Writing Your Way to Millions with Neville Medhora
Whatever it was, it was like the idea to event was 6 weeks and I made $40,000 in profit or something like that. And I didn't spend a cent on marketing and it was all through these sales emails that I was sending people.
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
I put my all in it like no days off.
On the road, let's travel, never looking back.
So right now on the podcast, we have Neville Medhora. I've known Neville for, um, 10 years now, maybe 8, 8 years now. I was a, I don't know if you know the story, Ben. I was a fan of Neville's, so I read his blog and I was 22 at the time and he wrote about copywriting and I was like, man, copywriting's amazing. I gotta meet this guy. And at the time he was charging for what he called a, it was called a consult, like a like an hour-long consultation. And I didn't have any money. I couldn't, I couldn't afford it, but I bought his course and I was like, I gotta get to know this guy more. So I, I go, hey, I'm hosting an event in San Francisco. Do you want to speak there? I'll arrange all accommodations and travel. And he goes, yeah, I'm in. And so I bought him a ticket on Southwest for like $250. And his accommodation was, I just let him sleep in my bed and I just slept on the couch. And the event, I think the event Wasn't the event like just like 30 people?
You originally had like a book club. That was the first thing. So you were also like, when you got there, you're like, would you also want to speak at a book club? And I was like, well, okay, fine. And then, uh, you also did like Bootstrap Live. Is that what it was called?
Yeah. And I made $3,000 hosting that event. And so it was all good. I, I, you made me money and I paid for your flight, but yeah, you just stayed at my house. That was a little bit of a fast one.
It was, as I remember it, I was sleeping. You're, you're like, accommodations are usually like a hotel suite or something. And it was like, Your couch with an 85-pound pit bull was my accommodation. But anyways, I thought you were cool and we're still friends to this day.
So yeah, so Neville was the best man at my wedding, so we're close. He also— him and I now live two doors away from each other. And Neville has this thing called Copywriting Course. It was Copywriting Course with two Ks, Copywriting Course with each K. Now it's Copywriting Course, two Cs, normal spelling. And he's basically had this course on— today is all about copywriting. It's all basically I'm getting at. But he launched a course like 15 years ago, and basically the same videos that he recorded for this course like 15 years ago is how he's been making a living for over a decade, which is—
yeah, I think 2011. So I was working closely with, uh, our, our good buddy Noah Kagan. He was, uh, building AppSumo like off my couch, and we were launching courses through AppSumo. And this is like 2010, 2011 when courses were like a new concept. It was like kind of cool to release a course. And, um, one of them that hit really well was about copywriting cuz we were sending out to all the, uh, the AppSumo email newsletter subscribers, which is hundreds of thousands at the time. We're sending out all these really funny newsletters that also sold. So people would always ask the same question. They go, I know you're trying to sell me something, so why do I keep reading the whole damn email? And I was like, well, it's because of copywriting. And, and I had been like studying it for a while, so it seemed obvious to me, but everyone was like, what is copywriting? How do I do copywriting? How do I implement that on my own? And so I was like, well, let's make a course so I could replicate myself and sell that. And we released that on AppSumo 2011, 12, something like that. And it just like, it was one of those things that just like struck gold. It just hit. And I was like, oh, maybe there's something there. And over time, you're right. That's kind of what I'm known for. And that is probably my primary income to this day.
Yeah. And you live like a pretty fancy life. You own a nice house. You, you buy nice shit. You don't work that much. So like, yeah, it's been a good business and now, and then, so basically a lot of people now know me as the copywriting person or a copywriting, a, a cop, not the, but a copywriting person.
You're good.
You're good.
Well, I'm okay. And I learned it from you and then Sean a little bit absorbed it from me. Now he's really good. And, uh, so anyway, I, we wanted to do a whole episode on copywriting, but, um, yeah. Do we wanna start with copywriting, Ben, or do we wanna talk about the Moving Next Door thing? Cause that's kind of interesting too.
