When you watch this vid, try to think of ideas to hone your own business message (or flat out create a new one):

(YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjbnL0fmflY )

So you’ll learn two lessons from this one story:
Lesson 1.) A lotta wantrepreneurs over-complicate the hell out of contracts.
Check out the contract Noah and I made for a project (and yes, it’s real).

Lesson 2.) A lotta people over-complicate the MESSAGE their business sends out….which makes it too damn complicated…and thus useless since stupid people like me can’t understand it. I’ll show you some good examples.
Enjoy the vid!
-Neville

FYI you can go to Kopy.tv to easily see all my vids.

One of the highest paid and easiest (in terms of equipment needed) services you can do is copywriting.

Essentially you type out words on a laptop from anywhere in the world….and people pay money for it (often A LOT of money since you’re helping improve conversion rates of businesses….which obviously makes them a lot of money).

Copywriting is useful for consulting, but it’s ESPECIALLY useful (and profitable) if you already own a business.
You can see my 1st success with copywriting here.
Password is: MonkeyWhale

So after becoming a Q-level celebrity from my 1st KopywritingKourse, I get this question allll the time:

How should I begin learning about copywriting??

If they have money…. I tell them to first watch my KopywritingKourse.

If they’re poor….. I give them this free advice:

I always give people these two pieces of advice to get started.  It’s certainly what got me on the right path.

If they ever ask me follow-up questions about copy, I immediately ask if they took my advice.

If yes, I’ll try to help.

If no, I tell them to go back and do it.  It’s a waste of time for me to personally re-teach them this stuff….especially if they haven’t even taken the effort to learn it themselves.

Watch the video, and take the advice.  It’ll be good introductory material for you to start of 2013!

Sincerely,
Neville – A Kopywriting Kelebrity

By the way…..if you have a friend who could use this advice, can you send them this video also?  Thanks!

But when people run something by me, I can usually tell in ONE FREAKIN INSTANT if it’s good or not.

The way I do that is with a caveman voice:  

Here’s how you can instantly tell if something sucks or not:
Read something, and then talk about it in Caveman Voice.  Like THIS:

ME CAVEMAN.
THIS SUCKS.
THIS COPY BORING.
WANT SLEEP NOT READ.
ME BURN SUCKY COPY.

There’s something about talking like this that makes your brain a big ole dummy…..Actually I pin-pointed it when reading Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff.

He explains how when pitching a deal to someone, you need to access their “crocodile brain” to make them say YES.

He calls this primal part of the brain the “crocodile brain.”

I’ll spare you the science (I know your dumb caveman brain can’t handle it)  ;-)

…..but essentially this primal part of the brain says YES or NO to things immediately. Such as:

STOVE HOT.  NO TOUCH.
WATER GOOD.  ME DRINK.

I’ve used my “Caveman Voice” when opportunities spring up that I really shouldn’t take due to a heavy work load:

THIS GOOD. 
BUT ME BUSY. 
NO WAY.

The dumbass caveman inside you is sometimes quite wise.

SO without any hippy-dippy meditation retreats, mind-expanding drugs, or 6 month long trips to an Indian guru……..you can get brutally honest answers from yourself in seconds.

Sincerely,
Neville The Caveman

P.S.
TRY NOW.
OR ME KILL U.
HIT ON HEAD.

Well, the results are in…..and there were some pretty clear winners!

For the image tests, here’s the winner:

It was the very first image I Photoshopped for this deal:

Most people (including me) thought this image would do the best. It’s by far the most descriptive of the group, and the least distracting.  The images with the Sumo kind of took away attention from the text.

Now for fun, take a quick guess which headline test would win….before you peek at the results:

• HEADLINE 1: Hiring Sucks. Let Craigslist do it for you….here’s the scripts to use.
• HEADLINE 2: Hire Someone by tomorrow. Use these Craigslist scripts…
• HEADLINE 3: Craigslist hiring scripts. This is the new way to hire. No sifting through countless crappy candidates.
• HEADLINE 4: Hire someone by tomorrow. Use these Craigslist scripts…
• (notice I’m an idiot, and the 4th headline is a duplicate).  Smooth.

THE  WINNER BY A LONG-SHOT:
1st PLACE HEADLINE (#2):
Hire Someone by tomorrow. Use these Craigslist scripts…

2nd PLACE HEADLINE (#3): 
Craigslist hiring scripts. This is the new way to hire. No sifting through countless crappy candidates.

