Brian Kurtz 12:29
Ben, to answer this, you know, I think interesting is one thing, but knowing your market, you need to be interested at the same time. And I think you have a style. And I can’t put my finger on it. But maybe you can. Maybe not because you’re just doing it, but you’re interested in how they’re going to react. And not only how they’re going to react, but you’re interested in, like, if they’re not going to be interested, I made the joke that you’d rather be off your list than reading it, too. So how do you balance that? Because you’re always interesting. I always agree. You’re always going to say write something interesting. But how do you work on being interested in them? Without saying, I love you. I love you. I love you.
Ben Settle 13:17
Yeah, you probably never hear me say I love you to my customers and clients.
Brian Kurtz 13:20
No, you don’t. I do. I’m a softy. Right.
Ben Settle 13:26
But you know, loving is never having to say it right.
Brian Kurtz 13:30
Ben, I want to say it. I love you, Ben.
Ben Settle 13:33
Well, you know what, I’m fond of you, Brian. I really am. I’m very fond of you. So, this actually goes to the third thing. I’ll skip the second thing for now. Well I’ll just say the second thing real fast. You know, sell offers they want, right? I mean, it’s the most basic thing in the world. If you’re selling people what they want, they’re going to be more likely to engage, come back, and probably buy your next product before you even read it. Right? There’s all these things that work for you.
Brian Kurtz 14:00
That’s being interested, that’s being interested in their welfare, right?
Ben Settle 14:04
In a way, but here’s, here’s the weird thing. And this goes to your other question, right? How do you really know because buyers are liars, right? People don’t really, they do, but there’s a reason salesmen exist. Right? If ever, I mean, remember, Saturn, the car they tried, they thought you could just come in and give us a price and you never sold anything. And look what happened to them, you know, they’re gone. People need it. We all need someone to sell us. To show us the way, to lead and guide us direct us. And all that. It’s funny. I’m reading this book by Joe Girard. I mean, this is his full thing. I think if you can supply Joe Girard email you’ll never have another problem the rest of your life. But I mean, this is it.
So the third thing I wanted to talk about was this idea of mailing every day, because people are very resistant to this. I don’t know what it is. I don’t if they’re scared, if they’re just lazy, or whatever the reasons I understand there’s a lot of reasons okay. But there’s no market research I’ve ever seen in this span so many different markets, not just business markets, but consumer markets like weight loss, and golf and male health like prostate problems and all that. Just every market I’ve ever seen, self defense, all these markets, it’s always the same thing. The only real way to know your list is to be in contact with them on a regular basis. And they will tell you now, not in so many words, I’ve never had it like in so many words. Now I have a very large library of books I sell. Very expensive books and some go over a thousand dollars. Now, okay, some are like in the two to three hundred. But no one has ever asked for any of these books, not a single time.
For example, the latest book I just sold is about the design side of business and marketing. Now nobody who knows me is ever going to accuse me of being Mr. Design. If you look at my sites, they’re not. And that and yet, there is a lot of stuff I do about design that’s kind of under the surface. And so nobody asked me, Ben you need to do a book about design. And yet that was one of the best launches I’ve had. Considering the esoteric nature of it. It did about twice as good as I thought nobody asked for it. Nobody, I don’t even think I even tried to get people that excited by it. Because I just thought maybe 10, 12, 15 people would buy it. And fine. But I got like almost 100 sales off that.
Now why did that happen? Well, I can tell you it’s because they do tell me stuff. Over 20 years, my list has been telling me things without telling me. In the questions they asked in the complaints they might have what people say behind your back, or they think is behind your back. Right? There’s information they give you. It’s a give or take really a give and take relationship with your list that you can only get by mailing them every day in my experience. And they’ll tell you and I can. I’m telling you nobody asked for email players. In fact, everybody. You mentioned Doberman Dan and he’s had to apologize to me. He was like Ben, I was the first one to tell you what a dumb idea that was. Because the joke was on me. Well, it’s not that I had some marketing wizardry going on. My market was asking for something. And I gave it to them in a way that both I would enjoy doing and that I knew they would enjoy consuming.