Well, we're already on the copywriting thing. Like, let's keep going. I, I'm curious, Neville, like you talked about, like we kind of started to get into Sam's origin story with you, but where is like your entry point into copywriting? Where, where did you learn all this?
Easy. So, so when I was in college, well, actually when I was in high school, so this is a while ago, e-commerce was coming up and I started an e-commerce business called houseofrave.com. I don't even know if it still exists. And it was a rave company. I sold light up and glow stuff online. I was like a middleman. It's like what we nowadays call dropshipping, back then it was kind of like a cool new idea. And so I started that and I realized I had all these, uh, people on the email list. There was like 8,000 people that had subscribed and opted into the email list and I never sent them anything. And I used to go to all these marketing meetups and there was kind of like, some of these scammy marketers were always like, you should just send out emails. The money is in the email, all that kind of stuff. So I started sending out an email newsletter that I thought you're supposed to send. It's like, here's my products, uh, big buy buttons, all that kind of stuff. And, uh, I was spending $80 a month on the email service. However, I was making about $40 per email. So I was going net negative every time I sent an email. And I spent all this time like photographing, uh, products, writing descriptions, all that kind of stuff. So then one of my friends, Ryan, he was just like, you should study copywriting. I was like, like, like the law stuff? He's like, no, no, no. Like copywriting, like marketing. And he put me on to who Sam also knows, Gary Halbert. So I read the Gary Halbert letters. They're called the Boron Letters, chapters 1 through 26. I printed them out and I read them. And the, the key is actually printing them out cuz he wrote them from jail and they're, they're meant to be actually read out. So he wrote these letters to his son from jail trying to teach him everything he knows, like in case something happened to him. And from there, every day until 6 in the morning, I was up reading these stupid letters. Uh, not stupid, but they were awesome. And, and I was so happy and sad at the same time, happy that I had found this stuff. And sad that I had not found it earlier. And from there I went down this whole copywriting rabbit hole studying Joseph Sugarman, Jay Abraham, all these like legendary copywriters, some scammy, some not. But I started applying that to House of Rave emails. And the first email I did, I had the highest revenue day I ever had in House of Rave history. And I was like, huh, that could either be a fluke. So let me try it again. And I did it again and again. And almost overnight, House of Rave turned into more of an email marketing company. Than a company making just random sales off of SEO. And that's how I got started. I was like, oh, there's something to this.
And then you like created the course and it became a thing. But, uh, like you were kind of the first person that I'd really read about, about copywriting stuff. What, uh, when did it finally click where you're like, this is writing is the way to go and words actually matter?
Well, I've always written online. I had a personal blog called nevblog.com that I started in God knows when. I think I was like writing in HTML. So long ago and it was on like blogger.com. And I remember thinking, I like doing this for free. This is before I was ever making money with, with a blog. I just thought it was like a fun thing to do. And it seemed almost comical to me, like hilarious that I could write things and people would end up paying money for that because it was something I did for free already. So I was just like, I already like doing this. I'm probably going to keep doing it no matter what. And I write things and then people end up buying because I convinced them. That was, that was like, there was like, oh, there's something here. And the cool thing is once you write it once, you could digitally distribute it forever. There's, there's no limit to it. It's free to distribute to a billion people if you want. So that was something interesting.
It's a superpower. When I started The Hustle, it was basic. My idea was basically like, we should do news, but I'm going to steal a bunch of tactics. So I bought Neville's course and that's how I got into copywriting. I was like, I'm going to steal a lot of these ideas. And basically make like mixed kind of journalism with this, like, it's not copywriting because I'm not selling, but it is copywriting because I'm trying to convince people to read it. And I was like, I'm just gonna make The Hustle like a copywriting thing, uh, like it's journalism with copywriting. And it worked. And I remember when I— now it's become more popular, but when I launched The Hustle and started working on the conferences that you you also spoke at, I think I got 10,000 people to sign up for my email list, which was basically just me writing about the speakers for the conference. I got 10,000 people to sign up in like 6 weeks and everyone was like, dude, you're writing so good. And I'm like, I'm like, it's okay, but you don't know that I'm just stealing from like, I'm like, I didn't make this up. I'm just stealing ideas from people.
