NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Uncategorized

Upcoming marketing thingy

by

OMG OMG OMG I’M SO EXCITED!!  :-D  :-D  :-D

The reason I sound like a 13 year girl is that next week I’m going to a marketing conference at the Lakeway Marine (here in Austin fortunately, so I don’t have to travel far).

Some of the main draws are the speakers, several whom I already highly admire:

  • Joe Sugarman
  • Joe Polish
  • John Carlton
  • Bill Phillips

…..to non-marketing people these names won’t ring a bell.  But to someone like me….

…it’s like a doctor getting to meet the famous Dr. DeBakey

…or a bicyclist meeting Lance Armstrong

…or a murderer meeting Charles Manson

It’s very exciting :-)

This event after registration, hotel, and extra spending will run about $2,000.

However it’s a really cool conference.  I went last year, and they did “sessions” from only 9am till noon.  THAT’S IT!  The rest of the time is spent yachting around, jet skiing, wakeboarding and mingling (part of the big draw).

3 hours of sessions is about as much as a dummy like me can realistically absorb in one day. Simply packing in 8 hours of sessions would just be a snooze-fest (and when there’s a lake, pool and jet ski’s waiting for you outside….it’s REALLY not cool to spend all day indoors)!

The event is also pretty much invite-only, so there’s no newbies asking you, “Ummmm…so how do I make money online cause I hate my job cause my boss suckss bllahahh blaaahh blaaahhh.” You get to hob-knob with all the big names out there.  I believe last year attendance was capped at 85 people.

That’s neat, cause you get to hang out with the big guys in a personal, social settings…..not some massive conference where you can’t really talk to them.

Last time I was there I got to meet Joe Polish and Joseph Sugarman (I didn’t know Sugarman at the time)….. I love this picture:

….after that conference I bought everything I can find written by Joseph Sugarman, and have learned an IMMENSE amount from him.

I also got to hang out with Tim Ferris and do handstands with him:

I’m not sure if many people know, but apparently in the last 4 months or so I’ve become a semi-famous copywriter (thanks much in part to this same conference last year)…..so Joe Sugarman and John Carlton are now heroes of mine.

I made this shirt to take pictures with them:

…it should arrive right before the conference.  I have a course coming out soon called KopywritingKourse…..and for some reason like spelling “copy” with a “K”.

I purposely didn’t write “KopywritingKourse.com” on the shirt since I’m looking to blatantly plug my stuff….rather just honor the greats in my own way.

This will be a GREAT time…and hopefully I’ll pull a lot of great connections and notes out of it :-)

Vancouver and The Grand Cayman Islands Trippy Trip

by

“But Nevillleee…this is supposed to be a FINANCIAL BLOG…not a personal blog!”

Screw off…I forget pretty much everything that happens, so I have to write it down.

And I DON’T want to forget what a blast I had the last two weeks!

So a quick re-cap :

I first went to VANCOUVER.

I went there for a Zoroastrian youth congress (if you recall, I’m a Parsi Zoroastrian).  We’re such a small community that we have these “Congress” events where everyone meets up.

They put everyone up at the Gage Towers at UBC (University of British Columbia), so this was the view a lot of people got.  Gorgeous:

….got to stir up trouble with old friends (you might see what I’m talking about if you Google “Neville Medhora” ;-)

We went on a Canada Day cruise through Vancouver….it was amazingly perfect outside:

And they had fireworks at night…..really fun to stand around with close friends watching this view:

We went to the Stanley Park beach for a while…once again, terrific weather and amazzzzinngg views:

Of course I took my obligatory handstand picture :-)

Got to hang out with friends from across the country:

This is officially my favorite picture of the whole trip.  After 5 days of craziness, I remember being physically exhausted, sad I had to leave, and already missing everyone……but it felt SO comfortable at this moment :-)

I came back to Austin…..immediately unpacked, did laundry, then re-packed.

Then headed out to:

The Grand Cayman Islands!

It was a family friends wedding on the beach:

We did stuff like ride a catamaran:

….swimming with stingrays:

….I fathered a child whilst there (they grow up sooo fast)!

….went snorkeling

….hung out on the beach a lot

….did the obligatory handstand picture on a sandbar:

….enjoyed the blue waters:

….hung out with a lot of family friends:

….took pictures sucking my stomach in to make me look stronger:

……and since I can work from anywhere…..I didn’t have to worry about vacation days and could still do a tad bit of work whenever I wanted to :-)

Good times!

Questions from Behind The Scenes

by

I answered a couple of questions in the Behind The Scenes course today.  Here were some of the Q/A’s:

————————————————————————-

Q: Do you write up a contract for the supplier? How exactly do you negotiate or work out the details?
A: Almost every time I’ve started a small business, I’ve NEVER STARTED with a contract.  Later down the line if there’s hundreds of
thousands of dollars in revenue at stake, it might be a good idea to get a contract written up.
BONUS PART OF THIS QUESTION:
Getting a contract written up DOES NOT ALWAYS REQUIRE A LAWYER.  In fact, don’t bother “law’ing it up” with legal jargon bullshit.  Simply write a few sentences down on a sheet of paper that both of you agree to and sign it.  It really can be that simple.
An even more powerful method is to hold the contract up on video, then both verbally agree to it on video and state you understand….but a few-sentenced, simple agreement on a sheet of paper with both your signatures will suffice most of the time.
I’ve known people who have official law-binding contracts written on a napkin.  No kidding.
————————————————————————-
Q: When House of Rave first began, were you stuck with only occasional sales for a long time, or were you able to make a respectable side income from the start?
A: For a short while it was pretty small…I’d just started college when it started making money, and it was maybe $500/month (which honestly is A LOT for a college student).  About a year later it started making $1,000+/month (sometimes 2K or 3K or more depending on the month)….enough money to actually survive on.  However it was quickly a pretty respectable “side-income” for sure.  Relatively little work input to keep it going, and a decent income from it.
Let’s just say I never had money issues in college thanks in part to House Of Rave.
————————————————————————-
Q: How do you keep track of price and stock changes from the supplier? What if the supplier stops distributing a few of your products? Or if they make a dramatic price change?
A: For the most part they don’t change prices that often.  In the past I’ve had them notify me of major price changes, so that solves the problem.  But even if they don’t, I’ll see the price change in the first person that orders that product.  I’ll notice I sold something for $50,  but the supplier is charging $59 for it.  I’ll make the correction with only a very minimal loss (and usually it’s not a loss, it’s just “less profit”).
It’s usually not that big of a deal when something changes in price, as the price difference is often pretty small (or often in my favor because it’s LESS)!
And yes, sometimes best-selling products are discontinued.  Generally this is because the manufacturer stops making them, so even if my supplier WANTS to keep selling them, they can’t….simply because no one makes them anymore.  It’s just part of the business that you deal with.  Sometimes they can get the product from another source, sometimes they can’t.
New products always come along.
————————————————————————-
Q: Hi Neville, Could you give a short explanation/suggestion about the product returns? I’m curious as to
what customers do if things don’t work or they don’t want the product. I’m considering selling internet
radios, which I imagine some customers might complain it’s too complicated, doesn’t work, damaged in
shipping, etc. Thanks, Michael
A: Product returns are handled this way:
If something is damaged upon arrival: I notify the supplier and they immediately send out a new one to the customer.  It’s their responsibility to send out working stuff.  Generally we don’t even request the broken stuff back unless it’s REALLY expensive.
If it’s my fault: Let’s say the customer ordered BLUE and I sent GREEN….I will pay for another shipment to go out.
If someone simply wants to return something for any reason: They send it back to the supplier, and they issue me a refund, I then issue my customer a refund.
It’s usually a very SMALL percentage of people that refund stuff, and it’s also a normal “cost of doing business.”
Imagine if you bought something from a company, you didn’t like it for whatever reason, and you wanted to return it….but they didn’t let you.  You’d be SUPER pissed and probably take it up with your credit card company.
I used to be pissed everytime someone wanted a refund.  Now I simply issue the damn thing and get it over with. It actually:
1.) Makes the customer happy
2.) Is easier for you than endlessly debating WHY the customer is returning something
3.) Doesn’t actually cost that much per month to return something.
————————————————————————-
Q: Hi Neville, I really like the videos but I have a two questions for you about building an e commerce
site. 1) If I am putting a paypal sales button and people start to buy stuff- is it completely legal?
Should I have some sort of company for the receipts or whatever.. and what about taxes ? 2) Lets say
you were not in US, does that model of selling stuff could be managed outside of US? I mean do you
think I can sell stuff with a Us dropshipper to Us customers, although I am not in America-american?
Apparently I asked more than 2 questions sorry about that:) Thanks Arda
A: Hey Arda, you don’t really need to get too worried until you actually start making A LOT of money. As for being outside of America, it shouldn’t be a big problem.
Here’s basically what I’d suggest:  Just DO something to get started…who knows, it might not work at all.  However if it DOES start making a lot of money, then go properly research tax issues in your area.  If you’re making enough money to be worried, then you can probably afford to hire a CPA or lawyer to help you with this.   I started HouseOfRave with no incorporated company or anything, then LATER handled all of it when the money started coming in.
If you don’t start quick, it’s likely you’ll never start at all!
————————————————————————-
To see the videos everyone was asking questions about, you’ll need access to:

