the more sales your business can make the more stable your business probably is, the more it can grow, the more it can serve, the more money you can put away, and the list goes on. It’s all about content. And lots of it. If you want to learn some of the best ways I approach and monetize content... that I've been using since long before a lot of social media influencers who can’t market their way out of a paper bag (and are routinely screwed whenever their platform of choice is taken away) have probably even been online — see the May Email Players issue. It’s King-Size (32 pages vs the usual 20 pages) And it’s got all kinds of tips, ideas, tactics for content creation & monetization. Yes it is content about content. And you can read what’s inside in the PS below. Otherwise? Tomorrow’s the deadline to subscribe in time if you want in on time. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. Here’s a “sneak preview” of what’s waiting for you inside the May issue: * An “off the cuff” comment the great Matt Furey made on a Zoom call (while we showed him BerserkerMail) that is probably the single most valuable content monetization lesson I’ve heard (and used) in the past 10 years. (He talked about everything from publishing, email, & health… to Bigfoot, aliens, &, yes… flat earth… but this “throwaway” comment he made about jump ropes was something I wrote down, have been thinking about, and have since doubled down on using to move probably even more offers than I normally would have.) * How the world’s greatest living copywriter used ordinary steak knives to sell a small fortune in subscription offers. (He wasn’t selling “content” necessarily — but I have been using this ditty for nearly 20 years since hearing him teach it to sell all kinds of content-related offers. I suspect nearly anyone else in business can, too.) * The Marvel Cinematic Universe secret to selling people on wanting to buy your content literally months (possibly even years) in advance — including before you’ve even created or talked about it! (I noticed Marvel started doing this with its first Thor movie, and it’s been a free education in content offer launches since. Their movies may not be great, but their way of selling irrefutably is.) * A skeevy trick used by the crooked Chicago Democratic Machine for the past 60+ years that legit businesses can use to help make more profits that you can (legally & ethically — no corruption necessary) when monetizing your own content. * One of the “most published” writers on the planet’s bonafide creativity hack for tricking your brain into coming up with ridiculously profitable ideas for all kinds of content (books, courses, videos, audio, anything, really) you want to create. (I’m not usually a big fan of hacks — but even I admit this is one of the most cunning ways I’ve ever seen to create everything from subject lines and headlines to stories to lessons, newsletter issues, courses, and everything in between.) * The exact best time to create content to sell, use as premiums or teachings, for coaching, or probably anything else. (I learned this clever trick from my uncle — a very successful Amway distributor back in the day — and it’s made the content-creation & monetization side of my business both a whole lot more profitable and also a whole lot less stressful.) * A “hail Mary pass” way of using content you’ve created to potentially make more sales in a week than most businesses do in a year. (The downside is you can only break the glass and use this probably one time, so make sure you do it when it counts.) * A little known (inspired by something an old school Marvel Comics editor in chief’s once did) secret for creating bonuses & premiums that can help sell lots more of your other offers — and often without doing any hard pitching in your content or pissing anyone off. (Bonus: doing this can also help make it more likely your customers will be more successful with those offers, use those offers, refer others to those offers, give testimonials for those offers, want more of those offers, and the list goes on. A powerful tip indeed.) * A non-cringey way for using name-dropping in your content to help make it more likely to be consumed, taken seriously, and even back end sell your other offers. (This goes way beyond content creation and delves into what I teach about World & Marketing Universe-building as well… to help make it more likely customers want to enter your domain and not want to leave. I’ve been using this trick for years, and am finally now teaching it in Email Players.) * Clever ways to use “Lore” to help give your business top-of-mind Status amongst your market, customers, & clients. (This also delves into World & Marketing Universe-building as I teach it. And it can also help add depth to the info you teach, create a “mystique” about your content, and potentially make that content inherently more valuable as a result.) * How one of the most prolific writers in history shrewdly used “dangling plot lines” to keep people reading, engaging with, and, yes… buying his content for literally decades… and how to adapt what he did to your own content. * Why the value you create in your content is bull shyt and what is far more useful and beneficial to your customers & clients. (The “give value” shtick was always an illusion used and pushed mostly by people who can’t sell… and has done far more harm than good. Inside I show you what can work far better while helping make you look like a hero to your audience instead.) * The psychology behind how to combine content with promotion in such a way where customers & clients will probably have no idea they are even being pitched and might even thank you for selling to them after. (Combining content with promotion is like a lost art in 2024 — and hardly anyone does it much less can teach it. But the May issue shows you in great detail how this can work and what it can look like straight from one of the most prolific and profitable content creators who ever lived.) * 18 ways for creating content that can give you such a rush of ideas you might even have to quite your brain just for some peace! (These 18 ways are basically like a “sequel” to my best-selling Breakneck Content book —delivered in rapid-fire style inside, and that I use myself to pound out more content in a month than most content creators probably do in a year.) There’s more. It is, after all, a King-Sized issue (32 pages vs the usual 20). But that should give you an idea of what to expect. To subscribe by the looming deadline go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 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