Most of my list is Gen X and Boomers. Right? I don’t really have a lot of millennial customers. And I probably have no Zoomer customers, thank God, I can’t deal with Zoomers, and that’s good. They can’t deal with me either. So it’s a win win. My customers do like to read physical stuff, they do. My best buyers and always like to read physical stuff as opposed to digital stuff. But I needed to mail them every day for a long time to figure it out. So mailing every day, writing interesting content that they’d look forward to getting from you. Like Brian, I look forward to your email every week, every Sunday comes in at 3am my time like clockwork. And I’m always like, I wish this guy would mailed in. I wish Brian Kurtz mail daily and one day I’m going to try to sell you on this. I swear I’m going to get you and Chris together and I’m going to do sobriety with it or something. But whatever everyone does has their own appetite for this, but I’m just saying if you do it.
Brian Kurtz 18:20
Yeah, I got you. I’m always on a hot seat when Ben is here. So yeah, thank you Ben.
Ben Settle 18:26
I will bribe you if I have to. But the reality is, I really do think everyone should be mailing daily. I think you should be mailing content they want to read, more people are focused on this gamesmanship stuff, and I don’t agree with it at all. I mean, I think it’s just silly. But I think that if you understand your list, you mail them daily, and you know what they want to buy? And maybe you won’t know for the first few attempts, you know, if you have a new list, maybe you won’t know it’s gonna take time, this is a good reason to mail them daily. Find out. There’s nothing wrong with asking them questions. You know, I don’t personally do what I’m about to say, but I’m really considering doing it. And that is, when somebody opts in I’ve often thought of having Hey, if you if there’s something you want me to write about, tell me right now, again, buyers are liars. I don’t believe a word anybody says to me when they because I’ve been burned many times, you know, I’ve created in the old days, I have created offers based on what people said and nobody buys. Right? Because it’s not really what they’re buying. It’s kind of like a golf bridge. That was an interesting time. Everybody will tell you in every single survey everything, I mean, just 90% I need to be more consistent. Nobody’s buying golf courses. I’m being consistent. They want to know how to hit the damn ball. 500 yards, right? They want to impress their friends and they want to do crazy stuff during the short game. And that’s fine, right? But I don’t trust surveys at all. In fact, I’ve seen many, many, many businesses get burned by surveys, including the Gap. They got really burned by surveys a while back. And I’m not saying they’re useless. So if he listens to this, no offense to my buddy. But I think he does it a little more intelligently than most people do anyway.
Brian Kurtz 20:06
We did it in a boardroom and it was more dedicated to multi buyers of books, and what other books they might want to buy, very selective, just to get a sense, and we were able to weed out the dogs more than we were able to predict every book that would sell. But weeding out dogs is also a good thing to do.
Ben Settle 20:30
It is and if you’re going to ask them what to do in this, this is a great way. I just don’t like answering, like, I got so much going on. I don’t want to answer questions. I’m terrible at this customer service thing in some ways, not the important stuff.
Brian Kurtz 20:45
No, you send out an email every month, saying to people that they’re being charged for e-flyers. I don’t know a lot of people who do that.
Ben Settle 20:56
I mean, you know, that’s just what works for me.
Brian Kurtz 21:02
Yeah. And they stick longer. They’re not just letting you charge and letting you go. They’re focused on the subscription. And again, your philosophy, you’re so consistent. And that’s what I love about you.
Consistent and congruent. Because you basically say, if you don’t want this, I don’t want to send it to you. Right? And if you’re paying, right, so I’m gonna let you know, every month that this is being charged to your credit card, and you tell me if you want out, but most people would say, oh, until they noticed, you know, and then they’ll leave us. You don’t want to deal with that shit. And I respect you for that.
Ben Settle 21:44
Well, I mean, why would I want someone who doesn’t really want the product? Right? They’re just wasting their money. They’re wasting my time.
Brian Kurtz 21:51
Well, most people, people in your shoes, though, they’ll say, well, I’m going to collect their money until I can. And you don’t want to play that game. And I again, you’re not the norm. And that’s why that’s why everybody wants to come on a call and listen to you. Because you’re not preaching to people who are converted to that.
