Fly-on-the world business conversation with Stefania - part 3

Following is part 3 of my talk about business World-Building with Stefania. Originally it was just an impromptu Marco Polo back-and-forth. But since I’m launching my newest book about business & World-Building this weekend (until tomorrow), I thought it apt to share the transcript of it with my righteous horde to think about, ponder, profit from — whether you get the book or not. Here goes: === elBENBO: I was thinking back to a community college too, where I took this creative writing class. I took it because I thought it would force me to finally get off my butt and do some writing, because all I used to do was read about writers back then. I never actually did any writing. I wasted so many years not doing the thing that I wanted to do. I just wanted to read about writing. I used to try to avoid work and effort like a lot of people. Maybe this is why I'm so hard on people on my own list, who just won't do what I know they want to do and they can do, but they don't do it, maybe because I was there, and it's like I'm kicking myself and now I'm taking all that frustration out on myself on them. Whatever. But I remember taking that class... and that's where I wrote the owl story, by the way. I wrote it a few months before that after dreaming it the night before. Just woke up and wrote it down. But I submitted that as my final story. At the end you had to submit two stories or something. I can't remember. But that was one of them. But during that semester, I wrote a different short story, a fantasy story, and it was about a murder mystery in a forest amongst all the mythical creatures, like dwarves, elves, fairies, that sort of thing. Unfortunately I can't find it. I don't know where it's at. I've looked everywhere. I've had my mom look for it. I just don't have it. Or else I would've included that in The Enoch Wars, Book 9, appendices too, but I just can't find it, unfortunately. And I don't have it digitized. Back then in 1995 I put stuff on four inch floppy discs. Even if I had that, I wouldn't be able to access it. But everyone in the class who was giving feedback loved it. They thought it was really interesting. It was basically a murder mystery amongst all these mythical creatures in a fantasy world. And the teacher did nothing but dump on it. And he's this fat guy who sponged off his girlfriend, a total loser, in hindsight, teaching fugking community college writing. And he's like, "Oh, you need to read more Tolkien if you're going to write fantasy." I'm like, “Bitch, I have Tolkien memorized.” Even then I'm thinking this guy's a fraud. And it was a pivotal moment, actually, because I think about it often. That it's the stuff that the so-called critics savage the most that tends to have the most impact, so, not all cases, but in a lot of cases. My best stuff has always been savaged by critics. I notice that about those doing great World-Building too. Like George Lucas. Nobody liked or believed in Star Wars except a Fox executive who almost lost his job over going to bat for it and Spielberg. Everyone else, all the big directors — Coppola, DePalma, etc — they hated it when they saw a cut of it. So anyway, I think all this is a function of World-Building to find me. The ability to ignore critics, go with your gut. It doesn’t guarantee you anything. But I can guarantee you’ll regret it if you ignore it, listen to critics, abandon something you’re passionate about building. This is a big difference between how I approach business and how pretty much everyone else I know approaches it. And that is, I don't really look at it as business. I look at it as this little corner of the internet that I am the king and emperor of, and this little alternate reality on the internet, and it's going to transcend me. It's going to hopefully still be going long after I'm gone. And I think you can't really have a long term impact in your market if you just think business and transactions. If everything's a spreadsheet, you can't really add to the cookie jar, so to speak, like Sifu talks about where you add to the cookie jar of knowledge. Most people just take cookies out and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. That's every student of any discipline — just starts out taking cookies. Most teachers have taken cookies and basically just share those cookies with their students and show them the jar, and help them navigate through the jar. That's a teacher job. But then you have people who lead industries, whether they're doing it consciously or not, who are adding to the cookie jar and to further the knowledge of whatever that discipline is that market is, industry is, whatever it is. And I don't want to leave this world without leaving a lot of cookies. It sounds kind of woo, but it's not. It's just the difference between people who build worlds and people who don't. Whether it's business or not, it doesn't even have to be business. So that's the way I look at it Stefania, and anybody who learns this should know that this is it. You only have a finite amount of time. It could be because mortality is really on my mind. And I'm thinking I don't want to spend the next 20 years just watching TV every night like the older generation does. That's their whole existence. And I grew up being told the same thing you did, make sure you have a backup and you can't really monetize that so blah, blah. I don't know, I'm monetizing it pretty good right now. === So ends part 3. In the meantime, my newest book “BizWorld” is launching until tomorrow. Unlike most of my books this one is not expensive, and is quite affordable to most anyone in business. Plus, I am giving away a valuable bonus in my mobile app (a smart phone is required to access it — and no, I won’t make any exceptions) analyzing one of my favorite business World-Builders to those who: 1. Buy the book by tomorrow, Sunday August 6th at midnight EDT 2. Send me the Amazon receipt by that deadline (not just buy it, but send me the receipt by the deadline too — if you send after that, it will be ignored) You can