NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Archives for 2012

Nasty Clamps are Nasty (and why they did it RIGHT)

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A guy who runs a business called NastyClamps contacted me and wanted to send a product sample to me:

….you can see why at first I was like, “uuuuhhhhhh?”

However phallic that may look to our gross imaginations….in reality the NastyClamp is a useful tool for photographers:

It can attach just about any camera, to just about any THING….like my camera on this desk:

I saw the product (and have used it already with my camera), and I saw the website NastyClamps.com …..and just thought this whole concept was pulled off brilliantly!  (I’m not talking about their whole business model….just the way they’re marketing it).

SHAMELESS PLUG: Matt who owns NastyClamps took the SumoBusinessBlueprint course….so clearly he’s already smart ;-)

One of the things I like very much about the way they executed this whole business was they used the VERY unusual look of the clamp and turned it into a funny selling point.

I showed it to some of the people at the AppSumo office….and they all thought it was hilarious! ….and remember the name.  I don’t know the brandname of any other camera equipment….so I guess the “NastyClamps” name worked pretty damn well!

…..but FIRST, let’s not forget that it’s just plain useful (marketing gimmicks can only get you SO far).

ANOTHER SHAMELESS PLUG: Matt watched the bonus copywriting video at the end of the SumoBusinessBlueprint and sent me this:

Also, I wanted to let you know that I followed some of the basic principles you’d outlined with Andrew Warner (in that bonus Blueprint video) about copywriting, making the written word more conversational, obvious “click here to purchase” links, etc, etc… And that — sincere-writing the copy on my website’s cheesy home page — that my conversion rate has nearly doubled.

One suggestion I’d have for NastyClamps (and for your website if you have one):
…..is make small email collection box that links to a contest.  Maybe something like “We give away a set of NastyClamps every week….just enter your email address to enter the competition”

This would at least help build an email list for later use.  So if you ever do a sale, you can hit up all your fans (pretty much the exact formula I did here).

Another suggestion would be to have some sort of “training material” for people…..just to open up their minds to the possibilities (and Matt, you told me you took my Course About Building A Course)…..so either make a quick video or even have a one-page “course” with several videos or pictures showing what people can do with NastyClamps that they couldn’t do before.

Good job keeping your product interesting (and Nasty)!

February 2012 Goals

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Have YOU got your February 2012 goals set yet?  I have:

FIRST GOAL.) This will be a followup course to the SumoBusinessBlueprint (which has turned tons of wantrepreneurs into real entrepreneurs that have DONE stuff).

I’ll actually be finding ideas, validating them before launching, then making money off them….and documenting the whole thing.

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SECOND GOAL.) Signup for music lessons again.
I took guitar lessons (as my Aug 2011 goals stated) for about 2 months….and then my tutor moved away to Houston.

He was great…because he wasn’t classically trained, and he made all the complicated music theory VERY easy for my dumbass to understand.

I got SO much better at the guitar from those two months of instruction….so I’m going back again for more music lessons.  Possibly a combination of vocal lessons with guitar lessons.

Two Cool Things

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FIRST COOL THING:
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A guy named Ching originally bought the Behind The Scenes of a Muse course I made about how HouseOfRave works….then he also took the SumoBusinessBlueprint course….and he now had seen how easy some of this stuff was, and got started.

He immediately started writing down his ideas in a Google Doc, and came up with a “list of Muse businesses” to start:
See Ching’s Google Doc here.

I could tell he put some effort into this.  He listed all his ideas, determined if people were willing to pay for the product/service, then scouted out potential drop shippers.

He then built a ghetto site for $0.00 (exactly as we recommend), and showed it to potential drop shippers.  They liked it, so he then made a real store…which is an Australian Ukelele store!

Ching sent me a ukulele, check it out :-)

But more importantly Ching went from “Wantrepreneur” to “I own a business” very quickly.

Who knows if this will make Ching a bazillionaire (likely not on the first try)….but now he knows he CAN start a business, he knows HOW to start a business, and the next time (and next…and next….) he will get better and better.

Great job Ching :-)

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SECOND COOL THING:
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Samuel Pitcher sent this to me during Christmas as “A gift for the Sumo’s”.

I thought this was incredibly nice, and a GREAT way to get our attention!

For completely free, and without telling us, he took this static image and made it into an animation to use as video bumpers.

I thought this was DAMN cool…and I’m jealous I don’t have the skilzzz to do stuff like that!

ORIGINAL IMAGE:

AFTER IT WAS SAMUEL-IZED:

Pretty cool eh?  Definitely NOT a bad way to get someone’s attention!

Great job Samuel!

“Should I Make An iPhone App?”

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“Should I make an iPhone app??”

….it’s a question I’ve heard quite often, and a question I’ve asked myself a few times.

Then I remembered I’m friends with the three guys that started Mutual Mobile, which is the largest (or one of the largest) iPhone app developers in the United States.  They’re now so big (250+ people) they focus on huge enterprise stuff, but they have a TON of experience with apps.