Ben Settle 22:12
It takes a while for people to work up to that. And when they do, they’re always like, yeah, I should have been doing this the whole time. And this is just for subscription offers. Because right now, and this is what I’ve been hearing at least and I’m pretty sure this is across the board. Subscription offers are just dying right now for a lot of people because they never learned the fundamentals. Right? They just promoted during, this has nothing to do with email necessarily. But all they are is good on Facebook, or they’re good on Twitter. And they’ve, they’ve got a $5 substack. And like, wow, I mean, yeah, but that’s when everyone had credit, money to throw around. Now everybody’s getting very discerning, and they shouldn’t be backward. And they’re just dropping like flies, and I’m not. And people I know aren’t. And I think that’s the difference. It’s like you have to be willing to curate. You have to be able to say, here’s where I can help, here’s why I can’t. If I can’t help you, here’s where you should go.
Maybe it goes back to trying to get to know people, but I don’t know, I’ll tell you this. When it comes to the survey thing. I wanted to throw this in there. The best question I’ve ever asked. And again, I’ll probably do this in my own emails, the welcome email, or something because I think I think this will be interesting. What were the what was the last product about XYZ you bought? Or the last two products? Now you know what, they’re buying us? Right? And you can go look at the ads, and okay, here’s what they did. But really, the best information I ever got was just talking to them, but it’s like a one way conversation. This is me talking to them.
But the way people react, they will give you information, you will know what they’re going to do and build a feeling interpreted before they even know. And that’s really cool. It’s cool in some ways, but it sucks in another because you spend a lot of time on the ad and no one reads it. It’s kind of a bummer. But wait a minute, how did you just like not read the ad? Because you want them to read that? Right? Because maybe it’s not for them? How many times do you get a customer who shouldn’t have bought? And they bought anyway because they got for whatever reason you did the email, right? I mean, it’s a good problem to have. But ultimately, I kind of don’t want that, because I can’t help them. They’re not ready. And I have a policy. I don’t let people back. So you know, I’m thinking of a long term long game for them. Yeah. And so I don’t know, there’s probably a lot of psychology to that.
Brian Kurtz 24:26
There is and I’ll add to that, that, you know, it’s sort of like you know, I always say that, you know, when you’re selling the first year subscription or membership, you’re actually selling the second and third and fourth year at the same time. And everybody knows on this call and you’re the same way that you know, it’s it to me, it’s all about the renewals. It’s all about the people who are going to stick with you through thick and thin through growth in the in the I mean, your your email player. I mean, I’ve been getting your newsletter now for a few years, and it just builds. And you’re, you’re, they’re growing with you, because you’re learning new stuff all the time. And so I think that, you know, selling hype and selling initially, it’s like how they, how you sell is how they’re going to respond. And while you sell aggressively in your emails, just looking at your stuff, for instance, you sell aggressively into e-flyers, but you do it in a way that leads them in with examples with stuff that’s going to be in, you don’t give away a free issue, like we did it bottom line personal, but you do give enough information that if they’re going to subscribe, they know what they’re going to get. And they’re going to get even more because you’re going to over deliver over time. So I think you’re having your eye on the prize, which is that long term subscribers that you don’t have to keep reselling are always critical when you’re selling the first year. And Robert Scrope talks about this in his work, and he’s awesome. Yeah. And Ryan Lee talked about this in his work on continuity. I mean, there’s a small group of people that get this, and those are the people we have to follow, including you.
Ben Settle 26:15
I think it was the long game, right? It’s just American corporations are notorious for being very short term. That’s why they made such dumb decisions, like you watch brands dying. Like, how do you kill Star Wars? Oh, that’s possible. What had happened, right? It’s happening to Marvel, It’s happening to DC, it’s happening to certain beer companies right now. Because they’re thinking very short term, the long game. That’s what they do, like Japan, and China, they they’re thinking long, five years or 10 years, not five months, five days. And I think that’s the way we have to be. I think we have to like, I want people forever, as long as I’m doing. In fact, if I ever hang up my computer and say, I’m not doing this anymore, I hope this is my hope, that there’s just people that get mad at me And like, that’s the that’s what I want. And you know, who knows if that will happen.