Yeah. We all learn from— standing on shoulders of giants. Stuff like that. I remember the, the hustle. You, you were throwing HustleCon, you were throwing a conference, you were making a conference company, and you quickly realized, wait, just sending out the emails was better than the conference. And that's how The Hustle started, it seemed. And it said, I remember like The Hustle is like a tech bro read the news and then regurgitated it to you. That's kind of what it reminded me of, which I, I still think it kind of is.
It is not tech bro. Most of our early employees actually were women. So the first writers we hired, a lot of people don't know this, were all women. So basically it was, At one point, I was the only man who worked at The Hustle when we had like 7 employees. A lot of people don't know that. And they would call us bro. And I'm like, I'm like, first of all, that's not really an insult because— but you're trying to mean it like an insult. I don't think that's an insult. But second of all, it's not exactly true. It's women writing this thing.
A little bit. I guess I never really looked at it. Yeah, I never looked at it as like a male-female thing. I think like we're all just tech bros. It's almost like a term to me.
And you sealed your fate a little bit when you named it The Hustle. Like, people are just gonna think of you a certain way.
A little bit, yeah, a little bit. And I knew it was a bad name, but like, Neville is actually— makes the worst naming name stuff. So, um, but, and so I kind of stole a little bit of that. One time we used to host these things called Content School, and we would basically say like, we're gonna be in San Francisco, um, for one day, you can come and hang out with us and we'll teach you about copywriting. I think we would charge $2,000 or $1,000.
Yeah, something like $1,500 or $2,500, I forget.
And we would get a lot of people coming and we would split the money. And, uh, it was called Content School. And if you go to the website, it's basically just a website with like stick figures writing on a whiteboard and then just like 2,000 words of copy explaining about the event. So anyway, my point is, is like all of both, both of our stuff has always been named really badly.
It's also simply, well, you know what's funny? So originally it was called Copywriting Kourse with two Ks. And the reason was, um, one, I couldn't get the domain, but, but two, like I always thought copywriting in the cop with just spelled copywriting meant text, meant only text. And look, if it's like the year 1700, I get it. Text is like the hot technology of the day, but now it's just like so easy to make videos and podcasts and audio video and maybe in the future VR experiences. To me, copywriting is kind of in getting information from my brain to your brain or my brain to a million brains. So whatever the most effective way of doing that is, I'm down for it. Whether it's writing, whether it's an image, whether it's a video, whether it's a podcast.
Who do you think for— most of the people listening are like startup nerds. What is the most common mistake you think that people make and who do you think is a good example of someone who's just crushing the game, whether it's a company or a human?
Writing formally, I think, is the most common mistake you make because in English class they tell you to write, dear sirs, to whom it may concern. And I think that's fine if you're writing a letter, you know, 900 years ago. But nowadays, like, people want quick, concise, and we don't need all that formality. So I think writing like you speak is the main thing. And a lot of people, they sit down at a keyboard and they get paralyzed. They, they go back to English class and they're like, okay, I get brownie points for using bigger words. In fact, Using smaller, shorter, easier words is probably better. Getting to the point very quick is probably better. I bet all of you have been in, uh, been in a, uh, Sam, although it says Sarah in your box for some reason.
I'm using Sarah's computer.
It, it actually, it's actually, I bet you get more responses with cold emails if you send like a one-line thing. You're like, hey, you wanna be on the pod? It's probably better than like a whole page, um, asking someone to do something. And so I think writing formally is the biggest mistake that everyone makes. In fact, just writing like you talk. If you just write, uh, a note into your iPhone, uh, what would that— if you transcribe that, that'll often do better than sitting down and trying to wordsmith something really carefully.
And who do you think is like killing it that I should check out?