So John Arrow, a friend, and also the CEO of Mutual Mobile was speaking at The Internet Marketing Party here in Austin, and his speech directly answered my question of “SHOULD I BUILD AN IPHONE APP?”

You see, I build all these online courses, and they’re only on the web at the moment….no iPad or iPhone apps yet.  However developers who’ve taken the courses and liked them have offered to put them on the app store for me.

Just for fun I mocked up what it’d look like for the KopywritingKourse to be on an iPhone :-)

Anyhow….I’ve thought about this multiple times.  And it makes sense, “If this works well on the web, it will work well on the App Store! I’m a GEMIUS!!”

Well after listening to John Arrow speak at the Internet Marketing Party I have some more insight on this, and here it is:

He said this (and I’m paraphrasing):

Just because something on the web works, DOES NOT mean it will work well as an app.  Think about it like this:

What additional benefit does product solve if it’s on a phone?  Does it make your service/product more valuable…easier to use?

iPhone’s and iPad’s are portable…..would your service be better if it was more portable?  Would it give the users more features that could use their geographic location?

Here’s something we did: The company People Finder offers background checks.  Just releasing the app as “People Finder” didn’t offer the user anymore benefits than using the service from their mobile browser.  So we made an app called “Are They Single?” …and it did phenomenally well.

It was a simple app, that when you meet someone, you can type in their name and buy a quick background check which shows you if they’re married, single, have kids etc.

This was a huge success because it solved a problem involving geographic location.

No one cares about having a People Finder app on their phone.  They just wanted answers to a specific question.  The way we released that app, DID in fact help people more than the web service.

So if you’re just taking a product from web, and doing a simple port-over to an app….it’s very unlikely it will work unless you add more functionality that’s helpful from a phone.

So there was my answer to “Should I put some of my courses on the app store?”

Not the way I was gonna do it.

That explanation was really helpful, because now I can put that thought to rest….until I find a way that having an app would be MUCH more beneficial to the users.  For now they can always load and watch the courses on their phones with their browsers.

Think about this advice before spending time and money on building out an app.  John has seen tons of successes and failures in this space.  He even started out his speech by asking everyone in the crowd if they’ve built an iPhone app.  Very few people raised their hands.

He then said, “Now give yourselves a round of applause for NOT wasting your money!”

….which is a testament to how many failed attempts at simply porting over a website to an app he’s seen.

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Has anyone out there seen proof of a course in app form do well?

The course course course course thingy

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The latest AppSumo course I released was thought of by vote.

We ghetto-tested which possible courses I should make…and let the audience vote.  The #1 result:

A Course ABOUT Building A Course!

Lol….I still think that’s hilarious :-)

Basically I open up my brain on everything I know about video-course making.  And since I get easily distracted, I took 30 minutes to illustrate what this would look like:

Here’s the sales video thingy we filmed for it.  We made it in a studio with a REAL camera so it look really sharp!

Making all these courses was just kind of a fun extension of all the “experiments” on my blog that I’ve done for years.  So far they’ve been….umm….very….profitable.

So this basically shows how all the courses are made.

SUMO DOJO – Discussing businesses we’ve started in the past

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Every entrepreneur has started a bunch of stupid (or not-so-stupid) businesses.

Some succeed, some fail, some just chug along.  But lessons are learned every single time.  Noah and I discuss some of the businesses we’ve tried (plus we totally butcher a Blind Melon song) :-)

Studio Time!

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Soooooo the recent results of some ghetto test I’ve run at AppSumo show that the most requested course people want me to make…..is a:

Course ABOUT Building A Course.

HA!  I don’t know why that’s so hilarious to me.

Anyhow, I’m around half-way done with it…and it’s cool because we’ve been stepping the game up a bit and filming with higher quality cameras.

Normally I just use this Canon S95 camera to film,

but now I’ve started hiring someone who knows what they’re doing, and who has a Canon 7D (which is the same camera they film a lot of movies and TV shows with).  Look at the size difference :-)

It’s pretty neato to see the difference it makes.  The camera is one element of it….but me and Noah used a fancy camera to record THIS Sumo Dojo…and it looks almost the same as the previous ones:

The main difference is the lighting, and having someone around who knows what the hell their doing with the camera (aka NOT me).

So now some of the stuff we’re filming is coming out more like THIS (video screenshot):

So this Course About Building A Course launches on Jan. 26th and should turn out GREAT looking.

However as much as I’m impressed with fancy cameras and cool lighting….I really don’t give a SHIT about that stuff…..if it doesn’t teach people well.

I’ve seen a lot of videos that are filmed all fancy….but SUCK because the content isn’t strong.

This course will meld both those elements together (plus teach other people how to do it).

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is that not everyone wants to build a course to SELL IT…..but a lot of people wanna give them away for free.

I think one of the best uses for videos courses for startups is if you have a web app or software you’re trying to sell…giving away a free video course on how to use your service to it’s max is a GREAT way to get people to use your app more!

Here’s some random pics of recent filming stuff: