Am I being too obnoxiously Sebtle?

One of the most valuable bits of advice I could ever pass on to anyone selling in the direct marketing arena is something self-made billionaire Sam Zell said in his magnificent (must reading, IMO) book: “Am I Being Too Subtle?” The advice: “Bet on the person not the deal” That advice served him very well. Not just in money in the bank, but in not wasting time with or getting screwed over by bull shyt statistics, numbers, percentages, name dropping, etc, where people have something all looking great “on paper” but are really just meaningless metrics with no context to anyone but the one spouting off about them, meant to dazzle normies. You can see it all over the online marketing world. I hear it's especially rampant on Facebook and Twitter. Luckily I have applied Sam's motto to my business for over 20-years. And to an almost obnoxious degree. I didn’t think of it in the terms Sam put it until reading his book. But that’s what I have always done in effect. For example: I can’t even imagine picking something to sell as an affiliate based on average EPC or because “everyone else is selling it” (just the opposite — I never sell anything as an affiliate during its launch for a whole laundry list of reasons I won’t bother with here), or because there's a leader board with ultra valuable cash & prizes, or any other reason. That'd be betting on the deal. Instead I bet on the person if I think they can significantly help my customers. And if it significantly helps my customers I have yet to not see it significantly crank up ROI. Email Players subscribers who have this month’s January issue are fortunate, as this entire philosophy and approach is enshrined in that issue — which has already gotten me some great feedback from the likes of “founding father of internet marketing” (even according to Time Magazine) Ken McCarthy and A-list copywriter Kim Krause Schwalm, both of whose thinking were at least somewhat effected by it by their feedback I got. Back to the point: I curate who I do business with very methodically. And it has nothing to do with if I’m “friends” with someone or not, or if the offer is a hot seller or not, or if it’s #1 on Clickbank or not, or if I owe someone a favor or not, or if it’s attached to or endorsed by a “name” guru in the industry or not. Examples: When I sell Email Players subscriber Kim Krause Schwalm’s courses, I don’t have to worry if she’s selling crap or bad info. I know she’ll treat my boys & ghouls good. So I don’t ask her, “wHaT’S tHe aVeRaGE EPC!” of her other affiliates. I don’t care one iota. My results will almost certainly not look anything like her other affiliates’ results anyway. Probably it’s a brand new course, with no other stats even to go by. Same when I sell Email Players subscriber Brian Kurtz’s offers. He’s THE numbers and stats guy. He ran Boardroom for many years having to know “the numbers.” But he has never once shared what the average EPC was for any of his offers that I’ve sold. I don't evne know if he keeps track. And whenever I've sold his Jim Rutz or Bill Jayme or Titans of Direct Response offers I’ve never bothered to asked. Again, I don't care. What I do know and care: I’ve probably sold almost $200k worth of his Titans of Direct Response offer alone since 2015. (One of those times we did $100k in sales, and I’ve sold it multiple times beyond that.) Same goes with Email Players subscriber Troy Broussard. When he told me last year about his Crypto Coaching, in passing, he didn’t ask me if I wanted to sell it, I asked him if I could sell it. Why? Money? Well, yes, there was a big commission attached. But there are lot of offers with big commissions attached, and more perks (leader board bonuses, that sort of thing) than he offered. No, my first and foremost reason was because I knew he'd take good care of my boys & ghouls, that he doesn't sell crap, that there are people on my list who could really use his info on the subject, that even the emails selling it would be doing crypto guys a service, and that I was benefiting from the info myself. But I first bet on the person, not the deal. The result was almost $20k in commissions for me with maybe 3 or 4 hours of effort. A sweet ROI indeed. Especially since I will sell it again some day, compounding the ROI each time. So no, I did not give two shakes of a rats puckering booty what his “stats” were. It was irrelevant. What matters is serving my customers. Which has always lead to higher ROI. It's almost like the two go hand-in-hand.. And so it'll be with an offer of Email Players subscriber Russell Brunson’s I’m keen on selling. He won’t have any average EPC info or whatever (I don't even know all the affiliate lingo) to share. Frankly, I am pretty sure I’ll be its first affiliate. In fact, he asked me which of the two sales pitches he has for it that I’d like to use, if that tells you something — as I am pretty sure very few are as familiar with this product as I am. And it’s simply an offer for a product I use and have grown my business quite a bit with myself, that I know many on my list can benefit enormously from, and that I tell people about anyway, in all kinds of venues (coaching, podcast interviews, whatever), and so it’s a no-brainer to spend the time writing the emails for it and selling it, stats or no stats. And so it goes. That's why I bet on the person first, and not the deal. It’s all part of how I approach marketing — which I will do an entire Email Players issue on the topic later this year — that is the exact, polar opposite of the affiliate and other marketing muppets I’ve seen who can’t make a move without a spreadsheet, or a big name guru blessing it, or some fuzzy numbers thrown at them that are 100% irrelevant to them if they are doing email marketing and building their list right anyway. More: There’s another reason I am bringing this up. An admittedly very self-serving reason. And that reason is the classified ad offer I’m running this week: I am allowing up to 10 businesses to run a classified ad in an upcoming email to my aggressively curated list of 40k+ double opted-in subscribers. The offer ends Friday, or until the spots are filled. And the part of the offer that is giving some affiliate & other marketing dweebs trouble is this: “I cannot guarantee you a certain number of clicks or whatever either, I don’t even track that or know how many potential customers there will be for your particular business on my list.” To those getting heartburn over that: 1. Don’t buy a spot, I can assure you, nobody will even know, much less care 2. Look at the testimonials from 4 of the 5 people who have bought ads like this from me (I only offered it once so far, 3 years ago) Their results will be nothing like yours, that's not why I listed them. But if you think, for example, Email Players subscriber Daniel Throssell who built his entire business off that one 40-word classified ad (and who, for the last 3 years has periodically reminded me to let him know the next time I do it, and thus nabbed the first spot right out the gate this time) gives a puckering rat's gluteus assimus how many “clicks” his ad gets? No, he’s an ROI kinda guy. Another one of the testimonials is from Email Players subscriber Doug Pew. The ad he bought helped him close a $10k new project. He also met a JV partner (Email Players subscriber Josef Sykora) through the ad. And they launched a crazy successful subscription offer together with more deals on the way. You can’t “track” those kinds of results with clicks or spreadsheets. You can only track it by ROI and achieve it by doing the work. Maybe I just don't get out enough anymore. But the smartest and most successful marketers I know are all ROI guys who understand all paid traffic is a risk, have their acts together before buying such traffic, and realize there are never any real guarantees - and ultimately pay little attention to meaningless metrics that aren't sales (or lead to a sale). And those are the businesses I’m targeting with this, not the click goobers. Like I said yesterday, only 1%, maybe 2% if I’m being generous, of my list will get this. The rest? Can keep doing whatever they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll be fine growing their email lists with what they're doing now… Anyway, to read more about this classified ad offer go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/classifieds]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 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