After deciding I was never going to go door-to-door ever again, I designed a beautiful flyer, that looked something like this…

It was so pretty and nice….

….but it absolutely BOMBED!

I got my friend to deliver a couple hundred of them and I didn’t get a single phone call.

I was shocked… (what an idiot I was).

Now if you’ve been following Neville for any period of time, you’re probably a lot smarter than I was at the time.  

You know why this flyer is sooo bad and you probably know how to write at least basic KOPY… like telling people WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM and offering some bloody benefits…

But I was stressing because I had no idea what benefits I could show.  

I started thinking what it was going to look like I was going to have to get a job unless I figured out this whole marketing thing QUICK!

I had a little bit of money left after my backpacking trip in South East Asia got cut short due to a motorcycle accident… but not much…

So, I went to my Dad, hat-in-hand, with my “beautiful”, terrible little flyer and asked him what I was doing wrong…

He laughed, handed me an old Dan Kennedy book on direct response marketing and a few chapters later, I threw away my first “beautiful” attempt.

I started again from scratch.  This time I didn’t care if the flyer was “beautiful” or “professional looking.”  I realized that didn’t matter.    

Here’s what I came up with my second time around:

I printed out 100 of these new flyers on my little inkjet and got my friend to deliver them to a local neighborhood.

100 flyers printed.  Total Cost = $20 

But I was still scared, because after my first failure, I remember thinking, “there’s no way I’m going to get calls…”

But the phone rang…..it rang 4 times!!!

I didn’t even know what to say when I answered… I hadn’t really thought that part through!

But it didn’t really matter… my new customers did most of the talking (you’ll find people LOVE to tell you all about their situation).

Within a day, I got 4 new customers and which ended up turning into around $600 dollars in business. 

It blew my mind!

I thought, “Hey there’s a lot more neighborhoods…..and if I just send out more of these flyers….I should get a bunch more customers… this is so much better than knocking on doors!”

When I met with the first customer, I didn’t suddenly learn how to become a sales star or even a smooth talker, or even know what the concept of an “upsell” was.  But I found out quickly.

Usually when people call you to powerwash their driveway, they like to walk around with you tell you their life story and while they’re at it, also show you what they want cleaned…

And usually, there’s a bunch of other dirty stuff right beside the thing they want cleaned.

So there was one thing I would say that worked really well with making more money. It honestly just seemed natural to ask it.

I would just ask:

“Would you like _____ cleaned too?”

People go… “Yea, geez… hmm yea. I didn’t think about that but now that you mention it can you clean that to?”

And you get 80%+ of people saying yes.

I feel like an idiot when I don’t ask… which is a little too often.

So I quickly learned that I just needed to send out more flyers to get more customers.  

I bought a bigger printer and I hired my friend to go out on his rollerblades and deliver 1,600 flyers each week at $0.18 cents per flyer. (At the time I didn’t know about Every Door Direct Mail in the U.S. or Unadressed Admail in Canada… which is what I do now and actually cheaper and more reliable than my friend).

And like clockwork, I would get at least 15 jobs… enough to keep me fully booked for the whole week.

It would cost me on average $25 to get a customer… and I’d bring in on average $200 from each customer right away… that’s 8x my money, which is pretty awesome math.

That’s like having a machine that I throw $100 into, and it throws $800 right back at me.  

And as long as these flyers kept being profitable… I kept sending them out. 

It was amazing how I could tweak the flyer a tiny bit and send it to the SAME neighborhoods every other week and I would still get more and more people calling in!

One neighborhood in particular, I sent flyers to them 16x one summer and it was still profitable in bringing new people in:

• People would have family coming over to visit and needed to get the home nice and clean…
• Or they were getting their home ready to sell…
• Or they’d see I cleaned their neighbors driveway and realize they wanted theirs done too…

People’s circumstances change and you’ve got to be there when they do.

By hyper focusing on neighbourhoods, you can quickly become the dominate player and can quickly end up cleaning 20% or more of the homes in an area.

Besides mailing a bunch I found these 3 things worked really well and would take one customer and turn it into 2 or 3 more…

For a service business like this… you make a lot more money by not wasting time and gas traveling long distances between jobs.

A lot of these powerwashing guys are driving all over the place because they’re not doing targeted marketing…

I’ve been able to stay busy in a small town with 5,000 homes and not have to venture out to any of the surrounding areas by doing three things:

The first thing I did this was mailing a letter like this before I was going to do a job…

The second thing was by having a sign and wearing high visible reflective gear:

I was such an idiot in the beginning and went without a sign for a long time!  As a result people didn’t realize I was for hire.  

The first day I got a sign, I had a lady come up and end up hiring me for $2,000 worth of work… that alone turned out to be a pretty good ROI on my $40 signs!

The third thing is to send a letter like this to the neighbors afterwards…

Would you spend $90 and work for free for a week… if you knew it would make you $21,000+?

I hope you would.

Because that’s how I got 45 out of 90 homes in a neighborhood to become customers, which has so far resulted in more than $21,000 in business.

Let me explain…

After cleaning a few driveways I started to notice something very interesting:

As soon as I cleaned someone’s driveway and they were able to see what a difference it made and how awesome it was to save 5 hours of back breaking, clothes soaking, mud splashing labour… it was like a switch had been flipped…

It was like suddenly they were the kind of people who clean their home and pay someone to do it for them.

They’d inevitably ask me if I could clean a bunch of other stuff for them and it would result in each customer being worth anywhere from $200 to as much as $2,000.

And it really got me thinking…

If I can just get someone started and committed to taking that little baby step, then the rest becomes really easy…

So, I picked a gated community of 90 homes, where I had already done some work and I sent out this letter for a free driveway cleaning:

I ended up getting 42 of them to become customers and it has resulted in over $21,000 in business!