Honestly, he— you know what's funny? I actually like software companies and here's the reason. They actually don't need a lot of copy. With software, you could just show your product in action. If you're Crunchbase, if you just show someone looking up a company, it shows up all their information. You're like, oh, that— they didn't even say what that was. I just watched what happened, right? Or I like the company Ahrefs. They just show demos of how they're like a GIF of how their product works. You type in a keyword, it shows the keyword difficulty. You're like, oh, I get it. Like that. I think that's actually a very fast way of instilling information. So I think a lot of software companies do a damn good job at explaining their product just cuz they could show it. They don't even have to explain it sometimes.
Why do you think, so you've been doing the same copywriting, you've been selling the same product for years and it's been fruitful.
Similar. It's obviously changed over the years, but yeah, similar concept at the core. It's the same. Yeah.
But why do you think that— like, I always joke, I think I've said this on the pod, Ben, that Neville's the most emotionally stable person I've ever met. Oh, um, and you— why haven't you ever expanded to like way beyond that? Whereas you, you're very content doing the same thing over and over again, which is how you actually attain like true mastery. But why have you not done what most people would do, which is like risk it in order to like risk what you have for shit you don't need. Is that the phrase? Um, but you're like kind of going bigger or going wider or something like that and expanding and risking what you have.
Uh, interesting question. We've talked about this before. I've talked about a lot of friends. One, I think I grew up in a very loving household and I had a really good upbringing. I think I'm like maybe top 5%, top 1%. Of like lucky in that sense. And so the dry, generally what happens with people who are like ultra, ultra, ultra successful is they tend to have a chip on their shoulder. And as much as I like wish I had that, I'm kind of glad I didn't. And I just have to admit to myself, like, I'm not going to be the richest person on the planet. I'm not going to work that hard. Um, and so, uh, I am friends with people like you who are never content, right? Or one of my other best friends, Noah Kagan, is just like, there's always like this like element of like just never, ever, ever content. And I think that pushes me a little bit more. But also I think I leave a lead, a pretty good life. Like over the years I've been able to buy whatever I want, do whatever I want. I think the only time I've ever actually felt like I couldn't afford something is when I was buying a house. I was like, oh, money matters over here. And I don't have money to buy any house I want on the planet. I actually have to like consider a budget for the first time. Uh, that was like the only thing like in a long time I felt like I couldn't afford. And so I think I've done this pretty well.
Yeah. Listen to this. One time, um, so like for years I've been like, Neville, you're so like stable and healthy. And one time about a year and a half ago, or a year ago, him and Neville and my wife Sarah are obviously good buddies too. And Neville was like, yeah, I'm like searching for a house and like the things that I want sometimes cost like many, many, many millions of dollars. And my budget is like, let's hypothetically say $1.5 million. And it's the first time in my whole life where I've wanted to— maybe I want to purchase something and I actually have to think about where the money's going to come from, or I have to think about financing. And it's keeping me up at night. And I realized— and then he goes, it's keeping me up at night. And Sarah goes, well, that's pretty normal. And he goes, wait, is this stress?
Is that what—
is that when people say they're stressed out? Is this that feeling? I've never had that before. And that was hilarious. He goes, I've never experienced this feeling where I'm staying up at night, like thinking about something, not knowing how the, how it's gonna end. And it's worrying me.
I mean, I, I don't, yeah, that's, uh, that's true. When people explain like depression stuff to me, I have to like look up academic things to like, like what is happening? Cuz I don't, I don't get it. Uh, I just don't get it.
So you guys met in what year? 2013.
2013. 2012 or '13.
Mm-hmm.
As like an outsider looking in, it feels like there was like this really cool energy around copywriting, around selling things online, uh, like, like the whole world of like Neil Strauss, Tim Ferriss, and, and it feels like you guys are kind of on the periphery of that same world. And that was going on from what, like 2000? 2009 to 2015. Does that sound right?
Yeah, starting to bud around then.
Yeah, I would say we were right in the thick of it, him more so than me.
So, um, like, what do you think has happened to that energy? Because it feels like there's not that same, like, crew of people doing the same type of stuff now.
