The speech “disability” that makes my emails more profitable

I once heard a popular Tedx speaker teach: (About giving speeches) “When you’re talking it should feel like time is standing still for your audience” In other words: They are so caught up in what you’re saying, they don’t notice time going by. Hollywood directors and movie theater designers do the same thing, spending hundreds of millions of dollars creating movies where you forget you’re even in the cinema. You’re just too caught up in the story, the spectacle, and the experience. And, like with speaking, time just stops, where you don’t notice it one way or the other if they do their jobs right. Many smart copywriters also teach this. The whole “greased shoot” idea. i.e., where the reader starts from the headline, and just slides through the copy without looking up or pausing… totally lost in the story and experience, not noticing they are reading much less reading a “sales pitch”… until they get to that order link or form, and then buy without thinking. None of this is “bad”, by the way. But at the risk of sounding totally insufferable (and I am)… then there’s guys like me. And then there's the Alfred Hitchcock school of communication. Which is the total opposite. Here’s what I mean: Unlike practically every other filmmaker in history before and during his time, Hitchcock did not try to create an effect for audiences where they did not realize they were watching a movie. Hitchcock did the exact, polar opposite — where he wanted you to know you were watching a movie (even making the camera a “character” unto itself). And he made dayem sure you always knew you were not only watching a movie… but that you were watching a “Hitchcock” movie. It was almost edifying for me when I first read that a few months ago. Especially since I had spent the last 20+ years putting the same effect in my emails. i.e., I don’t want you to forget you are reading an email. And I especially want you to know you’re not only reading an email… but a "Ben Settle" email, and don't really care if there is a “greased shoot” effect in my emails one way or the other. This is different than writing like you talk like all the great email copywriters do. I stopped trying to write like I talk a long time ago, even though I think it’s extremely good advice, and even though I still tell people who ask “how do I begin writing emails?” to do just that. But as a result of doing what I am advocating here instead, my emails have a very specific cadence and rhythm I have never seen a single person successfully ape or swipe (especially those asking chat gpt to write "like" me) — including those who copy them out by hand, which I discourage for reasons that will hopefully be obvious by the time you’re done reading this. And if someone tries aping me? I have seen people call them out, because it’s so obvious. Now let me be clear for the reply guys and trolls. This ain’t me bragging. If anything, it’s a hinderance in all my non-email writing, and slows things down. (It’s taken me almost six months so far to edit my 9th Enoch Wars novel because it’s so tedious fixing all my weird writing cadences and rhythms for the fiction reader, if that tells you something.) Here’s what I mean by a hinderance: Whether due to an undiagnosed speech disability (in 3rd grade my mom sent me to a specialist since I couldn’t — and still often can’t, as anyone who listens to my audio or video content knows — pronounce a lot of words correctly, and my handwriting still makes a doctor’s prescription handwriting look like perfect calligraphy) or something else, I am always getting words mixed up when I talk, and mispronouncing or butchering them. For whatever reason, I just cannot seem to get certain words right. For example: Instead of saying “dial 9-1-1!” my mind goes to “Dial nine eleven!” Or when talking about Zoe to a vet tech a few months before she died, instead of saying “UTI” (she had a nasty urinary tract infection back in September), I said “IUD.” Yeesh. It’s just how my brain works. And it can be so bad, my first drafts of all my fictional books are incomprehensible to anyone but me. In fact, once upon a time I remember when the guy who publishes all my fiction writing on Amazon Greg Perry would ask: “Can I just read chapter one?” after I said I finished the first draft. And I had to say: “it would look like gibberish because the ideas are half baked, written down as fast as possible — like a gesture sketch where only if you know what I was intending to draw would you even begin to know what it is.” Not to mention the jerky way I write my paragraphs — Where, for example, a sentence that should be in the prior paragraph (logically) is instead on its own line, and where a line that should go in the next paragraph is its own paragraph before it. Or, (and I just did it) I put a comma after the first word of a sentence that starts with the words “and”, “but”, "where", or “or” (like I just did at the beginning of this sentence) even though it potentially slows the greased shoot down and is unnecessary, almost like the word "that" can slow things down and be unnecessary. And so it is. I used to fight this and edit it out when I caught it many years ago. And I still do in my fiction and content writing. But since then I learned how to use it to my advantage for emails. So, it’s not writing like I talk, which would be even worse, going by how I butcher the language. It’s something else. This works to my advantage in emails for some reason. And often I can run them “as-is.” But, I think that’s just from writing something like 7000+ emails (literally) over the years, and it just flows out. But they aren’t 100% written how I talk. They are written in a bit of a different way, and come from a totally different place, that I explain starting on page 9 in the February Email Players issue. However, it’s not a way I think anyone can replicate. Not exactly, anyways. Which is why I never once have taught it. But, upon thinking about it, I realize it can be modeled. Meaning, you can probably “adapt” what I am talking about to how your brain works. And, if you do, I suspect (can’t say for sure, this is the first time I am even talking about it) if you did, you could create a “voice” in your emails that could look like something a bit different than what it does now — which, ironically, might (or it might not...) make for more sales, even if you sound strange in peoples’ heads when they read you. This is not the easiest topic to articulate. BTW, if I said that last sentence out loud, I’d probably say: “this is not the easiest topic to particulate…” Literally having to make up a word to replace the word I meant to say. Anyway, it also dawned on me while writing the February Email Players issue — about how to use a weapon in a phenomenon I have dubbed “6G Marketing Warfare” — that this also can be used by just about any writer, in your own way (not mine) to create what I call “berserker customers”, who want to buy everything, sell hard on your behalf, and are loyal to a fault. Thus, it’s one of the 9 ways I teach inside for doing so. Use at your own risk though, it may very well backfire on you. The deadline to subscribe is just about here though. When I send it to the printer today it’ll be over and done. So if you want to subscribe in time to get it, hop to it here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA