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 get hired.
But you can’t serve if they don’t appreciate.
And they won’t appreciate without skin in the game.
An attitude that is required to embrace if you want to use what I teach in the paid Email Players newsletter.
Something you can get more info on here:
Ben Settle