LAST PLACE HEADLINE (#1):
Hiring Sucks. Let Craigslist do it for you….here’s the scripts to use.
I originally thought Headline #1 would’ve won.  Turns out the “Hire someone by tomorrow” proposition for people was the best (Usually every Craigslist success story I’ve had happens within 17 hours of posting…..so this isn’t some “made up” headline).

 As for the Craigslist Hiring Course itself….I’m proud to se people have been pretty happy with it (aka getting results)!

I just happened to use Craigslist 2 days ago to post a job the old boring way. Lots of qualified/unqualified resumes to review and sort to go/no go folders…
Anyway, the course was great! Head spinning with ways to use GoogleDocs/Forms. Integration of GoogleForm, video, AIDA – simple to do and full of value for me!!!
–AppSumo Customer

Very interesting lesson. I think I have learnd 2/3 things (Typing with HTML, Using a video, using Google form).
And most of all, very attractive lesson. Usualy I get bord. But this was exciting….
I had the sensation to really learn something…
Please, continue revolutionize.
–Alex

Sincerely,
-Neville

I have no idea why, other than I thought it would be funny (and I’m not white so I might get away with it)  ;-)

I realllly wanted to do some sort of membership thing which would allow me to call it the Kopywriting Kourse Klub.  And it would have a signup pages that says JOIN THE KKK!!!

It was actually a subtle nod to this Simpsons sketch:

HA!  That makes me crack up every time!

Anyhow, here’s the story of how I ended up doing a product called the KKKs.  Yes…. ‘KKK’ with a lower-case ‘s’ at the end (I had a feeling sending 700,000 people an email saying “10 REASONS YOU SHOULD JOIN THE KKK !!” wouldn’t fly so well.

First I decided to do a “Kopywriting Kourse Part 2″ ….which would go more in depth about Kopywriting.  The original course does extraordinarily well to this day because within two hours it changes the way people write forever.

But while trying to put together a “Part 2″ ……it didn’t feel right. Most of the material was just re-hashed from the first one.

So then I got the idea to drill down to about 15 more specific subjects…such as:

• Kopywriting for eCommerce sites.
• Kopywriting for landing pages.
• Kopywriting for brick n mortar businesses.
• Kopywriting for real estate agents.
• Kopywriting for blogs.
• Kopywriting for iPhone apps.
• Kopywriting for daily deal sites.
• ….this list went on and on……

Well a lot of these were good (I really wanted to do a copywriting for iPhone apps or something hot like that)…..but they were TOO SPECIFIC.

In a perfect world I’d make every single one of those sub-categories of products, but that’s A LOT of work.

The next thing I did was put out a page for FREE COPYWRITING (you can no longer enter so don’t try) ….in order to get some real case studies.

Within a week we got 100+ qualified people who entered (some crap ones snuck in there too).
Quickly we realized that people had ALL KINDS OF BUSINESSES WHICH NEEDED HELP.

!! :: LIGHT BULB DINNGG :: !!

The “Kopywriting Kourse Kase Studies” was born.

So the whole premise was to watch as we take businesses and make them convert higher (aka get more sales$s) with only minutes of work (well….sometimes with about 1 hour of work).

• Some of the businesses needed better copy to explain their product. We would re-write pages.
• Some of the businesses were nearly flawless, and could only be improved with a video. We would make them a quick-n-dirty video.
• Some of the businesses were totally shit to begin with, and needed to be re-thought or abandoned (no amount of great copywriting can help a shitty business for the longrun).
• Some of the businesses needed to stop getting people to their website, and getting people from places like Craigslist with easy ads.  We made those ads (which ALWAYS work btw).

I also noticed the side-effect of this course was people would learn how to consult for other businesses very quickly!

After watching several kase studies you quickly notice patterns.

Every kase study (except one) in the kourse so far has increased conversion rates even with the very half-assed-and-quick improvements we made.

For the one that DIDN’T improve conversion rates (it was an email promotion I thought would TOTALLY KILL IT ….but ended up doing 25% worse), we explain why that happened.

It was one of those things I could’ve easily just “conveniently not included” but I wanted people to see a failure…because sometimes tests fail in the real world (WHO WOULD’VE THUNK IT)!

I almost wanted to change the name from “Kopywriting Kourse Kase Studies” to ” Learn how to con$ult for businesses by improving small things”  ….but didn’t want to people to think ANYONE could do it with such ease.

My intention was also to FIRST have everyone watch the original KopywritingKourse before watching this.

Anyhow, that’s how products we make come along.

I’ll shortly be putting out some products not STARING me but PRODUCED by me….we’ll see how it goes :-)
-Nev

YEA!  On Mixergy!