Who would you buy 10 percent of?

by

I’ve watched this fantastic Warren Buffet speech about 10 times, but have never tried this till now. He says:

Think for a moment I granted you the right to buy 10% of one of your classmates for the rest of his lifetime (and you can’t just pick someone with a rich father).  You’ve got to pick someone who’s going to do it on their own merit.

…and I gave you an hour to think about it.

…which one are you gonna pick?

He goes on to say you wouldn’t necessarily pick someone with the highest IQ or the highest grades etc. etc…. (watch the video if you want to hear what he has to say next).

This is a fantastic way to judge who amongst your friends or acquaintances you think will be the most successful.

I also have had a highly-favored saying (I have no idea where I first heard this) that goes:

“You are the sum total of the top 5 people you hang out with.”

So by my math, if you’re trying to become successful (in whatever field), it would make sense to hang out most with the top five people you would pick to own 10% of.

Try it right now in your head or on the sheet I’ve provided below…it’s kind of interesting :-)

To get you started, I’ve filled out your first choice already:

Enjoy :-)
-Nev

Need a quick answer

by

Problem:
Nearly every day I get emails or questions from people I know about how House Of Rave .com works.  To some, it’s unfathomable that I run a rave company, yet never have been to a rave.  I can show only so many people how it actually works (literally show them on a computer).

Solution:
I’m currently doing a whole guide (like a “course”) on how my drop-ship business works.  It’ll show all the stuff I generally don’t just “put out there” because of privacy and competition issues.

Question to those interested:
Look at the below list and let me know if you have further questions than what’s covered here.  Or let me know what you’d be MOST interested in hearing about.

You can simply comment on this post or email me:
nevmed ( a t ) g m a i l . c o m

Course Outline:

All of these will be a combination of text and detailed video tours (I really like doing these videos)!
Part 1.) What it is now:
  1. Makes a couple hundred thousand revenue, bare minimum of 30 minutes of work per day.  About 1-2 hours per day spend on.  Great lifestyle business.
  2. How it started:  When I started it (17), why I started it (experiment),
  3. Part 1.) The beginning, learning the technical side and being curious.
  4. Part 2.) Finding something to sell.  Narrowing down my options.
  5. Part 3.) Finding a drop shipping.  How to find a drop shipper.
  6. Part 4.) Getting a site setup quickly.  Go over all ecommerce options.
  7. Part 5.) Pro’s/Con’s of drop shipping.

Part 2: How it actually works:

  1. How it works: a private behind-the-scenes tour of how HoR works.  I wanna show you how it works so you can understand it’s achievable, I started HoR cause I saw another kid did something similar.  Understand you don’t need to be a programmer (I can’t even write HTML).
  2. How someone goes from browsing the site to purchasing.
  3. Sending the order to the supplier.
  4. Entering the tracking information.
  5. Handling customer service.  Emails, inquiries, phone number.
  6. Show the analytics, Show the past numbers, reports.
  7. Accounting system.
  8. Show around Shopsite back end.
Part 3.) How you can do it to:
  1. Bonus: How to sell just one item.  People think they need to setup big ecommerce site.  Using PayPal .  Other simple ecommerce solutions.
  2. Bonus: The 1 hour business.  How to get an ecommerce business up and running in 1 hour.

Question to those interested:
Once again, let me know if you have further questions than what’s covered here.  Or let me know what you’d be MOST interested in hearing about.

I’ve already got a lot of this already completed, but I really want to make this a TRULY informative “course” I can refer people to whenever they start asking me a million questions about HoR.

You can simply comment on this post or email me:
nevmed ( a t ) g m a i l . c o m

Thanks for your time!  :-)
-Nev

Inside the Actors Studio

by

*This is kind of like my Best things about YouTube post.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.
–Zig Ziglar

Since I work at home, during my “lunch break” I can do whatever I want whilst stuffing my face, and that generally involves something passive like watching Hulu or YouTube (I don’t own a TV).

