NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Neville

PRODUCING products

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Hey all,

I’ve now made over 10 products on AppSumo:

SumoBusinessBlueprint
SumoBusinessBlueprint LIVE: CASE STUDY EDITION
Kopywriting Kourse
Kopywriting Kourse Kase Studies
Autoresponder Kourse
Social Krash Kourse
Sumo Diet Kourse
Course About Building A Course
Behind The Scenes of a Muse

Those are the courses 100% made by me.

I’ve also helped sell (or create) a bunch of AppSumo email template products and even a last-minute-but-well-selling course about hiring with Noah Kagan. And I even did 3 products before all the AppSumo stuff that were sold to someone else.

I’ve also done a bunch of these Sumo Dojo things too.

Now I can easily keep making products, and intend to continue….but there’s a major problem:

I ONLY KNOW SO MUCH SHIT.

It’s one thing to teach about things I know….and am good at, and have a proven track record at doing successfully (like kopywriting), but it’s NOT cool to hastily research a subject then teach about it.

It’s not fun for me.
And it’s a disservice to anyone buying that information.

I think most people would agree they’d rather be taught by someone EXPERIENCED in something.

Now on another note…..I’ve had the opportunity to occasionally “take over” the production of some of our products at AppSumo that were botched in some way or other (poor planning is usually the main reason).

And when I take over, it usually becomes a better product. I say that in a NON-humble way….and am OPENLY bragging.

My obsessions with being on schedule and conveying information in the LEAST painless way (usually by making it FUN) kick in when being in charge of the product.

The interesting thing is, I actually LIKE doing this! I thought the term for this was “directing” …but my video guy told me my role is a “producer”.

Whatever.

I guess I enjoy “producing” ….as much as I enjoy being in front of a camera, being behind it seems almost MORE important (think Steven Spielberg).

I enjoy when someone takes a course of mine and says, “Holy crap….after watching your course in two hours I now…” ….and then they gush about the benefits and actions they got out of it.

I LOVE the feeling of changing a persons life in a small way (plus I even get PAID for it).

So I might move more into producing some of these products, rather than starring in them.

Producing has a few drawbacks and some advantages.

DRAWBACKS OF PRODUCING PRODUCTS:

  • I have to find talented and knowledgable people to use as the star of the product.
  • I have to share percentages of the product with those people.
  • If the product is a flop, I get more blame (before…I was the only one disappointed.  Now other people have chips on the table too).

ADVANTAGES OF PRODUCING PRODUCTS:

  • I can crank out products MUCH faster (it normally takes me a full month to do my products….and usually by the end I’m killing myself working too much).
  • I can produce products in areas where I’m NOT an expert…..but I know people who are.
  • I can bring in people to produce awesome products that help the world….and me, and AppSumo.
  • The star of the product makes monthly income for the lifetime of that product and has to do little or no support work to keep it live.
  • I can comfortably make 2 products a month…maybe even 4 if I’m feeling ballsy.

So as with anything in it’s infancy, I’m not absolutely CERTAIN this will work out well, but it seems to have a shot.

With this course of action in mind, I’ve started going on the hunt for internet-famous people to star in these products. And since I live in Austin, and since I have cool friends who know other cool people……I think my first product might be made with Ryan Deiss as the star of the product.

Ryan’s got a $30,000,000/year company selling digital products (actually….the VERY FIRST QUESTION I asked him when he said he was interested was, “Why the fuck would you wanna make a product with AppSumo and not yourself??)

….his answer was, “To be exposed to a new market.”

I figured in this economy, and with a lot of people hating the sh*t out of their jobs….a lot of people would want to know how Ryan would start from scratch.

Even I’m kinda curious how he’d do it.

 

….anywhoozle, I’m still wondering what the topic of this new product should be.

Would you mind selecting which topics you’d be MOST curious to have a guy who built a $30,000,000/year digital products company teach you about?

Thank you!

July 2012 Goals

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It’s July 9th and I still haven’t posted my goals publicly??

BAD NEVILLE.

Anyhow, here they are (well, it’s just one):

July 2012 Goals

 

Normally I have a maximum of three goals for the month….but this time I really have just one main goal for July 2012.

I’ll write more about what I mean by “produce” a product….as it’s a bit different this time.

Anyhow, do YOU have your monthly goals set out yet?

 

Hangout with me (virtually) at 2pm CST today!

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———————U-P-D-A-T-E————————
Since Google Hangouts is cool as hell and lets you live-Youtube-stream your videos AND save them, here’s a copy of the quick 30 minute live broadcast I did.

I forgot to hit “record” until about 2 minutes in, but you’ll live.

