Why being a nice guy will get you slaughtered in marketing

Maybe it’s time to switch up my email game? === Ben, I found you lately and been loving the paradigm shift around daily e-mails. Here’s my skepticism about using it in my business: You’re selling the strategy of selling daily emails by sending daily emails. It’s like the marketers selling marketing tactics. Yes we gobble them up, but it’s ok for you to sound really salesy because we know you’re selling. In my business, I don’t want to sound overly salesy in my emails because I think it will turn off a lot of my audience. I have 50,000 YT subscribers and a 5000 person list. Trying to think through how to do this. I guess what I’m saying, is you can get away with more because you’re treating your business like a direct response marketer. I don’t want to build a business where I just burn through leads and don’t care about my reputation. I want to be for the people. Does that make sense? Anyways I love you dude, listening to podcasts of yours on YT all the time and already have been sharing your stuff with friends of mine. === I don't doubt the sincerity of the question. It's the same question/assumption online marketers have had since 1993. But in his case, I’m pretty sure his 50k subscribers who do not enjoy being forced to sit through multiple 15-second unskippable ads that blatantly sell them crap they don’t want or need and adds literally nothing to their lives appreciate him being “for the people” and not selling them. The question is not unreasonable, though. And I understand why people ask it, don't get me wrong. But these guys always think “they’re” business is different. That they need to be seen as nice guys who don’t just want to sell. That they are somehow “above” it all. And it’s all pure, unadulterated self-projection and, I would add, self-delusion. It reminds me of a question the late, great “World’s Most Feared Negotiator” Jim Camp got from someone on a call once, asking how, as a consultant when he’s prospecting, he can do it in a way where he doesn’t come off as a greedy vulture who just wants to get inside the client’s wallet and squeeze out profits? Mr. Camp’s retort? “I think, unfortunately, the real problem there is the person that sees himself as just the consultant squeezing out profits. That’s not a problem that the vendors have; that’s a problem the consultant has.” And so it is with the boys & ghouls worrying about these things. They're problem isn’t daily email, or selling, or whatever. It’s getting out of their own heads, and thinking in such a way where selling is not only the right thing to be doing but the only thing you can do to truly help someone with whatever problem your offer sells. In order to do that you have to use the R-Word: Relationships. You don’t build relationships by giving stuff away free. All you do is build entitlement, get zero consumption of whatever it is you are generously giving away to play Mr. Nice Guy, and, eventually, earning lots of resentment when you DO finally sell something. Real life story about that: I learned this lesson the hard way in 2006. My list was small, and I bought into what Gary Halbert taught that you don’t sell anything online very often unless you really have something to sell, yada yada yada. He also said phone ordering ONLY does better than a link with an online sales page. Go ahead and do that if you want. Let me know what happens... Anyway, so I did that and used to get lots of praise, lots of people thanking me, and lots of people saying how I had the best list, the best info, the best this, that, or the other, thinking I was on to something. But then… I sold my first affiliate offer. It was for a course for freelance copywriters. Extremely valuable, too. And I was excited to mail about it. So I did the PLF emails my buddy who was selling the course gave me where you give stuff away free, don’t sell, then, eventually send an actual pitch. When I got to the pitch? Bam! F-bombs. Insults. Cursing. Accusations of being a "list pimp", and all that. I learned real quick that if you do nothing but give stuff away free, become known as the guy who gives all the stuff away free, never sell anything except once in a while, and do the “moving the freeline” dance you get (1) LESS customers (2) a smaller business and (3) you attract nothing but the worst of humanity who will absolutely turn on you when you do any actual selling. It’s probably not as bad these days. (I like to think I have helped at least play a small part in breaking the selling “taboo” over the years) But that entitlement attitude those who are used to free stuff foster and hamster spin in their heads is always there, and always will be there, because that is just how humans are. And even if you do just give free stuff away, you’re not really doing them any good anyway since they’re never going to value what you give them. And certainly not as much as if they pay for it. And, especially, if they pay a lot for it. The best relationships I have, with my best customers (and I am NOT unique with this, this is something anyone who does any significant numbers over 10+ years straight knows is true) is with those who have bought, consumed, and used what I sell. This goes beyond “my” niche. I saw it first hand when I co-owned a weight loss biz too. And when I worked in the golf niche. And the self-defense niche, prostate problem niche, dating niche, and the list goes on. B2B or B2C — I don’t care who you’re selling to or what you sell: If you want to build a strong relationship, genuinely improve lives, and solve real problems then you can’t pussy-foot around trying to sell without selling and dishonestly acting like you don’t really want to make any money in your business by pretending to be the nice guy. A servant is always worthy of his hire. And the more you serve, the more you make. But you can’t serve if they don’t appreciate. And they won’t appreciate without skin in the game. I spend a lot of time in upcoming 150th milestone Email Players issue next month talking about relationships with customers and clients, and how to approach it, think about it, and go about it vs thinking you can just prompt someone into a relationship with AI unless, I suppose, you’re selling sex dolls to deranged deviants. I talk a lot about my #1 email copywriting “technique” I use, too. (That “bleeds” into my other writing — including the screenplay I’m working on, books I’ve written, content created, talks given, sales copy assembled, and the list goes on — it’s the #1 purely writing technique I can ever teach someone.) I’ve saved this one for just such a special time as the 150th anniversary issue. And I believe it will absolutely blow people who read, use, and apply it away not just in sales, but in the engagement they get from the emails (and other content) they write, but also probably even the enjoyment they get from writing. And, I also talk about a whole lot of other topics too. Way too many to list here. Plus, I am including copy of an extremely valuable bonus: “Email Players Annual #2: Mad Men Copywriting Secrets” You can read more about that in the P.S. below if you want. Otherwise, to subscribe before tomorrow’s deadline go here immediately: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. As for what’s inside the 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. Deadline to get in on time is tomorrow, Pokey. Here’s the link: [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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