The key to scaling up from the $6,202 was to make sure I kept the “customer getting system” up and continuously working.

If you rest on your laurels and get lazy (which happened to me more than once), the business starts to dry up.  

At first I was going door-to-door myself trying to get business.  This didn’t work at all….not to mention it was extremely stress-inducing for me.  

However when I started using copywriting principles to automate my marketing through flyers, it effectively got me from $50 an hour to being able to make $150/hr or more.

Sincerely,

Peter Van Straaten

Good morning! Let’s re-do this classic 1950’s David Ogilvy ad for Schweppes Tonic Water →

Here’s the original…

Let’s give it a more modernized headline 😂

What if we made it more seasonal and festive??

Let’s give it a totally different 90’s vibe (AI):

Let’s make it a little more eye-catching.
…get it…EYE catching 😏

Let’s make it tropical feeling 🌴

That was a fun exercise!  🙂

I love seeing local flyers like this in the wild because :
$2 worth of printing
+
$2 worth of tape
=
Thousands of eyeballs and thousands of dollars in revenue.

Here's the world’s top podcasts from 2023:

It's interesting that each one is from a specific individual:

Saw my buddy @thesamparr taking an evening stroll with the baby, and definitely thought he was wearing a bullet-proof vest 😂

Jay Leno accidentally gives some great marketing advice when talking about the CyberTruck's controversial design.

Reminds me of the quote: "Dare to polarize; it's better to be loved by some and hated by others, than to be forgotten by all."

Jay Leno says: “I just watch people get angry and either hate it, or love it. Bob Lutz told me when the Viper came out, half the people hated it an half the people loved it. But we’re not selling cars to the half that hate it. If you have 100 people that means 50 of them are buying it.”

It reminds me of this quote: “In a world full of ‘meh,’ be a ‘wow’. Blandness gets lost in the noise, but boldness has a chance to be heard.”

And also this quote: “If you try to be everything to everyone, you’ll be nothing to no one. Dare to polarize; it’s better to be loved by some and hated by others than to be forgotten by all.”

Which of these is the better name for an agency that does newsletters and high converting content marketing?
A.) Copy10x
B.) Kopy10x
C.) Email10x
D.) Content Fun
E.) CopyGang
F.) Kontent
G.) Optimize Upgrade
H.) Upgrade
I.) Upgraders
J.) Generate
K.) ConGen
L.) Show Don't Tell
M.) BuildUp
N.) Rebuild
O.) GoBig
P.) BigCheck
Q.) Create10x

Reply and let me know which you like! Or you can tell me they're all "meh" or give me your own suggestion!
 

I love this old Atari ad, it has a great headline:

“Don’t watch TV tonight. Play it!” 

This was a great headline in 1978 when “Playing the TV” was a totally new and novel concept!

Things that seem weird to teach kids today:

- Cursive writing
- Reading an analog clock 

Cursive was designed to reduce ink splatter from quil pens. This is no longer a problem, so I'm not sure why kids should learn to write English in two different ways:
🤔🤔

Circular clocks were simplest way to keep time with the stored energy from a wound up spring. This is no longer a problem.

Your phone, your watch, your computer....can all tell time with digital layouts:

These can still be “fun and interesting” things to teach children, but they are outdated and shouldn’t be required (in my opinion).

Seems like that brain space could be better applied to more modern problems!

This book is now worth $1,000+ each 🤯

I own 4 original copies of this book...so you're looking at a man holding $4k worth of books 😉

The reason it's so expensive is I posted this Instagram Reel video 3 months ago about how much I love this book, and since then it's gained tons of steam with 800k+ views, now every original copy of this book is 100% sold out!

Me and some friends got together an "Austin Texas Internet Meetup" last night!

My friend Nick Gray "conducted" the party, and did several rounds of quick ice-breaker style intros:

He even did "scene changes" for the party and we all went outside then came back inside twice 😂

He also picked several people to give 45 second "Lightning Talks" about different subjects they're interested in:

My friend Sam's dog Sid came....he's kind of an old boi (13 years!) and I was surprised he snuck up on the couch while we were all outside 😂

If you had an extra ~$1,000 per month to spend on your business, where would you spend it?

• Monthly advisor calls
• Creating new content
• Spend on ads
• Specific role
• Freelancer
• Other?

I asked Twitter and here were some responses:

• Probably 80% creating content, 20% boosting content w ads - @TyrelJohnson
• Spend 100% of that budget on @MentorPass calls cc @NoCodeKenny  - @BryantJaquez
• I would have said content a few months ago, but now I'd invest it in a freelancer who could research and get me stats and data. - @Ldnbox
• Coaching/consulting for either the business or self development.You are a direct extension of your business that will have greater returns than anything else you put into it. The coaching could be on anything from Sales, Marketing, Leadership etc ... - @dream_liv_scale
• Have never tried ads so can’t speak for that one, but probably an advisor. I’ve spent $15k+ in coaching in the past 6 months and it’s been the most life / business changing money ever. - @SilvestriChris
• either a VA or some sort of software that can help distribute the content tbh - @dgajsek
• The right answer is ads to email list as a self-liquidating funnel. Then keep reinvesting that money into more growth. - @FonziCreates
• Funny thing is creating new content doesn’t cost that much money it’s more like time and opportunity cost - @jackie_startok
• My salary 😂 - @kylevandeusen
• Advisor calls - wake me up to what I’m missing based on their experience - @TheDabbleBro
• Getting it off the ground - @hofo
• Twitter blue? - @swinterroth
• Getting a content creator - @JaySinghWrites
• Staff time off ratio. - @chris_bore
• In my pocket - @theGloPro
• 80% VA I’m the Philippines, 20% Ad Spend - @SyndicatorGuy
• Ads. My dream is get a scalable funnel this year. $1000 a month would be great to experiment with to get there. - @WhoWorksThere
• Either towards some sort of coaching/paid community or I’d blow it all on fun events I’d invite my dream 100 clients or partners to. - @JohnVishnesky
• Totally dependant on the problem in that moment, and business objective. - @theox500
• Ads. No question. Easiest ROI. There isn't an advisor who can teach me anything at $1k a month that would netback like ads. - @InkConor
• Me personally, content. But this is certainly a question with no definitive answer. All about what can bring the value you need the most: time/money/connections - @ctro1998
• It sounds crazy but spending $300 of it for a maid service a couple times per month has a huge ROI for women business owners. Delegating the chores frees a ton of time and mental stress. - @kathchalmers
• I just did so I spent it on working with @HeyJeffFelten and developing a strong email marketing strategy. The next extra $$$ will go to hiring a VA for customer success. -@thesaraloretta