I go over:

1.) How I hired an assistant the automated way(who helped me put together this entire thing totally last minute).

-and-

2.) How I’m building out a new product.  Backstage access.

I’m not pitching anything in this video.  Just wanted to give cool info out for fun.  I really liked this Google Hangout thing!

Lemme know if you have questions for future mini-broadcasts like this!

 

———-ORIGINAL POST BELOW————–

Hey heeyyy, I’m doing a free & quick “webinar” thing (I hate that word) on Google Hangouts in a few hours…..

….today (Tuesday 6-12-2012) at 2:00pm Central time.  
I’m gonna discuss:
1.) How I hired an assistant (in fact, he helped me put all this together).  I also hired in a very different way than most people….it’s VERY useful info.
2.) A lot of people ask how I ACTUALLY MAKE courses to sell online, and we’re about 10% done with a new course, so I’m gonna show you behind-the-scenes how that process is going.
This course will likely make me tens of thousands of dollars…..and you’ll get an inside peek at how it’s researched, filmed, and bundled up!
I’ll keep this quick……30 minutes max….maybe even less.
ANYONE WITH YOUTUBE CAN WATCH THIS!
I’ll be sending the link via Twitter around 2pm.  (my twitter is @nevmed)
A few people can even join the actual Google Hangout (up to 9 people only) when I post it:
So keep a look out on my Twitter around 2pm CST today for the link to watch this hangout!
Seeya today at 2pm CST!
Neville

Mac Shortcuts – Watch this if you use a Mac

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If you just bought a Mac, or have used one for years, I guarantee you’ll learn some productivity hacks in this video!

I was slowly convinced to buy a MacBook Air about 1 1/2 years ago….and I’ve never looked back.

You open the Mac up, and the damn thing is just READY TO GO.

And it’s not just ONE reason I’ve switched to Macs…..it’s like 150 very very small things that make the overall experience a pleasure.

Learning all the little tricks has helped boost my productivity a HUGE amount since I spend about 10 hours a day on a computer.

Laptop or desktop, these MacHackz will save you time:

IF YOU LEARNED ANYTHING FROM THIS VIDEO please either:

  • Comment on the video
  • “Like” the video
  • Share your own hack 
  • Share it with friends over FB or Twitter
  • Send a sacrificial lamb to my apartment

Thank you!  Enjoy the extra hour of your day!
(unless you’re a PC user…..in that case….umm…good luck :-)

Funky Munky

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If you see any links or items on NevBlog that look all funky-munky or don’t work, lemme know.

I just switched over to WPengine as of last night, so it might take a few days to work out some little kinks & bugs.

Comment if you find anything weird!  (I’m already aware the top navigation has some broken links).

 

Thank you!
-Neville

 

P.S.  If you want free copywriting by me, enter this Kopywriting Kontest before June 10th!

kopywritingkourse.com/free-kopy.html

The Autoresponder Kourse

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“I make courses on AppSumo.”

That’s my current answer to “what do you do?”

Several of them have been big hits, and a couple flopped.

One of the primary reasons for the “flops” was simply trying to make a course that would SELL THE MOST COPIES.

However THAT was a mistake.

Instead the question should be, “What courses could I make that would HELP people the most?”

When I’ve stuck to that creedo, it’s served me (and others) very well.  Ironically when I’d make a course WITHOUT a focus on how well it will perform, it tends to do better!

This AutoresponderKourse I just released was the same thing……I was originally trying to make a “Kopywriting Kourse Part 2” because the original product did very well, but when actually planning it out, it didn’t seem to make sense.  Most of the content was ALREADY IN the original KopywritingKourse, so this product was being created solely for money purposes.

I didn’t like it.

I even asked a pretty big marketing guy I respect about the dilemma, and he said:

I never build a product just based on what people will blindly pay for.  We make the products they NEED…….and THEN find a way to sell them.

I was actually very relieved to hear him say this, because it meant I could move forward with the course I WANNNTTED to make, not the one that would simply bring in the most dollar$$.

So from there I got started with the Autoresponder Kourse:

The reason I went with this Autoresponder Kourse was because the KopywritingKourse did such a dam-good job of teaching people to write copy……and if they applied those skills to an autoresponder sequence, it would multiple the usefulness (it sure did for me).

I wish I can go back in time and kick my previous-self in the face for NOT using autoresponders earlier!

Anyhow, the AutoresponderKourse (or A.R.K. as I like to call it) is officially out.
You can buy it here.
Or signup to the autoresponder sequence here. Someone thought the course was free because “the free emails were so damn good!”

…and if you like please leave a nice review!

-Neville

 

June 2012 Goals

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New month, new goals!