If a new episode of Family Guy or The Office is out, I’ll watch that, but generally I watch something on YouTube which can be considered either educational or inspirational.

Something I’ve LOVED to watch over the years is Inside The Actors Studio.

They bring in a big celebrity and ask them personal questions about their journey to the top.

I don’t watch these interviews to become an actor, but rather for inspiration. Almost everyone on the show is considered “at the top of their game”, and you get a fantastic inside view of what makes them tick and how they got there.

If you watch a few of these you’ll see some clear trends most of the people at the top have had:

  • Work ethic – Being consistently good.
  • Some sort of strife in their life that makes them “prove” themselves to others.
  • To them a loonng time to get to top.  Their success was many years in the making.
  • Constantly making new things (movies, shows, books, projects etc).

The host, James Lipton, does a tremendous amount of research and knows everything about the person before they get on stage…then he just shuts up and lets THEM speak! Because of this, I’ve seen some of the BEST interviews with celebrities on this show.

To find something that inspires you, try going to YouTube.com and typing in:

(Name of some show biz person you admire) + Inside Actors Studio

If that doesn’t give good results, try the same thing on Google.com (some of the good interviews can’t be found on YouTube).

Here’s some interviews of people whom I learned something from:

I was on the BBC

by

I randomly got interviewed on the BBC today on the program World, Have Your Say:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/2010/12/on_air_extreme_world_-_rich_an.html

It was for a series about extremely poor countries and extremely rich countries.  Which is AWESOME because of my harsh views on “homeless people” in the United States.

At 10:00am in the morning, a call woke me up, and it was from a BBC producer who had saw my blog and homeless experiment, and thought I’d have a unique opinion on this subject.  Our conversation was along the lines of:

  • Does money make people happier?
  • Are people born in some countries luckier than others?
  • How does money impact lives?
  • etc etc….

So I agreed to be interviewed over Skype within the next few hours.  I really had no idea what they would ask, or what format this was in, but it sounded fun.

FAST FORWARD AND CUT TO THE PROGRAM…..

I’m sitting at my computer, on Skype, wearing headphones to hear, and a studio condenser microphone to speak (the technician for the BBC was amazed at how much clearer I was coming in than the other guests, thanks for the gift Ashdin!)….

…and I can hear the program being broadcast live.  After a minute or two, I learned the whole program was literally being broadcast from Sierra Leone (An African country which is considered one of the poorest countries in the world)!

The BBC crew was holding up torches because there was no electricity, while the people being interviewed were cooking on a fire for the nights meal.

They wanted the people in Sierra Leone to speak to people in “rich” countries.  So it was a man from Australia, a woman from Norway, and a bratty little kid from America (me) who were going to speak to them.

So the interviewer introduces me, but didn’t ask me a question, so there is an awkward silence for a while.  Then he says, “What would you like to say?”

In my head I’m thinking, “Uhhhhh…..I didn’t want to say ANYTHING, you people brought me here to ask me questions!” But instead I kind of went with the theme of the show and started saying that I had more opportunity by growing up in America than most people in the world yadda yadda.

When I was done, I had pissed off at least ONE guy in Sierra Leone!!

I said something I knew might rub someone the wrong way, and that was that “I am luckier than they are.”

The one ultra-religious die-hard-Sierra-Leone-Guy being interviewed said exasperatedly, “NO, I am luckier than HIM!” He kind of reminded me of how the news tends to interview only the wackiest of people just to make it more interesting.

But at least he was the only nutjob in the group.  After going on my rant of how crazy-lucky I was to grow up in America in a good family etc….The other people being interviewed said in response to me:

“I feel UNLUCKY to be in Sierra Leone.”

“I do NOT consider myself lucky to be born here (Sierra Leone).”

“If I could, I would leave and go to America.”

IN YO FACE Nut Job Sierra Leone Guy!

RESOURCES:

The article about this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/2010/12/on_air_extreme_world_-_rich_an.html

Listen to the entire program:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00c344s
(My segment starts at 43:30 and ends aat 46:50)

Download the mp3 of just my segment:
https://www.nevblog.com/audio/bbc-interview-neville.mp3

Listen to my segment:
[audio:https://www.nevblog.com/audio/bbc-interview-neville.mp3]
(I come in slightly after 1 minute)

The Online Living Will of Neville Medhora

by

*NOTE: Like my What Would Happen If I Die post, I’d like to say this isn’t some weird online suicide note…it’s just my online will in case something were to happen.
Hey, I was an Eagle Scout: “Always be prepared”!

