Is elBenbo a black-pilled pessimist?

A while back I got this email from reader JK: === Hey Ben, Are you naturally pessimistic? Or is it just the persona you have for your personal brand? I love it — it’s a big part of why I’m a subscriber — but I’ve been noticing how persuasive pessimism is and I’m naturally naturally very optimistic. === There certainly was a time when I was a pessimist in my yoof. Almost embarrassingly so. But nowadays it’s the exact opposite. Still, maybe he had a point about my emails? So I asked for some examples and he replied with some of my recent subject lines at the time: === “The rank stupidity of having a business like mine” “elBenbo commits unforgivable marketing blasphemy” “A sales pitch of epically blatant proportions inside” I guess pessimism might not be the best word, but there’s an underlying negativity in most things you write. === My analysis: Yes, a form of negativity “surrounds” a lot of my claims, emails, and ads. If you look at my elBenbo Press and List Swell ads it’s especially obvious. That’s not pessimism though. It’s is something quite different and almost the polar opposite in effect. It is also something I learned — and have profited from immensely — from studying the late, great Jim Camp’s negotiation trainings over the years, and then applying them to my marketing, copywriting, emails, customer service, and other content. I have written about this in Email Players over the years off and on. And it ain’t no accident when you see me do it. The gist of it is this: While most marketers, salesman, etc want to bring their leads to an emotional high, I do the opposite and try to bring them down back to the center emotionally. I want them coming in correct. I especially want them to have the right expectations — of both what I expect of them and what they can expect of me. The result: For me it’s been a much stronger, consistently growing business. A business where I don’t get a whole lot of low class jackasses. I also have gotten a larger-than-expected horde of high quality customers who are a joy to teach, interact with, and help in whatever ways they get help from my content and work. Contrast that to the guru-crowd hyping the hell out of their newest launch: It’s all high emotion. High expectations. And… from what I hear — high refunds, high complaints, & high stress. In fact, I remember Email Players subscriber Brian Kurtz writing about this: === I heard a top copywriter speak at an event recently saying that he worked on a very successful product …and the metric for “success” was calculated based on the $10 million in sales from first-time buyers. But then he added this ditty: “The response was off the charts…we crushed it…even though we had a 50% refund rate.” I don’t know about you, but this is not a business model I could ever endorse no matter how much money you can make (and eventually keep) on the first order…when there is little chance of procuring a second order, much less getting these customers into a high integrity ascension program. And no matter what kind of ascension program you put in place for the 50% who bought and didn’t refund (assuming some will still buy from you), it is a business built on sand. === I'd bet green money the guy went for high emotion vs bringing people down to the center. There is a lifetime of wisdom in understanding this. And it’s a “theme” that runs through all Jim Camp’s work I’ve ever seen. All right, on to the business: My pal Michael Senoff had a chance before Jim’s death to record an intense 4-hour, 174 question Q&A with Jim about some of his best methods and ideas, and packaged it into a a $597 product that is — in my opinion, at least — some of the most powerful info you’ll ever hear on the subject of not only negotiation, but sales, the psychology of influence & persuasion (even if he didn’t particularly care for the term “persuasion”), and marketing. Plus: Until tonight (Sunday, 6/9) at midnight EDT you can have this $597 product for just $20. This is a deal so generous it borders on ridiculous. And, I cannot imagine it not significantly making any marketer, any copywriter, any freelancer, any coach/consultant, and anyone in business who carefully listens to it, intensely studies it (i.e., goes through it multiple times, not just one-and-done like amateurs do), and eagerly applies it make a ho bunch more sales, nab higher fees, and experience far greater success, while having more fun and peace of mind all around. Certainly has for me. And I believe it can for you too. Anyway, time is short on this offer. If you want it, hightail it immediately to my affiliate link below: [( Ben Settle 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