read more about the bonus in the P.S. below. Otherwise, here is the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/bizworld]( Ben Settle P.S. Regarding the bonus training in my mobile app I will give if you buy AND send me your receipt by the 8/6 at midnight EDT deadline. I call it: “Death Touch Marketing Secrets” It’s about a particularly insane & brutal biz World-Builder from the 60’s & 70’s. Someone I’ve learned a lot from studying, as have certain other very high-level 7 & 8-figure marketers I am aware of “in the know” who have spent many hours talking about, discussing, and learning from this guy about how he approached his marketing which, believe it or not, literally got him killed. But that’s neither here nor there. If you buy (print or Kindle) & send me your receipt by the deadline it shows my take. Including: * The little-known psychology behind how old comicbook ads were able to crawl right into the psychology of their readers to create literal mail-order millionaires even though they mostly were completely BS offers. (Not suggesting you sell crap — but what works to sell crap works even better to sell gold…) * How to make your cold ads (Facebook, Google, banner, space, classifieds… whatever it is) stand out like a MAGA hat at an AOC eat-the-rich fundraiser dinner. * A tasteful way to shamelessly milk money from fear & pain in your marketing. * Best “sleeper” place in long form sales copy to create lots of prestige and trust in you, your business, and your offer. (Believe it or not, this alone can potentially make the sale for even very high priced offers.) * An admittedly sneaky (but totally ethical) way to sell “between the lines” in your ads, sales, letters, and emails. (You won’t always be able to do this, but when/if you can — it can potentially pull all kinds of new sales your business might not get otherwise.) * The blatantly politically incorrect “fat chicks” secret for finding out exactly what your market’s worst pains & insecurities are to sell them more of your offers. * Absolutely one of the most cunning ways ever invented for using your competition’s own offers to help sell more of YOUR offers. * How to structure a near-perfect sidebar for your long form sales pages, ads, and sales letters. (If you do it right, a sidebar can do much of the heavy lifting — or possibly even make the sale on its own — to move more of your offers.) * Examples of how to make ordinary and “plain vanilla” offers sound exotic and sexy in your marketing without lying, deception, or exaggeration. * Stan Lee’s secret for writing product & offer titles people can’t resist wanting to buy. (Grown ass men & women still look for his fictitious countries like Wakanda & Latveria on maps 60+ years later, if that tells you something…) * How to write your name in ads to give your brand an almost Biblical-like epic feeling & power to it. * Real life example of how World-Building can sell your business’ offers with or without any formal advertising or marketing whatsoever. * The “U-Word” that can help add thick layers of proof & credibility to nearly any kind of offer or claim. * Example of how a literal $10,000 guarantee can be done without putting your business on the hook for any risk. * A quickie power lesson on how to add Showmanship to your marketing. * The blue check secret that gets people believing your offers and claims even if they hate you. * Hands down the single best spot in your ads to place your proof & credibility for maximum impact, belief, and response. (I learned this while writing an ad for a client who would add more zaniness and drama to my copy even after I thought I’d taken things too far!) * A shrewd way businesses still trying to grow a brand can use to help create proof and credibility almost out of thin air. * A secret method discovered years ago by a cunning weight loss author you can use TODAY (right after you learn it) to help combine showmanship, credibility, and intrigue for your business. * How to foil businesses in your market who give away everything free on YouTube. (A lot of marketers worry about this — but when you know what you’re doing, these give-away artists in your niche might be all but sending your business free customers.) * A completely “unorthodox” copywriting technique (used by a notorious comicbook writer/artist to prevent Batman from being cancelled back in the 80’s) that can help make your sales copy compulsively readable and engaging. * A hair-raising example (you should definitely use with caution) of how to turn your best customers & followers into soldiers — sally forth’ing into the internet, and picking fights with your competitors. (A lot of business people cannot handle this sort of thing, and it can get crazy… but it can also potentially make your business a lot of new sales, too.) * A bizarre (but ingenious) way to use an ordinary Bible to help make your sales copy, emails, & other writings more dramatic and engaging. * An old school Hollywood screenwriting trick (used by everyone from Walt Disney to Peter Jackson — in fact, a great example is in the first Hobbit movie) that can help make even the “plain vanilla” ordinary and mundane exotic and irresistible. * How introverts can grow rock-solid relationships with people on their email lists without engaging in mindless small talk and chit-chat. * How swiping John Caples can potentially get you thrown in jail! (Copywriters fight me on this, but what I say about this makes it no less true. If you’re going to swipe John Caples, tread very carefully.) * And a ho’ bunch more. All right, one more time: To get this bonus (which is ONLY in my mobile app, and not available anywhere else) you must (1) buy BizWorld in print or Kindle format before the Sunday 8/6 at midnight EDT deadline AND (2) send me your receipt by that deadline. If you send me your receipt after that? You will be ignored. And I don’t give a shyt what your excuse is, the answer is NO after that. Here is the link to the buy the book: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/bizworld]( 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