But I’m finding that it’s funny because I try to keep each issue to like 20 pages. Really, it’s 17 plus like three pages of ads that I hope are entertaining people. But lately this year, it’s like I can, I don’t know there’s something in the air. There’s stuff going on with the economy. There’s something where I have to do more than that. So I’m writing double sized issues. And you know, I’m probably losing money, some months, I don’t really care, because I’m thinking how can I serve these guys? How can I serve Kim? That’s what I think. How can I serve Kim and Brian. That’s all I want to help. But if you think of it as a servant, right, and I’ll tell you what, this is gonna sound very pollyannaish I hope that um, that’s what I’m going for, because I think it works. And I wrote about this in January, Mr. Rogers is the model for this. He’s, he’s the framework. Anyone, everybody grew up with Mr. Rogers. But I’ve been having to watch Mr. Rogers daily, since I had a son. Very familiar with Mr. Rogers. And I can tell you, that guy was a certified genius. I’m just like, wow, I’m taking notes watching the show, because he was so good. Last time you had me I was talking about world building. I mean, this guy is like the master, he could have been bigger than Disney, if you didn’t want to be a nonprofit, right? And his whole philosophy. And I think this goes to email, everybody should have a philosophy right? Now, his philosophy is being a good neighbor, like he eats, breathes, lives that philosophy. He was such a good neighbor that he was dying of cancer, he would not, he would still go speak, even though it was hurting his health. And it probably shorten his lifespan by like, five years. He didn’t want to not do what he thought he had to do. And I think about that a lot. I think, what is someone’s philosophy? Now everybody has a different philosophy. But philosophy is a big deal. Now that will show in your emails. You have a philosophy that people like, and that they gravitate toward. My personal philosophy is giving options for thinking differently about things. That’s it. I don’t even care if people agree with me, quite frankly, I know you’re joking. I don’t get rid of people who disagree with me at all.
Brian Kurtz 29:12
No, you actually encourage it. And you know, it’s the people that, you know, that aren’t listening to your common sense. But when you’re giving an opinion, that’s not common sense, it’s an opinion and you want to have a contrarian opinion.
Ben Settle 29:27
Well, I mean, it’s the whole scientific method that somehow went out the door, you’re trying to break things, I want people to try to break my ideas. That’s how that’s how you get better. I’ve had to break my own ideas so many times and change things and all that. And it’s an ongoing process that will happen forever. But if you do that, if you have a philosophy, whatever that philosophy is, everyone’s going to be different with this. I’m telling you, your email list is going to gravitate toward that they’re going to find that interesting, and you don’t have to tell people what it is. It’s an intention, right I just an intention that, like you have very, very specific classes, your philosophies are so obvious or just this really hardcore fundamental direct mail applied to everything, that’s what I get out of. Right. And it’s all sound. And the young people probably roll their eyes, I’m guessing.
Brian Kurtz 30:18
You know, you know, a lot of them do. And hopefully they, you know, they make reading as medicine. I remember when I went to the underground, it was like the last underground that Yannick silver held, it was like the 9th or the 10th or something. And it was the first time I got on the stage with like a lot of online marketers, people who had no idea that there was anything in marketing before the internet, that there was anything in marketing before email. And as soon as I said the word direct mail, my presentation was not about direct mail, it was about direct response marketing principles. And I said, you know, how paying postage made me a better marketer, and I could see, there might have been 1000 people in the room 600, whatever. Half the room was, like, they didn’t walk out. I felt like, they just like, what is this guy talking about? But the other half are people that you know, and I’m not saying I was swarmed when I came off the stage, but I did get a lot of feedback that they hadn’t heard before. And so the fact is that when you do talk from that perspective, it actually gets rid of people. I think they should have listened, but I can’t convince them to listen. But I’m fine with that, too. I actually, I learned that from you, in a way, you know that. And I learned it from Marie Forleo. Marie Forleo says, you talked about curating your list, through your content, do it. Do it because you can’t be all things to all people. And if you try to be all things to all people, you’ll have a wishy washy list. They’ll never buy anything from you. They’ll never they won’t stick around for multiple years. It’s not a long game just by being wishy washy.
Outro 32:17
Thanks for listening to the Timeless Marketing podcast with Brian Kurtz. Visit BrianKurtz.net and click Podcast at the top of the page for a full transcript and show notes. If you’re interested in working with Brian personally inside of Titans Xcelerator, go to BrianKurtz.net/help to see how Titans can help you grow and scale your business. That’s B-R-I-A-N-K-U-R-T-Z.net/help.