In the end it seems like a good use for an extra $1k/mo would be on ads going to my email newsletter, or talking to 1 or 2 advisors per month!

I hope you have a very happy Friday!!

BY THE WAY...If I added a section to this email where I either place a sponsor or promote a product I personally use (software, books, household products etc)...would you mind??

I would call the section "Sponsored" or "Splurge" or "Spend" (open to suggestions). 

Reply to this email and let me know if you'd care or not!

I love the eye-grabbing image of this 1980 "boom box" ad, and how it focuses on one major feature of this stereo: The handle.

It shows that by buying this stereo you can take your music anywhere (which in 1980 was pretty neat):

Every business in the world will completely change how they operate in the next 10 to 20 years.

This is a huge opportunity to help them do it, or replace them.

There's always a shiny new thing on the internet. In my lifetime:
It used to be Digg
It used to be Craigslist
It used to be Del-icio-us
It used to be Orkut
It used to be MySpace
It used to be Xanga
It used to be Geocities
It used to be Friendster
It used to be Periscope
It used to be Instagram Posts
It used to be Instagram Stories
It used to be Instagram TV
It used to be YouTube
It used to be Vine
It used to be SnapChat
It used to be Twitter
It used to be Clubhouse
It used to be TikTok
It used to be Instagram Shorts
It used to be YouTube Shorts
It used to be BeReal It used to be........ ?

There will always be "the next hot thing."

The underlying commonality is all these platforms allowed to you connect with other people 🙂

Ironically the one platform that still brings me the most sales, yet gets very little recognition: Email.

Whatever the very rich have, thanks to technology in 20 years it’s usually available to everyone.

From 2001 to 2023:
• Secretary → Calendly
• Private Chauffeur → Uber
• Vacation Homes → AirBnB
• Consultants → UpWork → YouTube
• Employees → Software Automation

It'll be interesting to watch what's only available to the rich become commoditized and super cheap in 20 years:
• Hair transplants
• In vitro fertilization
• Corrective vision surgery
• Private jet access
• Detailed medical testing
• Virtual assistants

What else??

That's me, talking on the phone, to YOU:

Did you know every Wednesday and Friday I do 10 minute calls with people on my email list?

It's my way of connecting to new people, seeing what they do, learning about them, and just chatting.

If you want to setup a time, reply back to this email with "I WANNA CHAT!" and we'll setup a quick call.

I started doing this sometime last year and have talked to 100+ people so far!

You are judged and rewarded by your utility in life.

This means without even thinking about it, people naturally judge you by:
• Your looks
• Your height
• Your strength
• Your intelligence
• Your cleverness
• Your entertainment value
• Your loyalty
• Your competence
• Your wealth
• Your social capital
• Your manual labor
• Your reliability
• Your skills
• Your experience

Of course some of these qualities may be more/less valuable for men or women.

(If) you are trying to move up in life, generally increasing one or more of these can help.

It's neat to see different AI trends popping in 2022:

For fun I ran these same charts with all Elon Musk related companies. It seems certain keywords like specific car models have stable demand through the year:

I thought this would be a cool graph but it turned out not to be that insightful:

...

......

.........

............

...............

..................

.....................

......wait for it...

...........................

..............................

.................................

....................................

...you send out 3 different emails!

1.) Short Email: Ultra short, like a notification.
2.) Medium Email: Short, but with some added info.
3.) Long Email: Your full sales pitch.

Let's say we have to write an email for podcast outreach with the Short/Medium/Long Email format.

Here's how we'd do it:

This "Medium Email" adds a little more content to the message, giving out some great reasons why Nicollete should come on my podcast. 

If you don't know someone well, then maybe adding some more benefits to the request can help.

Whose hot dog would you want in your mouth? 
 Joe’s 
 -or- 
 Max’s?

I love how adding "Foot Long" just makes it more enticing or that you get more value!

This is an awesome axis-graph which let’s you see where you are on the smart/ugly/hot/dumb scale! 

This would be awesome to recreate for your industry:

Craigslist was basically THE main platform for individual-to-individual transactions during the early stages of the web.

It will be interesting to see which other mega platforms get unbundled over time:

In Texas there's this famous gas station called Buc-ee's...and each one is absolutely gigantic, almost like a small Wal-Mart:

It's got like 100+ gas pumps, 100+ restrooms, a gigantic carwash, and it's like a mall inside with food and chachkies. 

I saw this sign out front a few days ago, and was kind surprised by how high some of the salaries were!

If I were a teenager or on summer break, this would be an awesome place to work!

Platforms change, but good content and interesting people always rise to the top. For example....

