Once upon a time, “Email Players” subscriber Brian Kurtz invited me to speak to his prestigious Titans mastermind.
The topic:
The Lost Art of Business & Marketing World-Building.
It was quite well-received from what I remember.
Especially going by the questions I got during the Q&A.
But what exactly does this mean, really, when I talk about “World-Building?” Well, when I talk about World-Building in business I talk about creating a World your best customers, clients, leads and even your haters & trolls enter and don’t want to leave.
It’s like the children in the Narnia books.
Once they go to Narnia they do not want to go back to the real world.
They also don’t really talk much about missing their families or friends.
If anything, when they leave Narnia all they can talk about and think about is getting back. When not allowed back, one of them (Susan) even grew bitter and attacked Narnia and mocked her siblings for caring about the place.
i.e., her bitterness at not being allowed back turned her into a troll.
And interesting lesson in and of itself…
So it is in business.
The idea is to create a World for your business your customers always want to be in 24/7. Ideally – and this won’t happen with everyone obviously – they are constantly thinking about, constantly exploring, and constantly interacting with your World. When you do that, things like price, needing the best sales pitch or marketing, and the threat of any so-called “competition” all but evaporate.
I rarely ask people to buy anything.
First I give the opportunity to enter my World.
Then — and only then — do I give them the opportunity to buy.
Some do, many don’t, and that’s exactly how it should be.
But once inside, I try to make it as hard as possible to leave.
Or, really, be anywhere else.
This happens more for some than it does for others.
But that’s the gist of it.
And in the spirit of the upcoming 12-year anniversary double-sized August Email Players issue:
World-Building is the thing I do that none of my competitors do. It’s not just a matter of slapping the world “Planet” onto you name or adding “-verse” (Beniverse, whatever) next to your name or whatever. You can’t just say it. You have to live it, do it, and become it. It’s much bigger than your Google analytics account. And it can’t be swiped or tracked with a spreadsheet, or prompted by fapGPT.
More:
It’s also literally the reason Willis exists.
When I got especially good at applying World-Building to my romantic life (that I was already successfully using in my business life) I often had multiple prospects competing for my attention.
Not in a Fonzy or even in an Austin Powers kinda way.
(Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not exactly the life of the party…)
But a small, carefully curated way.
Incidentally, Stefania won that game handily over her competition because she legitimately liked my World, wanted to be in it, didn’t want to leave — there was no having to play the game or deal with a woman wanting to complicate things while I have a business world to make my mark in.
I invited her in, she walked across my threshold, didn’t want to leave.
And, not only that, wanted to assist me in my endeavors.
Zero drama or nonsense, as the mere idea of being kicked out of my World foiled her worst instincts.
And again:
Willis quite literally would not exist right now if I hadn’t done this.
If you doubt me, or think I am just engaging in puffery here, go ahead and ask her. She saw my World, wanted in, and sold me what I was buying to secure her place in it: meaning she was always pleasant, respectful, grateful, and had a dedication to helping me achieve my goals & Mission no other woman had ever even come close to displaying.
A few did at first, in some cases.
But over time their true colors emerged and their solipsism came out.
Yet Stefania was in my World, realized she liked it there, and has never left. She quite likes how I am always pursuing a new ambition, always climbing to the next goal post, and have built a lifestyle where I never want to leave or travel anywhere. Apparently, I’ve been getting quite the reputation for turning down speaking gigs, etc. That was not deliberate, I just have not had an offer that has been enticing enough for me to want to go anywhere, leave my warm hearth in my seaside hobbit hole, my son, with work flow disrupted, etc.
Isn’t that what we are all going for here?
Or is it just me?
Anyway, that may or may not be what you are about and that is fine.
It’s your World, Spanky.
You build it, populate it with what you prefer, and reign inside it as you see fit.
And so it is for business.
For example:
If you sit there and try to supplicate to clients and customers and hang out in their Worlds, and beg them to buy from you… instead of them coming to your World and asking you if they can purchase from or hire you… you’re playing the game on hard mode.
All right enough of this.
I’ve got a book about this on Amazon that is easily found.
But the doorway into my world of email marketing, copywriting, selling is my Email Players newsletter.
More on that here:
Ben Settle
