Neville's Financial Blog

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.

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!”

One of the interesting things about being involved with AppSumo and all the products we sell, is people THANK US in odd ways.

I get emails all the time that start off with “THANKS YOU FATASS SUMO’S!”

Normally them’s fightin’ words….but it’s actually a sign of affection :-)

Books, cookies & ukelele’s  have come our way….and now my new favorite gift: Personalized AppSumo guitar picks from Andrew Woo from ProspectSnap!

I’ve actually been using them!

New Month = New Goalzz.

Here’s mine for May 2012:

1.) Taco Stand Validation: 
From the SumoBusinessBlueprintLIVE, a decent amount of people  wanted to know how to validate a PHYSICAL business.  I always tell them:

“If it’s a physical business, you’ll usually have to do some physical validation”

So in true Sumo-style….I’ll be validating a TACO STAND!  Details later :-)

2.) Course Reinforcement:
To make sure all my previous courses stay relevant and last a long time, I’m going through each of them and “cleaning things up” …or adding content if necessary.

For example a couple of things like:

• Google discontinued “Google Friend Connect” which means alllllll the comments on my courses were one day just erased.  That really sucks because there were some great Q&A’s going on.  I will be trying to restore most of that on a different commenting platform.
• Will be adding more emails to all the autoresponder sequences (so signup for all the email lists if you haven’t already)!
• There are literally HUNDDDRREEEDDSS of emails with amazing testimonials…..and none of them have been posted.  This will be changed.

3.) A.R.K:
This is the next course coming out called AutoResponder Kourse.  It’s like an add-on course to the KopywritingKourse to show people the power of autoresponders (I realllyyy wish I knew about these when I was starting out).

Anyhow…..cheers to a great May 2012 :-)
-Neville

Me and Noah talk about how to get out of slump:

I know what you’re thinking:

“Neville….what’s wrong with your hair??”

Well….at the beginning of the month my hair color was “bright blue“ …..but now faded into “i-don’t-know-what-the-hell-is-on-my-head” color.

Anyone here in Austin who’d wanna be my assistant?

Here’s the Craigslist ad with more info:
http://austin.craigslist.org/cpg/2975234678.html

Here’s the form to fill out if you’re interested!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dDNHOXIwcXZvOUF2aUliWnd1X2RNVWc6MQ 

Let any family/friends know what’s up!

For the SumoBusinessBlueprintLIVE I wrote this particular email (below) as part of a sequence of emails.

What’s funny about this one, is that people literally COPIED AND PASTED the ad I made….and put it on Craigslist themselves (changed contact info obviously).

After that, I’ve got at least FOUR EMAILS that said, “I put this ad up on Craigslist just to see what would happen, and within a few hours I got people calling to schedule!”

I love when people have this “lightbulb” moment that this stuff (despite how simple it seems) ….REALLY works!

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EMAIL STARTS RIGHT HEREEEE:
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..I flip the hell out.
….and kick a trash can.
…….and sometimes even kick a puppy.

It’s because they’re THINKING about their idea too damn much, and doing NO ACTUAL real-world tests.

I can already hear you say,
“OK Neville…..then show us wantrepreneurs what you’re talking about if you’re soooo smart.”

Fine….I will.  In the next few minutes this email will show you how to make a basic page to validate your idea.

Let’s pretend we’re trying to sell WordPress design services to people in our area.  Before we “design a portfolio” and “try to cold-call clients” …..let’s do some simple tests:

LET’S START:
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If you’re trying to measure if people will pay for your idea or service…..try something like this…..it’ll be a quick ad on Craigslist.

Craigslist is easy & free…..and it gets a shitload of traffic….so it’s perfect for us.

The point of this to see if people call us up and want to PAY $money$ for our services:

So we’d make a simple ad like this:

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I MAKE WORDPRESS SITES IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE.

Do you need a WordPress site put up and customized….but don’t know how to do it?

Let ME do it for you!

I have 2 years of WordPress experience and know how to customize themes.

I can even work with you personally, and we can design your site together.  I’ll even train you how to use your brand-new site (WordPress is really easy once setup)!

I charge $25/hour and can meet you anywhere in Austin.
Call Neville at 713-301-1546
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Here’s a mockup of the ad I put up on Craigslist (took me 2 minutes to make in photoshop):

(click hereif you can’t see the image)That’s it!

Just put that bad-boy up on Craigslist….in this case we’d place it in the SERVICES → COMPUTER section.

I’ve done this before, and started getting calls within a few hours of people wanting to meetup and PAY me!