—————————————————

11-13-2010.
Saturday.
6:24 PM.

I write this on my laptop, sitting cross legged on the floor, leaning against the foot of my bed.

Just 5 minutes ago a very close friend of mine who’s a doctor called me.  She was getting ready for a party and got a call that an unidentified 27 year old male was in some sort of “bike” accident, and had arrived at the hospital with bad brain damage.  Most likely it’s irreversible and he will likely die in the next few hours.  She had to cancel the plans and come into the hospital.

I could hear the relief in her voice as I picked up my phone.  She knows I’m not in the same city, and even if I was, I wouldn’t have my scooter there….but it reminded her of me.  A 27 year old male who owns a scooter.

Her call reminded me how quick I can go from happy-go-lucky Neville….to a dead lump of cells splattered on the pavement.

I then thought about how freakin cool it’d be if I was dead, but had a post explaining to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD what to do in that situation!  Like I was still blogging from the afterlife!

Oddly enough I don’t care about dying.  If I’m dead…that’s it.  I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

What worries me is the impact my burden would have on my family and friends if I’m still alive…but severely damaged.

Not quite dead….but sort of.

So I’d like to make a public, online living will.  In the event of my death or serious injury, anyone in the world can look at what I’d have wanted for myself in different events.

Hopefully this never has to be done…but hey, shit happens.

In the case of my death:

  • I would want all of my liquid assets to be transfered to my family.  This would be wired over to my parents (whom of course would use it to pay off associated costs, or share it with my brother).
  • Donate every organ and usable part of my body.  Rip it all out and give it to people who need them.
  • If I have some sort of funeral, I’d like this statement to be read:
  • “Hello everyone, thank you for being here today….I am talking to you from beyond the grave, spooOooOOOoOOoky huh (in a ghost voice)!  I’d like to say something as my last words: I was lucky.  I was REALLY lucky.  I was born in one of the best countries in the world, at a time and place where rapid technological change and innovation was taking place, into an uncommonly happy marriage between my parents, with a great brother, into a small but tight and highly successful Zoroastrian community, and had a fantastic upbringing.I’ve been lucky to have influences on my life that allowed me to never have a job, wake up whenever I want, live wherever I want, do whatever I want….anytime I wanted. I was able to “stay young” through this and have an incredibly fun time on Earth. That being said, that is now all gone.  It is gone, but was thoroughly enjoyed wilst it was had.I was here…and now I am not.

    This is neither joyous or sad.  It just is.

    I would like to say I’ll “always be looking over you guys”…but I won’t.  I will simply be gone.  The sack of cells previously known as Neville Medhora which evolved from billions of years of small genetic modifications and selections has been irreversibly removed from existence.

    I am reminded of a quote I heard Jerry Seinfeld say about why he was shutting down the most popular show on television at it’s peek.  He said, “After years of going on stage and entertaining the audience, I’ve developed a sense for when to get off stage.  Stay too short, and they’ll want more. Stay on too long, and it can leave a bad taste.  Now is the time.”

    I may not have “stayed on too long”….but it was a great run while I was here!

    And look on the bright side: Now that I’m gone, someone else can finally have the distinction of being the best looking human in the world ;-)

    (insert raucous laughter and applause here).

    I love you all.


In the case of serious brain damage:

  • Pull the plug.  If that doesn’t work, hold a pillow over my face.  If that doesn’t work, inject me with something that’ll kill me.  If they don’t allow that kind of thing…ship me somewhere they do, and get it over with.
  • I’d like to make it absolutely clear I refuse to live as a vegetable.  I will actually be ANGRY if someone decides to keep me in this state. If I need other people to take care of me in order to simply exist…it’s my turn to exit the stage.

So there you have it!  In case something happens, at least people will sort of know what to do.

…now let’s hope no one ever has to search for this post :-)

Working Time Lapse

by

Have you every wandered what it looks like to see me work?

Of course you have!

Enjoy 5 hours of me working on a computer condensed into 1 minute and 20 seconds.  EXCITING isn’t it!

You can actually see it start to get dark around the 1:00 minute mark:

It’s a little funny how many people would LOVE to work at home…little do they know, it’s just you sitting at a computer for hours on end.

…but I love it :-)