It used to be MySpace
It used to be Friendster
It used to be LinkedIn
It used to be LinkedIn Posts
It used to be Orkut
It used to be Facebook
It used to be Facebook Pages
It used to be Bebo
It used to be YouTube
It used to be YouTube Shorts
It used to be Xanga
It used to be Twitter
It used to be Flickr
It used to be Tumblr
It used to be Pinterest
It used to be Podcasts
It used to be Instagram
It used to be Instagram Stories
It used to be Google
It used to be Google+
It used to be Google Video
It used to be Snapchat
It used to be Vine
It used to be TikTok
It used to be Periscope
It used to be Twitch
It used to be Reddit
It used to be Discord
It used to be Quora
It used to be Medium
It used to be SubStack
It used to be ClubHouse
It used to be Threads
....the list goes on.

There's sooooo many ways to spread your message, focus is becoming a problem:

Here's 3 questions to figure out which platform to focus on:
1. What social network do I have a natural advantage?
2. Will I enjoy spending 1-3 years of time on this platform?
3. Which one helps me create “Cascading Content”?

That last one to me is big.

Which social network do you create content on, that can be used as content elsewhere?

That's what I call "Cascading Content"

This cool graphic shows that if you take notes you can retain the wisdom of books you read:

I personally take all my notes in Apple Notes now, not directly in books anymore because I can recall/view them from any device.

Where do YOU keep your notes? I'm always interested in hearing how people keep these. Reply and lemme know!

Here’s some clever ways to turn boring data & stats into easier visuals:

1.) This was a clever way to spice up a boring “bar chart” and make it into a “Battery Bar Chart!” 📊

2.) Instead of boring bar charts show boring megaton data, this chart uses nuclear explosion visuals to show the different sizes of nuclear blasts.

3.) Instead of using words and data to describe lethality of different drugs, these viles each show a lethal dose of 3 different drugs, and shows how shockingly little is needed to overdose.

This visual hits home harder than plain numbers and data:

We are visual creatures. Our minds are ~6X likely to remember a message if it's combined with an image:

So if trying to get data across, sometimes it's beneficial to make it an image!

This is a neat quote:

Quote

“The amount of money a person receives will always be in direct proportion to the demand for what he does, his ability to do what he does, and the difficulty of replacing him.” 
- Earl Nightingale

This is a cool way to judge which career path or business to get into:
→ Demand for what you do
→ Your ability to do it
→ The difficulty of replacing you

In fact we could make a measuring scale out of this:
→ Demand for what you do (Rate 1-5)
→ Your ability to do it (Rate 1-5)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (Rate 1-5)

A janitor is a job associated with low pay because MOST people in the world are capable of doing the job.

If an average janitor needs to be replaced, it's very easy:
→ Demand for what you do (3)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (1)

If an average brain surgeon needs to be replaced, it's very difficult:
→ Demand for what you do (5)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (5)

I've given other note-taking and organization apps like Notion and Coda many solid tries....but I keep winding up back on Google Docs.

90% of what I love about Notion is being able to navigate to different pages quickly via it's sidebar menu.

If Google Docs had something like this, it would like beat the pants off any other up-and-coming app.
I wish Google Docs would add this functionality, like:

Editing a physical paper "back in the day" had a whole markup language of its own, shown in this graph:

If you were an editor or proofreader, you would know most of these!

I only knew two of these symbols: The "insert" mark ^ and the paragraph mark ⁋

How many of these symbols did you know??

Features -vs- Benefits is a common discussion in copywriting. 

Feature: Something your product has (ex "Water Resistant Cloth").
Benefit: Result after using your product (ex: "You stay dry in the rain").

For example you can sell the features of an umbrella: 
Unbreakable stems, wooden handle, water resistant cloth.

-or-

You can sell the benefits of an umbrella:
Keeps you dry in the rain, keeps the sun off when it's hot.

Selling the "benefits" of a product is usually the wiser decision. Even David Ogilvy said so:

My advice on the Features -V- Benefits debate is:
 

USE BOTH!

I prefer trying to sell the benefit, and backing it up with the features. So:

Love the use of "rhyme" to help people remember important stuff.....such as which bear to run from 😬

Something I got from people's comments on Twitter were Polar Bears are by farrrr the most dangerous bear!

• If they're Polars, they'll soon be spitting out ya molars
• If it's a Polar, you cannot control her

If you take away one thing from this email....it's don't play with Polar Bears 😂

37Signals posted this awesome copy on once.com (awesome domain name), and it explains how they’re charging only ONCE for their software and not the standard subscription-style that’s become so common:

I love the honest and simple way they wrote this!

This one might sting a little for some (including me)....but this chart shows the college majors people most regret getting, usually due to a lack of opportunity the major gets vs the amount of effort/cost to acquire it. 

Do you regret any of these??

“How do I make money?”  This graph has answers! 

Just glancing at it you’ll discover a ton of different services you probably didn’t even know about for making some side money:

The eye tracking chart:

1 year ago to this day: 
"Let's go paint balling and dress up like we came from the office." 

....only one person did 😂

Nothing can get more complex than explaining economic ideas, but having a slick image can do it in 1 second. Here’s some examples:

This graph shows allllll the different excuses to sell over the last 15 years.

It explains a simple-yet-complex concept to hold very long term, and ignore short term fluctuations. This is what Warren Buffett has been preaching for 50+ years!

Here’s a graph explaining inflation, and how “$1” is worth far less over time.

This one is super cool, instantly showcasing the concept that it took Google a whole slew of successful products to get where they are today:

This graph shows that “timing the marketing” can be very profitable…or a total loss 😳

This graph gives a range of income to be considered “Middle” Class” in different areas:

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Question for you:

What have YOU learned the most from me in the past years?
A.) Copywriting
B.) Digital Marketing
C.) Making money
D.) Sales

Reply with your answer! I read all of them!

