The heavyweight champion of the world of success hacks

Exactly 12 years ago in 2010 during the week between Christmas and New Years, I decided I’d had enough of client work. I was doing a lot of copywriting for others at the time. But I grew tired of it and wanted to be my own client. So I sat down during that week and hammered out a detailed business plan, to build out a business selling info products and supplements to a male health-related niche. The plan heavily involved following what a guy at the time showed me for how he built a $70k per year weight loss business doing literally nothing all day except answering a few customer service questions and playing with his kids. A $70k business may not sound like much. But his entire operation was: 1. Almost 2,000 articles on various article directories (SEO-driven, no longer viable) 2. Which drove traffic to his opt-in page 3. Then email to sell a $19 eBook And that was it. That was his entire business — no affiliates, no funnel, no back end sales, no joint ventures, no nothing else but that. And I remember thinking if a guy like that could do $70k per year doing almost nothing, imagine what someone who does know copywriting, who does know how to create a back end, and who does understand how to build out a funnel could do? And so I got to work. And I spent the next month and a half following his protocols: * Writing nearly 1,000 unique articles for article directories * Writing nearly 500 unique blog posts * Writing the eBook, the sales page, and a 101-email sequence (overkill in hindsight, so it is..) Plus, I was on retainer with a client at the time writing all their emails, sales pages, webinar scripts, squeeze pages, and other advertising — not to mention writing all my own stuff selling a print newsletter (no longer published called Crypto Marketing Newsletter), daily emails, etc. That was a lot of writing. Literally at least 2 or 3 novels' worth of writing by sheer volume. And I distinctly remember getting so little sleep during that month and a half that I was just sort of existing in a haze, like a waking dream state, where I couldn’t tell you anything about my life during that time other than I was just always writing, Writing, WRITING… often only sleeping for an hour or two, and probably putting my health at risk in ways I shudder to think about now. But I got the work done. And I then took a much-needed road trip to see my dad. During that road trip I watched as my little fledgling operation started paying off. I wasn’t making a fortune, but I was starting to get 2 or 3 sales of my own little $19 offer coming in, and then increasing to 4 and 5 sales per day, all automated (me doing nothing at that point) and it was looking like it’d keep going up with very little upkeep on my part. Daddy was pretty proud himself that day. Then, out of the blue, half way through the vacation… Google decided to ‘slap’ article directories. All my page one content got zapped to page whatever. The sales all dried up. And all that work was in vain. Or was it? Because a strange thing happened after that. After all those words and sentences and pages… after all that writing and not sleeping… after all that work and effort… I found sitting down to write just ONE email per day so easy, it was almost laughable. Banging out sales pages took probably half the time, and I was already really fast at it following what later became my Copy Slacker methodology. And what used to take an hour or two would be done in 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes — max. To this day, writing “a” email is so simple and routine to me, I genuinely get irritated at people who whine to me about how hard and inconvenient and frustrating writing just one email per day is for them. I simply can’t relate to such types. And it’s one reason I actively try to dissuade lazy people from buying anything from me. I don’t want to hear their nonsense. Now, fast forward about 5 years later. I’m sitting at one of the Oceans 4 Masterminds I co-hosted with Andre Chaperon, Ryan Levesque, and Jack Born, and one of the clients at one of the Vegas ones was Mike Lovitch. And during one of the sessions he said that his supplement business imposed more strict standards and more strict rules on their copywriters than the actual FTC laws required. He said that helped keep them off the radars and less likely to get messed with by the alphabet agencies. Fast forward a few more years. I had written a sales letter for a nearly $1,000 book. And I decided to hire internet marketing attorney and Email Players subscriber Mike Young to review it. And after getting his review, I implemented everything which, like with Lovitch, meant holding my copy to a harsher standard than the government’s rules, only to find that it made all my copy more believable and credible and better. Anyway, I am not sure where I’m going with this. Other than I was reminded of these above three situations recently. Specifically, when I read how Mike Tyson used to train so hard as a professional boxer that he considered the fight days themselves to be just “light” workouts. A non-athlete would say that’s because he knocked people out so fast. But it goes beyond that. And any real athlete knows exactly what I speak of. And knows it’s the heavyweight champion of the world of success hacks. These stories also remind me of something that probably literally killed the man whose work the upcoming “King-Sized” (28 pages vs the usual 20 pages) January Email Players issue was inspired by. I would argue this great man was the single most famous and influential brand of the 20th century with nobody else even coming close. And he applied the above work ethic to what he did to grow that brand and influence beyond what probably anyone else could have. Specifically, by applying the philosophy he lived, slept, ate, and, literally, died by to everything he did, everyone conversation he had, and every piece of content he produced. This “thing” he did can be used by any business. Assuming you have an actual business and list and offer to sell of course. And I believe — and have experienced this myself — the worse the economy gets, the scarier the political forecast looks, and the gloomier the news and overall outlook is… the more doing what that man did to grow his brand and influence can work for a business. Great marketing is ideal, but not needed if you do this. High converting copy is always good, but not necessarily needed either. And having an offer people want is mandatory (it won’t sell something nobody wants), but having the “best” offer is also not needed. This issue is going to sound almost “pollyanna’ish” to a lot of people. The typical goo-roo fanboy fapping to his copy of Think & Grow Rich will hate it. And the lazy bums who do nothing with info they buy will obviously not benefit either. This issue drills deep into a topic I couldn’t possibly do justice to even in a full-length book. But the idea isn’t to hand you a checklist, it’s to change the way you think, and study what this guy who I believe had the most influential brand in the 20th century did, then obsess — like Tyson obsessing over his workouts — over how you can apply it to your business, your sales copy, your emails, your customer service, events, clients, and everything else. All this probably sounds rather cryptic. And that’s as it should be. Just saying “what” this is would sound anti-climactic and be ignored. This has to be sold — so that those reading this issue come at it correct and treat it like the potential Fort Knox of golden information it is, and not just another airy fairy concept that sounds good and gets shared on social media without anyone really doing it or using it or applying it. Okay enough. If all this is too esoteric sounding to you then it’s probably not for you. Go about doing what you’re doing, and do it in peace. For everyone else? To subscribe before the deadline go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2022 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