5 ways to keep Creepy Joe & his puppet masters from destroying your business

“Inflation in the United States has fallen by 60% and core inflation is at its lowest level in two years. We’re defying projections that it would take a sharp increase in unemployment to bring inflation down.” So Tweeted Creepy Joe’s AI bot last month. Anyway, I already lost the Creepy Joe shills with the subject line. The rest of this email is for my boys & ghouls who know something in the milk ain’t clean, and that there is very likely a whole lot more trouble afoot in the coming weeks, months, year, and beyond as Shifty the Accountant in the White House runs out of spin to tell his cronies in the media. And on that note, I have 5 bits of advice for those interested in such, for protecting your business, your ass(ets), and your peace of mind to the extent that it is possible - regardless if the economy continues to down, or up, sideways, or in circles. Good news is, you might even be doing most of them. Certainly I hope you’re at least doing the first four already. They are, after all, Direct Marketing 101. But if you’re not, then you are already way behind the 8-ball. All right then, here goes: 1. Grow (or start building it if you haven’t) your email list with high quality leads. Not exactly earth shaking is it? But that list is an asset, and you should treat it as such by backing it up every day, and storing it in 3 places Or at least on your hard drive and cloud, at bare minimum. 2. Mail that list every day. To not only make sales, but grow, strengthen, and nurture (I hate that word, it’s dorky and used out of context all the time, but it fits in this case) the relationship with your list at the same time. 3. Sell those buyers something else. Preferably something subscription-based. I hesitate to recommend the subscription part only because, in a lot of ways, we are (and this spans most niches and markets I can think of off top of my head) in a subscription “bubble” still — where everyone and their mother sells a subscription (even car companies now!), and people are ditching subscriptions rapidly in a lot of cases. However, you are not a normie who doesn't know what you're doing. Not if you’re an Email Players subscriber, at least. And so in this case I think my Email Players of the Horde should have a subscription offer. If you don’t have one, make that a priority, and start selling it, even if it's an affiliate offer. 4. Don’t skimp on your education. The great unwashed arses will all start “cutting” expenses when SHTF. They always have and they always will because that is how they are wired. And they probably should, for all I know. But any marketing education that makes you more money than it costs is not an expense… it’s an investment. Treat it accordingly. If you’re going to “cut” expenses, get rid of entertainment. That is one way to know if you’re a normie or not: During dark 'n down times, you spend money on things to self-medicate instead of educate — like entertainment, movies, cable, Netflix, toys, cosmetics, and the list goes on. During the last Great Depression this was a trope to such a degree that cunning businesses became hog nasty rich selling to people willing to spend their last 10 cents on the above, even at the expense of food and shelter. I’m not saying things’ll be the same kind of dire or not. It’s a different time and these are different circumstances. But the spending habits and approach to self-medication will be the same, imo. And finally: 5. Do what I write about at the very end of the upcoming January Email Players issue to ALL of your emails, your social media, your content, your offers, books, courses… even your services in such a way where YOU and your offers become their “self medication.” Some offers/niches are more suited for this than others. And I don’t go into any details about how to discern the difference. (It is common sense anyway) The point is, if the economy does take a dump, and if things get even half as bad as even the most optimistic doomsayers are saying… then there is huge opportunity in YOUR business becoming their self-medication vs wasteful, frivolous purchases — assuming you are selling something that can genuinely improve their lives. Anyway, more on that in the 150th Email Players issue next month. But if you do the above in 2024, 2025, and beyond (I believe the crash, when it happens, will happen swiftly and then last a very long time) and you can not only ride out the chaos… but maybe even emerge a leader of your niche/industry. Who knows? Only time will tell. And I obviously can’t make any guarantees. But that is my take on it to do with it what you will. To subscribe in time for the January issue go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. I am also including a rare gift with this milestone anniversary January issue: “Email Players Annual #2: Mad Men Copywriting Secrets” This oversized (literally — in both size and page count) Annual issue I am including with January’s issue exists outside the normal continuity of the newsletter. And I wrote it to both commemorate the newsletter’s 150th issue, and also to teach some cool stuff I’ve learned studying the old masters that have practically be all but forgotten about today. (NOTE: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the TV show “Mad Men”, which I found extremely boring and overrated — it’s about advertising methods used by the actual Mad Men of the 60’s.) Some of the secrets found inside include: * The sneaky headline trick old school copywriters used to pre-test ads without spending a single dime. * Cunning advice (straight from a private, internal memo at the Leo Burnett agency back in the day) about how to trick egotistical clients (for their own good, of course) into running your sales copy “as-is.” (Old school screenwriters basically did the same thing to get scripts approved, today it’s practically a forgotten trick of the writing trade.) * A powerful Mad Men secret to making your business mysteriously attractive that can be like “catnip” to high-paying clients and others you wish to sell to or influence. * The World-Building technique all the Mad Men agency owners (the ones whose names are still on their companies today long after their deaths) used to position themselves as “the” agency to hire — with certain clients practically magnetically attracted to them, and probably even only them, and likely wanting nothing to do with anyone else. * How to exploit a dangling piece of psychological “wiring” in every human being’s brain to help make your emails and other marketing extremely hard to ignore and a whole lot more engaging. * A sneaky way to adapt Ogilvy’s enormously successful “Man In The Hathaway Shirt” ad from the 1950s into a high converting opt-in pages for your business today. * How the late Mad Man Leo Burnett would address a room of stuck up and snobby vice presidents of giant corporations to keep their egos in check and “prep” them for what he expected of them as clients. * How an old school phone salesman and high school dropout was able to ethically & legally out-negotiate & out-maneuver a room full of high-falutin’, and super educated and wealthy lawyers hired by a bank to get what he wanted. (Nothing directly to do with Mad Men — but what this phone salesman did is something that was quite common for people in the know to do back in the day to get what they wanted in contracts and deals.) * A clever way that certain bashful Mad Men copywriters used their shyness to help create far more powerful advertising. * A (admittedly bizarre sounding to most marketers today) advertising sales trick that David Ogilvy learned from a furniture salesman for turning a product’s flaws into reasons to buy. (Including tips for exactly how to turn high fees, bad reviews, and even slow service into reasons to buy.) * How David Ogilvy used good, old fashioned trolling (he was a world-class troll) to help get compliance and engagement from everyone from heads of corporations during high-pressure negotiations to his own wife in the kitchen. * A ridiculously effective door-to-door salesman technique (that, believe it or not, works even better on Facebook today, I have found) that can help you create headlines, offers, emails, and other marketing that can just seep right into the psychology and souls of your leads and customers, giving them almost no choice but to want to buy what you’re selling! (Does that sound almost like hype? Maybe so. But realize this: it was not uncommon for this technique to works so well it’d sometimes set record for product recalls for weak products.) * Just how brutal and soul-crushing old school Man Men were in their advertising campaign critiques. (One of the most respected copywriters of the day and creator of the famous Pillsbury Doughboy — Rudy Perz — said they’d make him feel like a “martyr”, and the creative director and original Marlboro Man model — Andy Armstrong — once literally suffered a nervous breakdown over one of these brutal critiques, if that tells you something.) * The little-known way the Leo Burnett Agency created such memorable and influential cartoon characters that helped sell truckloads of the products they promoted * The 7-word advertising principle that helped build one of the biggest and most respected ad agencies in human history. (And that is still around today almost 100 years later, while most have long-since floundered.) * Why fire-breathing atheist David Ogilvy was such a big fan of the Catholic Church. (Nothing really to do with copywriting or marketing, but his reasoning could be useful to anyone who runs teams or has lots of employees.) * The Mad Men attitude (almost non-existent today) that can help freelancers, coaches, consultants, and other businesses go from begging to business to having so many new leads practically begging to hire you you might even need a waiting list. (Best part: you don’t even have to be that great at what you do or, for that matter, “do” anything different — this is just a make a simple mindset shift in the way you approach your business.) * David Ogilvy’s bizarre email list-building secret (created back in the 1950’s — long before the invention of commercial email) that can also make your business stand out in an overcrowded marketplace and increase your sales. * A shrewd insurance selling method (that smart radio and magazine advertisers forced their customers to do since it worked so well) that can help drive your email response through the roof. * How an “honorary” Mad Man copywriter (who was a NYC public employee and not an ad man at all) used ANTI-direct response slogans to help create some of the most profitable and memorable advertising every penned by the hand of mortal man. (And yes, what he did can be used to write all kinds of profitable headlines, subject lines, bullets, and any other kind of direct response sales copy.) * A one-on-one interview with a “for real” Mad Man! In fact, the TV show producers even consulted this guy due to him being in the thick of the agency business back then, and who was involved with campaigns like The Marlboro Man, Fly the Friendly Skies, & industry-famous campaigns for Gallo Winery, Proctor & Gamble, Colgate, Vicks, Chanel, Max Factor, Philip Morris, and the list goes on. This interview is a rare look into the psychology behind how these guys worked. How they thought. And, yes, how they made lots of money for their clients and themselves. To subscribe before the deadline go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 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