Sometimes a simple comparison helps you *instantly* understand something. 

This simple graphic seen on Instagram *instantly* shows your fullness level after eating 400 calories of 
oil -vs- beef -vs- vegetables:

I first learned what a "calorie" was when I was 26 years old, and comparisons helped me understand it better.

I ate King Size Snicker's bars all the time which were 440 calories each.
"440 calories" on it's own meant nothing until I started comparing it to  other foods.

I was shocked I could eat 12 clementines and get less than 440 calories! I even made this image for myself back then:

These comparisons slowly helped me discern good foods and bad foods.

Using comparisons (or "analogies") are very useful when explaining something!
 

I love this quote:

Quote

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires. 
- William Arthur Ward

I'm not a big hot sauce person, but for some reason this one just hits the right spot:

- Very flavorful.
- Goes on anything.
- Not hot enough to wreck stomach.

Cholula is great in general, but the Chipotle flavor is even yummier!

Yesterday was my 40th birthday, so here's 40 lessons l've learned about life...

Just kidding, I dunno anything, I'm just gonna have fun 🤩

I was in Mexico City last weekend celebrating a bit, and this weekend I'll be in Austin. 

Friends have stuff planned but I don't know what it is yet 😬

"Be clear, not clever" is generally great advice, especially when trying to sell something. 

However sometimes "cleverness" and "beauty" can work!

For example I think this graphic of bicycle parts is both beautiful and clever:

Or what about this clever (and kinda funny) ad for Pringle's Hot & Spicy 😂

Or this beautiful Rolls Royce ad just showing how pretty the car is:

When selling and writing, I think clearness is best.....but every once in a while some cleverness and beauty can go a long way!

The "Compression of Information" marches forward as we get better technology. 

For example I made a 7 minute video about "Becoming Indispensable", but recently put out a YouTube Short video that's only 39 seconds....and to be honest it kinda gets the same point across, but 10x more efficiently!

To me, copywriting has always been about getting information from one brain to another brain....or one brain to a MILLION brains. 

Whichever the most efficient method is best. 
 

This "compression of information" has happened to reading:
🕓 🕓 🕓 Books: Days to read.
🕓 🕓 Magazine Articles: Minutes to read.
🕓 Tweets: Seconds to read. 

Also it's happening to video:
🕓 🕓 🕓 Movies: Hours to watch.
🕓 🕓 YouTube Videos: Minutes to watch.
🕓 "Shorts" Videos: Seconds to watch. 

I've been experimenting with some shorter form content all this year, maybe you could follow me on those platforms to see it?

• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• TikTok
• LinkedIn

Do you like shorter form content? Do you consume it?? Reply and let me know!

While this chart isn't visually very interesting, but the content is very juicy!

This is USA data from 2023 that shows your age and net worth, and what percentage you fall in compared to others.

Example: You're 32 years old and have a $500,000 net worth, this makes you richer than 90% of people your age. 

How did I not know this before? 

Even number interstates: Side to Side 
Odd number interstate roads: Up and Down

I love it when a simple graphic like this teaches you something useful!

The last episode of My First Million Podcast was recorded from my office with the standard 1080p webcam on the iMac M3.

Sam Parr initially thought this was the DSLR camera feed! I still think a DSLR camera looks better, but these webcams are getting good!

I still think a full DSLR setup look best, but the iMac and iPhone aren't too far behind. 
Same lighting, same positioning, different webcams:
• Sony a6400 DSLR
• iPhone 14 Pro
• iMac M3 webcam
• iMac M1 laptop webcam

In Austin, TX. we got a 100% eclipse blackout, but it was super cloudy!

So I couldn't really see the eclipse itself too well, but the whole place went dark which was really neat:

Here I am watching the eclipse from home:

It was fun seeing all the neighbors from every house out as well (also you can see the auto-sensors on the downtown building lights turned on when it got dark)!

One of my goals this year is to treat my business more like a 9-5 job.

This means:
- A little less needless goofing off during the day.
- Finish my entire to-do list during biz hours.
- Just because I don’t have anything to do, doesn’t mean I HAVE to do nothing.

When I was younger and with less obligations it was easy to spread out work across all 16 waking hours. But with more social/family/friend stuff going on, time becomes more precious.

The 9-5 time block makes a lot of sense, as most of the world operates around this schedule.

A few benefits I have are:
- Not having to commute and deal with traffic.
- This 9-5 schedule is *self* imposed, not forced.

I have a quick request for you 👇🏼

All you have to do is reply back to this email with a testimonial for either Copywriting Course, The Swipes Email, or stuff you've learned from me.

Different types of testimonials you can respond with:
Level 1.) Respond with anything nice to say about me or Copywriting Course. 
Level 2.) Respond back with a lesson you learned, applied, and did better with. 
Level 3.) Respond back with something you improved, and send visual proof or numbers of it improving! 
Level 4.) Respond back with a video testimonial. 

I read every single one of these! I appreciate it so much!!

**Let me know if you want me to anonymize your name on the testimonial.

This is the average cruising speed of commercial aircraft, and you can see it leveled out at ~500mph and has stayed there for 45 years.

I love images like this that teach you "a little sumthin" in a quick visual!

I heard a quote "The New Year actually starts in February" 😂

I personally didn't do much in January this year, so here's to finishing my February Goals!

Hope you've got your goals set for this month and this year!

My buddy @RamonVanMeer sold his last company then started several companies in the pet space, and went on SHARK TANK trying to sell "Genius Litter" dressed as Albert Einstein 😂

I can't wait to hear his experience of how they film the show!

He got Lori, Mark, and Robert to invest in his company together at $250,000 for 10%:

You can see the negotiation here:

What's really interesting is how he practiced his pitch at home with picture cutouts of the Sharks 😂:

Here's an A/B/C/D Split Test I'm currently running on the Copywriting Course Homepage (where most of our email signups come from).

Which variation do you have a hunch will win??

I'll report back results next week on the winners!

I'm just gonna do it: I'm not gonna drink caffeine for the next two weeks.

I’ve tried tapering off and keep failing, so it's time to rip the Band-Aid and go cold turkey.

I'm posting here for accountability.....otherwise I'll slide back into the sweet sweet sensation of caffeine 😬

My last caffeine was 10am yesterday (Thursday), I assume withdrawals will kick in within 24 hours from then.

"What's the big deal?? This doesn't sound hard!!" That's what I thought, and every time I try to give up caffeine for a bit I cave after 2 days.

I drink between 250mg and 400mg of caffeine per day in either the form of black coffee or sugar free energy drinks.

I love caffeine, but it's now become a MUST HAVE in the morning and not an optional thing. I just hate that I'm dependent on it and want a reset.

I purposely picked a weekend to suffer through the caffeine withdrawals so I don't have much work to do.

February 22nd (two weeks) I'm allowed to have caffeine again

I just did an interview with my bestest buddy Noah Kagan about reverse engineering business and his book Million Dollar Weekend.

SEE FULL NOTES -->

• 0:00:27 Watch Noah go through the different split tests they tried to pick out the book cover.
• 0:02:10 The way to design a book cover is look at it like a tiny little thumbnail, as if someone is browsing on Amazon on their phone.
• 0:05:05 People don’t usually randomly get “lucky” with success, there’s often a ton more methodology behind those people. Tim Ferriss and James Clear examples.
• 0:07:07 Most people are shy about marketing.
• 0:08:18 If you build something people want, it’s easier to market it and tell people about it because you’re proud.
• 0:08:34 Noah lists products he’s tried that DIDN’T work, easy to forget when you have success that tons of stuff didn’t work.
• 0:10:19 Make sure people want the thing you’re about to sell. Start Today. Ask People. Stick With It.
• 0:10:40 Cliches are true.
• 0:11:35 Example: Guy built a podcast guest research tool for $20/mo. Meh. BUT if you send people more podcast listeners that’s more valuable. When you don’t have to convince someone to buy it, that’s when you know it’s valuable.
• 0:12:22 I validated a newsletter writing service (or dis-validated). Get closer to the money. Help people save more money or make more money.
• 0:14:00 The right answers are often simple and boring. The complex answers are more exciting. Keep things very simple. Complexity is not better.
• 0:15:58 I’m calling it TwitterX from now on.
• 0:16:11 Companies will do things end customers don’t care about, like new logos. Instead just gimme a cheaper price!
• 0:16:37 Why did you wanna write a book? I wanted to embrace something that will take a long time. Have done self published books before, but wanted to do full publisher route. Started writing proposal on March 2020 and book came out February 2024.
• 0:20:30 Noah’s book goals: 1,000 reviews. 25,000 sales in first 7 days.
• 0:21:42 We got a publisher to agree to publish a book, and they didn’t care what it was about so long as you can sell 10,000 books.
• 0:22:50 Almanack of Naval Ravikant self published, crossed a million in sales, but won’t appear as a NYTimes best seller.
• 0:24:35 A book proposal needs stuff like how big is your audience, first full chapter, table of contents and market differentiation.
• 0:25:00 Self Publishing vs traditional publishing. Traditional feels like you have to swing for the fences and take it more seriously. Self publishing is probably the future, but for now traditional still feels different.
• 0:25:53 Noah asks Neville what he saw from his vantage point when creating this book.
• 0:28:19 “Yesterday we did $284,000 in sales, but that originally started from a PayPal button and Gmail.”
• 0:30:07 Find things that don’t feel like effort to you. Craft your life to include more of those things.
• 0:32:56 Seinfeld said he loves the boring “long Shawshank slog through the sewer” which is why he lasted in comedy.
• 0:35:44 Copywriting Course email marketers and freelancers making more money.
• 0:38:29 We watched two of Noah’s videos, the supposedly “cheesier” one about asking yacht owners what they do was far more educational.t
• 0:44:23 The Ten Year Rule: Can I do this for 10 years? Will it be easy or hard for me?
• 0:46:05 Do you write much? For the book launch 30 days of content for social media, plus 5 emails for launch week, plus a weekly email. I really enjoyed doing the actual writing and marketing. Creating an email that’s so f’ing good that even if you don’t buy you enjoy it.
• 0:47:05 There’s an absence of really good long-form blog articles. Seems like newsletters have taken over.
• 0:47:43 I started writing on NevBlog again. No comments. No distribution. But it’s a cool place I can write in semi-peace.
• 0:49:25 “The Artist’s Way” book. When you just sit and write stuff you can come up with more ideas than you expect.
• 0:51:42 Where do you come up with ideas? Mostly just shared Google Docs
• 0:53:43 How do you develop taste? You taste a lot of dishes!
• 0:57:53 Do more of what works over a very long period of time.
• 0:59:25 Noah’s guiding star to keep focus. “I hate losing. I like competition. I need an enemy.”
• 1:01:55 Noah likes having a team because then outputting a lot of stuff is sustainable.
• 1:02:28 Noah actually works very hard. Knowing him for years I see that when he works, HE WORKS, and he’s locked in for long periods of time.
• 1:03:10 There are certain days I don’t do anything…but systems in place keep things going.
• 1:03:58 “Anger is a gift.” Use frustration to work harder. Don’t mask it.
• 1:10:15 Internet allows you to live way different lives than a few years ago that weren’t possible. You can live in a small town in Ireland and be the creative director of Red Bull.