Here’s mine for June 2012:

1.) I’m doing a KopywritingKourseKase Studies product where I’ll be re-writing copy for people across many different industries FOR FREE! ……so long as I get to use them as a case study.

If interested, you can signup here to be a case study and get your kopy re-written (I have a pretty good batting average at getting higher conversions).

 

2.) I had this one listed as a fun case study from last month (I’m going to validate a friends restaurant idea and see if they should add an additional taco truck).  This stemmed from a lot of requests where people wanted to see a brick-n-mortar business validated.

I was a bit busy getting the AutoresponderKourse out the door in May, so this one fell behind to this month.  Kind of appropriate for AppSumo to validate a TACO stand eh :-)

How to profit from hackers

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Here’s a quick business idea (more like “consulting”) one of you can run with.

I got this “Pharma Hack” on my WordPress blog a few days ago.  Apparently it doesn’t have any effect on WordPress blogs, except it changes your title tags in your database (so you can’t easily change them) to promote pills…..this is what it did to my search rankings:

Sooooo……apparently NevBlog now sells Viagra :-)

It’s actually not a “hack” but rather a small “exploit”.

ANYHOW, I ended up paying to get it removed (yet it still came back).  I REALLLLLYYY wanted to do a search for “WordPress Pharma Hack” and see a sponsored result saying:

….instead I found nothing.

I had to personally call Chris Pearson who wrote the most detailed post about the pharma hack to get a recommendation for the removal of this brilliant little exploit.

But these large-scale exploits seem like a GREAT opportunity for WordPress junkies to make a bunch of extra money.  If someone charged $200+ to just “take care of this shit” for me….I would’ve GLADDLLLY paid.

-Nev

 

P.S.  In case you’re wondering, I’m currently moving this blog to WPengine  and they’re cleaning it up right now.

Spray Alcohol Experiment

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Browsing the news I saw this article about a mouth-spray alcohol that gets you “temporarily drunk”.

A little YouTubing showed videos like this:

I was instantly reminded of this thing I read about in Europe a while ago called AWOL (Alcohol Without Liquid)….

….which is essentially an oxygen vaporizer machine with hard alcohol infused into it…..and you inhale the liquor instead of drink.  This means you only have to only get a SMALL amount of alcohol to have an effect, but it only gets you “buzzed” for a very short amount of time.  It looked like:

 

SO I WANTED TO SEE IF SPRAYING ALCOHOL IN YOUR MOUTH WILL GET YOU BUZZED!
(since I really have nothing else better to do all day) :-)

STEP 1.) I bought several different types of atomizers from Sephora (those little perfume pump thingies):


STEP 2.) Bought a bottle of Titos plain vodka (40% alcohol) and a bottle of Everclear (90% alcohol).


STEP 3.) I filled the purple spray thingy with Titos, and the Silver one with Everclear


STEP 4.) TIME TO SEE IF I GET DRUNK!  I wore safety goggles (in case I mis-sprayed pure alcohol into my eyes):


STEP 5.) Waiting to see if I got drunk!
The first few sprays actually didn’t taste THAT bad like expected (although not particularly good either).

I sprayed a few Everclear, and a few vodka….and I’ve gotta say….(unless it’s placebo effect speaking), I FELT SOOORRRTA BUZZED! (it was a similar feeling to the very first sips of alcohol you take in a night…..you’re not “buzzed” yet, but you know something’s swirling around in your brain).

I’m 29 and have been drinking since about the age of 20 years old.   So I can tell by my first drink of alcohol that “something is happening” in my head before I get full-on buzzed or drunk.

Two of us tried this, and we both are almost 100% convinced we felt a very light buzz.
The buzz however wears of literally in about 2 minutes or less.

I’m sure there’s MANY other ways to achieve this (such as just swishing around alcohol in your mouth), but this “spray” method seems to be the most convenient.

 

CONCLUSION.) I’m almost dumbfounded to say this…..but IT WORKED!
…however, only a little. Drinking still seems FAR superior.

However there was only a few milliliters of alcohol in each spray bottle, so this alcohol delivery method is surprisingly efficient.

 

VIDEO OF THE EXPERIMENT:


SO IS THIS A VIABLE PRODUCT?  WHAT OTHER USES?

Here’s a couple of quick ideas an “alcohol spray” could be marketed as:

  • Anti-anxiety spray for approaching and picking up girls (placebo effect will also be strong on this one).
  • Anti-anxiety spray for shy people (placebo effect will also be strong on this one).
  • Creativity Spray – “Spray twice, and start brainstorming!”
  • Calm-Down Spray – “Two sprays will calm ya down!”
wow….those are all kinda dumb ideas.  Maybe I’m still drunk ;-)
Happy spraying!
-Neville