Paul Hartunian was in there, and he had a detailed debate with an internet marketing guy
Paul argued that mail would never go away
Ben wanted to have a physical newsletter, and now he does
Send Free was a free autoresponder back in the day
They put you on a list called the “Send Free Roundtable.”
It was great for newbies
Ben dabbled in MLM
Gary Halbert wrote a letter called “Why network marketing sucks”
Ben sent a cold offer to the roundtable list to write for free but get 5% of their sales…he didn’t get paid, but he learned and had work product to show to land new customers
Now you have access to traffic and leads via social media and you can drive traffic
Be your own customer first
Find a market and find an offer to sell yourself first, then you won’t be needy so you’ll land bigger deals, easier
To get started, start asking for referrals
Dan Kennedy calls them “upstream leads” when word-of-mouth finds you
“I’m reassuringly expensive.”
“Close first, then present.”
Money makes life easier
He started with a cheaper, more generic newsletter at first
He launched with three issues and people bought
In 2011, $97/mo was “expensive” for a newsletter
Each issue is 15-20 pages at least or more
Once he has enough issues on a similar topic, he’ll compile them into a book
Writes three months in advance…all evergreen
As you look at the same content when you’re older, you see it in a new light
He has no real competition…no nemesis…he’s solid
He says now is the worst time to sell anything in print due to inflation
He won’t mail to some countries due to fees
FedEx is a pain
It’s a crapshoot to mail internationally with the USPS
Berserker Mail
Social Lair
Backstory (on screenwriters)
Reads a lot of biographies
Likes Arnold’s new book
Not a big self-help guy
Stallone’s book was good, too
“Conquistador” about Cortez on how he bluffed
The FDR biography was good…saw how he dealt with trolls