The marketing and behind the scenes he goes into is a masterclass in book marketing alone!

Watch the interview here -->

Instagram has seemingly been the best performing platform so far. 

Here's some stats:

I believe of all the social platforms, YouTube view counts are probably the most honest.

YouTube Shorts definitely boosted view numbers on my channel:

...however my lack of posting long form video hindered subscriber growth 😞

Overall I'd say the YouTube Shorts videos have helped the channel get more views and activity but not subscriber growth without long form content being added:

TikTok has been "meh" performing so far, although definitely doing something. 

I started with almost no followers, now have almost 2,000....so that's something. 

LinkedIn was kind of a long shot here because it's not known as a video platform, but it's doing decent.

One benefit of LinkedIn is that it brings in a totally different audience than other social platforms. 

Because it’s “handwritten” you'd think someone wrote this and left it at your door…and it definitely got my attention enough to read through it!

The ad above is from a flooring company, but it looks like the window installation industry has caught onto this too, checkout this "handwritten quote" from a window installer:

Speaking of hand writing....I currently hand write my daily to-do list, but it lacks one major component:

It's not digital so I can't share it between devices!

My wishlist of features would be:
• Access/edit from phone and desktop.
• Easily integrates with everything.
• Not many options, dead simple.

SO I polled Twitter for the best *simple* daily to-do list app, here's results:

• Todoist: 21 votes
• Things3: 7 votes
• MS Todo: 5 votes
• Apple Notes: 4 votes
• Google Keep: 4 votes
• Written: 4 votes
• Apple Reminders: 3 votes
• Notion: 3 votes
• Teuxdeux: 3 votes
• TickTick: 3 votes
• Asana: 2 votes
• Evernote: 2 votes
• Sunsama: 2 votes
• Trello: 2 votes
• Tweek.so: 2 votes
• Alexa: 1 vote
• Any.Do: 1 vote
• Carrot: 1 vote
• Done: 1 vote

I will commence playing around with a few of these! Let me know if you have suggestions as well 🙂

In Apple Stores all screens are tilted at exactly 76° degrees. This is so you move the screen with your hand…interacting with the product more and making you feel more attached to it.

They use protractors to measure the screens:

The laptop screens are measured at 76° as well:

Isn't that level of obsession so hilariously "Apple-like"? 😂

I remember Earl Nightingale telling a story from the 1970's about a top television salesman (I'm paraphrasing this):

Guess the 76° Rule isn't so crazy!

A fun & cheap joy in life is getting a carwash!

Here's me enjoying my $7 thrill 😂

It's like you go into a different world for a few minutes.

Pro-Tip: If you have automatic seat presets, make setting #3 a "CHILLAX" setting where one button push leans the seat back, lowers the seat, and moves the steering wheel up 😎

An extremely common Instagram Ad I’ve been seeing is this white paint makeover for older brick houses.

They just paint over the brick, and paint the window trims black so it gives the house an updated "Stucco" look. TBH it looks pretty damn good!

I think Before & After photos are one of the best way to get attention for a service on social media. It instantly shows the transformation people want without a lot of text. Here's another great example of Before & After ad:

**Side Note** I posted that brick-to-white house makeover on social media, and HOLY COW DO SOME PEOPLE HATE IT!!

I personally think it looks neat, but man the amount of hate comments it got was kind of hilarious. Never thought THIS would spark such a heated debate 😬

Whatever your yearly goal is, you still have 9 more months to complete it:

❌ Q1: January, February, March
✅ Q2: April, May, June
✅ Q3: July, August, September
✅ Q4: October, November, December

At this time I'd like to invite you to join The Copywriting Course.

Why?

Because if you sell online we can help you optimize & improve every piece of marketing you have:

Here's 4 Member Wins from March 2023 alone:

"Thanks for the feedback on my newsletter. It worked really well. We sold out of our first shipment on the first day. " - HN

"And I thought I was just gonna learn copywriting here. Thanks for the GOLD marketing advice." - JH

"Major win---launched my podcast today! Thank you all for the inspiration, support and great feedback that made it possible!" - TG

"I'm amazed how much my business grew in 2023. This course and the hands-on feedback from the mentors & community made all the difference!" - JN

We go way beyond just a course, and actually help you re-write your copy and content!

• You Learn (courses)
• You Practice (copy practice assignments)
• You Get Guidance (our 24/7 reviewing forum)
• You Get Live Reviews (our weekly Office Hours)
• You Improve

For the next few hours if you join Copywriting Course, you'll get 30% off a whole year. Jump in today:
 

Link: www.CopywritingCourse.com/join
Coupon Code: Q2START (enter at checkout)

I hope you enjoyed these Friday tid-bits!
Sincerely, 
Neville Medhora

P.S.

It sells a training course that teaches people to become better writers with a focus on selling. Small businesses buy this to learn how to write better copy, and companies buy it for their employees to teach them to write better copy.

If people want help on their copy, they post it here, and myself and writers go through it and change it up for them. Then on Thursdays we get on an Office Hours call and take up to 8 questions from members, and re-do copy or talk strategy live on the call.

So the Copywriting Course is a combination training and community…and we sell monthly and yearly subscriptions to it. 

A swipe file is a collection of good marketing materials you like or can learn from. Years ago I started building my own swipe file on a desktop folder. Also a phone folder. But then when I wanted to recall something like Pricing structures, I’d have to sift through the whole damn thing.

So I created SwipeFile.com, where the whole world could access my private swipe file. I wanted to SwipeFile to be an independent site, and not necessarily related to Copywriting Course. The way it makes money is it has Google Adsense ads on it, and when someone clicks an ad, I get a portion of that revenue.