We talk primarily about Kopywriting and how to get better immediately after watching the video.

BY THE WAY….I’ve worked hard over the years to keep this blog entertaining and edu-ma-cational…..
If you’ve got ANY value out of this blog ever….would you mind leaving a comment on this video??

Even a quick “This was awesome!” is great appreciated :-)

To leave a comment:
Step 1.) Go to the Mixergy interview with Neville

Step 2.) Scroll down under the transcript, there will be a comments section.

Step 3.) Write whatever you want, and click POST.  It’ll confirm how you want to post…and you’re DONE!

Step 4.) You get a big virtual-hug from me :-)
Thank you, and I hope you learn something!

Remember I mentioned this KopyWritingKourse I did on AppSumo that was meant to teach people to write better?

Wellllll turns out it was the best-selling deal on AppSumo ever.  (woot woot)!

In the last two months I already planned the Kourse out…..but about 70% of it was created about 8 days before it was released.

I’m proud it did so well because it took up alllll my time for that 8 days.  Twice I stayed up 2 days in a row working on the Kourse (plus I still had a full load of other work going on at the exact same time).

I had one objective for this KopyKourse:

Make absolutely damn sure people LOVE IT and LEARN FROM IT!

I didn’t really care about the pricing or how many copies were sold (well….I did, but it was a secondary thought).

A combination of listening to Earl Nightingale over the years and realizing this, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of making TOP quality stuff first….and worrying about selling a bunch later.  So I’m VERY pleased to see all this feedback :-)

These are just from Twitter alone:
———————————————————————-

And here’s the bad reviews….although it’s all just copywriting people criticizing the headlines for the advertising.  Fortunately there has not been ONE ever remotely-bad review of the Kourse Kontent yet :-)

And just to end on a sweet note, here’s some more good reviews from Twitter!

Here’s some other random compliments I got from emails:

————————————————————–

Hey Neville,
Just wanted to say – amazeballs kourse!!!
I’ve always loved the AppSumo emails, and now I know why :)
Keep up the great work!
Kim - @kgardnr

————————————————————–

Hello Neville,
DUDE this wacky kopy stuff works. I watched the videos yesterday morning
and I used what I learned in my ad copy. I normally get one or two leads per
day from my ads, yesterday from 1-5 pm I got 3 leads and closed one deal
already plus my CTR gone up 18%.
PS. Feel free to use my full name and testimonial in public.
Fadi Andraus

————————————————————–

Or this comment by a longtime reader who took the course!

————————————————————–

I’m going through your Kopywriting Kourse right now.
I’m an Austin-based copywriter too. I’m fascinated by your story
in general, and I’m not ashamed to admit that even after years
of copywriting, I’m learning some stuff from you.
Rich M.

————————————————————–

Neville, you rocked on this course!!
Im on section 2 after watching section 1 twice!
You should take it down before my competitors get a
hold of it…Im watching the ticker anxiously.
Isaac Hill

————————————————————–

*This is a chat forwarded to me by Noah Kagan*

[9/20/11 4:56:03 PM] isaac: Just wanted to say thanks for the deal from Neville. Closed a client by changing my Kopy.

[9/20/11 4:57:01 PM] noah kagan: :)
[9/20/11 4:57:02 PM] noah kagan: now way
[9/20/11 4:57:04 PM] noah kagan: whats the story

[9/20/11 4:58:36 PM] isaac: I place ads all the time on classifieds. They are normally titled: Do you need a Logo Design? blah blah….then I changed the title to “Your Logo Sucks – Here Is Why!”
[9/20/11 4:58:48 PM] isaac: Massive click throughs.
[9/20/11 5:00:09 PM] isaac: Then I changed the boring copy about how great we are and replaced it with how a business normally waste hundreds/thousands on crappy design firms…then said: See how our clients get er’ done

WOOT WOOT WOOT!

It’s not for sale anywhere else just yet….so literally TODAY ONLY is when you can get this.

I’ll add a Buy Now button to the Kourse after the AppSumo deal finishes on Thursday at midnight (9-15-2011 at midnight Central Time)….but it’ll be way more expensive.

I actually hate the fact that it’s selling for under $100.

Considering the effect it has on someone’s selling ability.

Hopefully it provides as much information to people as the Behind The Scenes of a Muse course I did (people freakin LOVED that course)….

ANYWHOOZLE…..
Check it out…
Send me feedback (nevmed@gmail.com)….
If you don’t like it there’s a 100% money-back guarantee (didn’t think you learned anything?  You can refund anytime before you die).