Most “wantrepreneurs” will do useless stuff like:

• Make a portfolio (and spend a lot of time).
• Register an LLC company (and waste money).
• Try to set themselves up as a “We-Do-Everything” company and lose a lot of niche-power.

…..instead….just GET THE DAMN BALL ROLLING FIRST!

Within the first few clients you’ll make money PLUS get insanely-great feedback on what clients want and need (not to mention you’re getting PAID this whole time)!

See how easy that was to validate?
If we start getting calls and emails requesting our service….BOOM….we’re in business.

If no one bites….then we may have a service most people don’t need.

Peace,
-Neville – A Fatass Sumo

P.S.  Tomorrow I’m showing you my #1 go-to place for validating ideas right away (and fo FREE)!  Watch for the email tomorrow morning.

 

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UPDATE (5-1-2012): I got  several MORE people using the same ad, but this was my favorite email from it:

Hey Neville,

Just wanted to let you know I used your Craigslist Ad example to grow my SEO business.

Within 12 hours I had 2 leads. One closed today – $300 for 4 hours of work, not bad. The other one will close later this week.

Before posting your ad it took me 6 months to make my first $300.

If you ever want to grab burritos let me know. I live in Austin. I owe ya one or two or three!

Cheers,

Joel

A few things I’ve learned from my buddy Noah Kagan of AppSumo:

….or watch it BIG here:
http://www.appsumo.com/dojo/

Over the last few months I’ve been trying to GAIN weight.

During my previous six-pack experiment I realized that losing weight was also great because I FELT GOOD all the time from eating healthy food.

However with this weight gain stuff……I’ve been feeling like CRAP all the time.

In fact, I did a pretty bad job of gaining much weight since I simply couldn’t eat as much as I was supposed to everyday!

Adam from MyBodyTutor (who was helping me out) told me:

Eating is your JOB when you’re trying to gain weight.

I thought that sounded FUN!  I mean…..who wouldn’t want to stuff their face every 3 hours with lotsa food??

Well I’ll tell you this:  IT…..COMPLETELY….SUCKED.  

Eating became such a damn chore.

For starters, I always had to be around food…..and relatively healthy food at that (can’t simply eat fast food all the time).

I was supposed to eat at least 3,500 calories per day.

And at least 175 grams of protein a day (I weight about 175lbs right now).

Here’s what I looked like every time I realized how much food I’d be eating:

Plus I had to cut down on cardio exercises, and focus on weight training.  That meant less biking and outdoor stuff, and more pumping weights…..which isn’t all THAT fun on it’s own.

THE GOOD OF GAINING WEIGHT:

• I gained muscle and got “bigger”
• It was interesting to at least experience the weight GAIN part.
• Could eat WAY more at restaurants.

THE BAD ABOUT GAINING WEIGHT:

• I was full all the time, and usually tired because of all the food.
• I wasn’t as “clear” in my head.
• I had to use the bathroom a lot more….and things weren’t as “efficient” when going (picture THAT in your head)!
• I had to actually cook stuff….don’t think I’ve used a stove for over a year before this.
• I had to buy a lot of food all the time….I was going to Whole Foods pretty much every single day to get ready-made food that was healthy.
• Every heavy meal zonked me out.
• I enjoy meat…..but eating SO much meat concerned me.  Every meal was lots of protein which usually meant some meat.

I was actually REALLY BAD at following my diet requirements for gaining weight.  Almost every single day I missed my target calorie or protein intake since it was so damn much.

I just couldn’t do it sometimes.

I even called up Adam half-way through and told him I’d be cutting down my intake because it was interfering with my work (I had WAY less energy everyday).

WELL AANNYYYHOWWW….I’ve decided to start shedding the excess weight and get a bit more “cut” in the next few weeks/months.

I know posting shirtless pictures of yourself in the mirror is extremely douchey…..but it’s necessary as a point-of-reference….so here they are!

I can finally start eating healthier again….like this!

I’m not a fan of most “affiliate” bullshit I see on the net….but here’s a cool example I’ve seen over and over on Reddit:

I’ll be browsing Reddit, when I see this little ad:

I’ve actually clicked it a few times, and almost didn’t know it wasn’t an Amazon site…..but it had a lot of cool products, including some I clicked and BOUGHT! (so whoever runs this site has actually made money off me):

But this is a pretty non-scammy, and pretty damn simply example of an affiliate site that….I actually LIKE!

It was fun just browsing through the top products across multiple categories all in one page.

I’ve seen it posted many times for a long time, so it MUST be working!

Interesting eh?
-Nev