Swipe File makes money and pays for itself, but the main goal of it is to build the worlds best swipe file.

I self published a book called This Book Will Teach You To Write Better. it sells on Amazon. I originally tried to make it free, but with Amazon I have to charge some money. I made it $5, and it was designed to be a readable-in-30 minutes crash course on writing copy. Till this day it still sells and has hundreds of reviews.

I will say, of any form of income I make from the copywriting world, this book is the most “PASSIVE” of them all. I published it a few years ago, and have done NOTHING since. It just naturally sells on the Amazon platform, and still keeps going to this day. Honestly if I wanted to boost my passive income, I’d re-do this book and boost the price to $20/pop.

Before I started copywriting course people would ask for help with their email newsletters, and I’d charge them by the hour, sometimes by the project depending on the client.

I would help people re-write things on the spot, which is honestly very rewarding in many ways: I got to see insider numbers of different companies, hear what methods work and don’t work for them, get to meet really cool people, and they pay me money. All around it’s pretty awesome.

If all I did was consult, that would make a pretty good living. I think the reason most people find other income streams though is if you ONLY consult, your time becomes quite in demand, and your business can’t function without you. In fact, YOU are the business. This is why finding other streams of income outside of just consulting is good.

I post videos about copywriting, people subscribe, and I get paid in two ways:

1.) People decide to buy our copywriting course training. So they signup for a subscription.

-and-

2.) I get a percentage of ad revenue. Whenever people watch my videos, YouTube will show advertisements, and you get to share in a percentage of those. 

You can see all my YouTube stats at CopywritingCourse.com/stats

When people click links (like these book links), and buy a book, I get a small percentage of that. This usually isn’t HUGE revenue, but if you make a few hundred bucks a month like this, it’s usually very passive. 

For example I wrote a post about how I setup my home office camera setup and lighting. When it started ranking in the search results, people would often buy the cameras I recommended, and if I get 4% of an $900 purchase that’s $36 I didn’t have to work too hard for.

So this isn’t full time income, but it adds up to a nice little nugget!

Sometimes people sponsor my Friday SWIPES email and pay me for it. This email goes out to just shy of 60,000 people every week, and sponsors can promote their product in a small section of the email.

I’m even testing out a self-serve method at copywritingcourse.com/sponsor

Sometimes medium to large companies will bring me on as an adviser. This means I get equity in the company, and a certain amount of advising fees. I often help the companies develop their email newsletters out, much like with TheHustle or AppSumo, and if there’s a sale or acquisition, I might see piece of that upside too.

Here's a funny "Swipe File In The Wild" I saw yesterday while walking around my neighborhood....this hilarious van promoting their plumbing service 😂

Here's the side of the van featuring a dude "flying" above an air conditioning condenser unit 😂

Sometimes I'm skeptical of advertisements that are purely just "funny" but don't actually work. Many bar/restaurant signs are like this:

However this Radiant Plumbing van totally caught my eye, made me laugh, and made me take a pic....and now I'm talking about it here to 56,734 people current on this SWIPES email newsletter....so maybe it works!

Something to remember when selling your product:

People generally don't want the product itself, but rather the change it brings:

I question the accuracy of this information, but I found this to be a cool visual layout for showing what age you "peak" at certain life skills or events.

According to this chart, my plan to die at 85 on November 17th, 2067 is justified 😂

Take the information in this chart with a grain of salt...but I do love the way it's laid out.

There's this "Tooth Gem" fad happening where you can get a small fake diamond put on your tooth:

✦ It's NOT permanent.
✦ You can peel it off anytime.
✦ It'll last up to a week.
✦ It costs roughly $50.

It's getting kind of popular:

At an event this weekend they were giving them out for free, so a group of us decided to get them 😂

It required a 2-minute "procedure" where they use dental glue to place the fake diamond, then use a UV light to harden it.

It kind of looks like you're getting a dental cleaning:

It was a fun little thing to do, not permanent, and a fun conversation starter!

Since most of us work from home, your office area has become increasingly important. 

Here's an evolution off my own office spaces as technology became more and more a part of our lives:

College dorm room setup circa 2002:

College dorm room plastic desks:

Then for many years after I had the standard desk + computer combo in various apartments:

Of course I'd randomly work from other tables or balconies on the laptop just to switch things up:

There was even a hot minute where I attempted to go "100% laptop only" in order to not be attached to a desktop. I tried using an up-down rolling desk:

That worked decently....but ultimately it wasn't great for long periods of work, and frankly it looked stupid:

Then came the era of making a whole room into an office:

Each version was a little different as video become more important and I had to make the offices look prettier on camera:

Now many offices need teleprompters, good lighting, designed backgrounds, 3 camera setups, microphones etc:

My current office serves as a reading room, recording studio, workspace for others, and can also turn into a queen bedroom for spillover guests:

The ironic thing is, I'd say 50% of the time I just work from a laptop with friends on the dining table 😂

This crappy error message gets seen over 1,000 times a day on Copywriting Course:

It's a pretty crappy error message, and not very effective. I made it really quick as a placeholder and never updated. 

Do YOU have any ideas on how to make this error message awesome? 

I'd like it to convey why someone should join the Copywriting Course.

People see this error message when they try to view member-only material, but they are not a member. 

For example: We have a "Live Feed" sidebar on the blog with member-only material:

If someone clicks one of those links without being logged in, they see that crappy error message:

I thought it'd be a fun experiment to take suggestions from this Friday S.W.I.P.E.S. Email list. 

Reply to this email with your copy suggestions or design suggestions!

If I use your ideas, I'll send you a C❤️PY tshirt!