For now checkout this video….

It was was originally supposed to be a “short” intro to the KopyKourse with Noah Kagan (founder of AppSumo, #30 at Facebook and a bunch of other stuff….) but it turned into a long chat.  It was actually pretty fun, and we might do it more often if people like it :-)

P.S. Click here to get the Kourse.

The deal literally goes away at midnight on Thursday (Central Time), so snag it now!

This article in CNN claims something dramatic:

The popstar Justin Bieber Crashes His Ferrari!  OH NO!

But read the article and it shows how retardedly-exaggerated the headline is:

It reminds me of when I used to stock day-trade in college.  I’d wake up early every morning to watch the stock market open on CNBC…..and EVERYDAY it would flip-flop between either:

‘OOOMMMGGGG THE STOCK MARKET IS CRASSSSHIIINGGG!!!!”

-or-

“AMERICA IS SO GREAT WE HAVE THE BEST ECONOMY EVERRR STOCKS GOING UP UP UP!!!”

“Think before you believe”

TOTALLY DAMN WORTH IT!

As you may (or may not) know, I’ve become a semi-famous copywriter in the last 4 months….and this event brings together some of the top marketers (many of whom started by writing sales copy) from around the world.

Naturally I learned a lot stuff in the seminar parts of the conference, but the real value is NOT JUST GETTING TO MEET the greats in an industry….

….but getting to hang out with them in lots of different personal settings.

THAT is where the real value sets in.

FOR EXAMPLE:
I was all excited to meet Joe Sugarman again at this conference, because since I heard of him I’ve:

• Read everything by him
• Studied his work
• Copied the style of some of his work
• Used the principles he teaches to make money for myself and others
• Watched every YouTube video about him
• Downloaded interviews etc….

His work has actually added a major element to the way I work….and it’s exciting to meet a personal hero of yours.

HOWEVER it’s getting to sit next to him on a 45 min bus ride to a restaurant, or go boating with him, hanging out at the pool, or simply sitting next to him at meals and getting to ask stuff you don’t hear about in his work.  This is where the networking happens…..because it’s not just “networking”…it’s actually becoming friends with someone.

Allllrriiigghhttyyy…..so here’s some of the highlights of the conference (well….the whole thing was a blast):

Here’s Joe Sugarman up on stage giving a talk:

Me with the great Joe Sugarman (and my Kopy shirt):

The first day of the conference, all 80+ people got on a big boat and went cruising around Lake Travis…complete with full indoor seating area, lunch buffet, three full-time jet skii’s and a wake boarding boat (not a bad day at a “boring conference” right?!):

Hanging out on a boat while Joe Polish goes tubing:

Hahah….Joe had a “tubing war” with a “hefty” Brit…..and judging by this picture I’d say he’s about to win!

We got treated to Joe speaking several times through the conference:

….and of course I got my obligatory picture:

I love all these pictures….but it’s more gratifying to hang out on a personal level with some with some other industry greats (some not so publicly-well-known) like Michael Fishman:

While hanging out at a restaurant by the lake I got a random shot of John Carlton and Joe Sugarman talking…..and with a little cropping and making the picture black & white it looks like they’re total badasses (or they’re asking “Why the fuck are you taking a picture of us?“)

Later on everyone got to hear John Carlton speak.  He had a lot of cool ways to come up with a definition of your bid-nazz as well as other advice:

…and of course, the obligatory picture with one of the greats (who was good friends with Gary Halbert….another idol of mine):

The final speaker for the whole conference was Bill Phillips.  I honestly don’t know toooo much about Bill other than he’s a HUGGGEEE figure in the fitness industry.  I’ve heard this a lot in the past….and could tell everyone was genuinely excited to meet him.

Apparently he just had major surgery on both his knees, and up till last week was confined to a wheel chair.  He can now walk a bit….but only with these massive full-leg braces.  They kept calling him The Bionic Man :-)

….and what did you expect….a PICTURE with him of course :-)

I also made sure I brought my copy of “Advertising Secrets of the Written Word” by Joe Sugarman to get it signed….here it is!

—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————

Fantastic learning experience, great getting to mingle with higher-ups, lots of fun…and completely worth it :-)

I’ve scanned and posted my notes from the conference below. I dunno how much REAL value you’ll get out of them since most of it comes from BEING THERE….but here ya go, enjoy!

• Notes page 1
• Notes page 2
• Notes page 3
• Notes page 4
• Notes page 5
• Notes page 6
• Notes page 7
• Notes page 8
• Notes page 9
• Notes page 10