But it's different. So you want to hear something funny? The Tim Ferriss thing inspired me, and I had just took Neville's copywriting course, and I was like, I'm, I'm pretty sure I could sell anything. And so I did research and I started white labeling and selling poison ivy, uh, remedies. Oh, itch juice? I called it itch juice. And Neville came to my house one time and he was like— I was like, hey, we gotta go to the post office, I gotta drop out today's orders. And we were selling like thousands of— $1,000 a day worth of this stuff. And it was way easier at the time to like launch this stuff cuz Bing ads were like a dime per, for a click. And anyway, but now there's this thing called the creator economy and you've got guys like me and Sean, particularly Sean, he creates a course and he could potentially make 7 figures a year selling a course. And that's actually way more, I can't tell if that's way more common or if we're just now part of like the insider crowd who has big audiences. I don't know. What do you think, Neville?
I think it's, I think it's more common cuz the tools are better, right? But before creating a course, like I remember like looking up like how to make a JavaScript to like password protect a site. It, it was like, it was like techie kind of stuff. Now you can use like Circle.so or any of these like companies like that to, to easily make courses. It's very simple. And so I think it's more common. I think we have way more access to, uh, distributing our content than before. I mean, if you have a phone, you could be like a gigantic star with a million things. Back then, you had to have like a team and you had to like have Photoshop and expensive software and servers. You had to have all sorts of kind of stuff. And so I think it's just like the tools are way, way, way, way better now. So I think there's like 10 to 100 times more content. So Ben, back to your question, do I think it's like gone away, that spirit? No, I think what happened was it was concentrated in the hands of a few before, right? Mm-hmm. You had the Tim Ferriss, you kind of have like characters like that that were really, really big that somehow made it past that level. And then now you have, uh, tons of communities that are smaller, I follow all sorts of little creator economy communities on Twitter where like each person has like, you know, 1,000 followers maybe, you know, and they're just getting started and they have like their own little community. I think it's just fragmented into a bunch of different micro communities.
So I have a question. Um, Ben hosts, uh, How to Take Over the World. So he's like a mid-stage in his kind of creator journey. Oh shit. You didn't know that?
No, I, oh yeah. A little starstruck.
Damn. Yeah. It's, it's like a badass pod, but it's like still, it's getting big, but it's still like on the up. So like he's still like in the middle of his journey a little bit. And, uh, how many downloads a month do you have, Ben? Like 100K downloads?
I don't know. My, my top episodes just crossed 40,000 downloads.
Nice. So like, it's like doing really good. And Neville, your thing has been doing pretty good. Very good for years. How do you think it's gonna look like when you're like 65 years old and getting ready to retire? If you're, uh, because like your mom worked at a, at an oil company and she's got probably a very healthy, comfortable pension. A lot of my mom's a teacher. She probably has a pension close to 6 figures. Um, but you're not going to have that. Ben's not going to have that necessarily if he is. Let's just assume that he is doing this for another 40 years. How do you think that you're gonna live when you're 65 or 70?
Uh, first, like, you can make your own pension. If you have a company, you can make your own pension. So I have started that process already and I plan to live off what's not a pension. So kind of like the whole like FIRE movement, all those things, there's different ways that you can expect to, uh, live, uh, comfortably. Also, um, I did another thing that I thought was a little unique. Um, I plan to die at 85 and if I'm not dead naturally, I'll, uh, well, you know, make it happen, to put it lightly. And so I always, I planned this back when I was in, uh, when high school, like that's where I came up with that date. So November 17th, 2067, I'm done. And so I have to plan my life backwards till then. And I planned out a couple different milestones and I actually said, so not 65, I said the end of my competitive, uh, competitive work life is going to be 50. Now I, I know a lot of people are way more competitive at 50, but I just planned it that way as like a contingency. Like let's say the world accelerates technologically very, very quickly. Beyond what I can keep up with or what I care to keep up with. I need to move when I'm 50 into an industry that's slower, such as something such as real estate, like just owning a bunch of houses and renting them out, something that's kind of like foolproof like that. Um, but I say my competitive advantage will go away when I'm 50 is what I had said.
Why do you think I'm going to die at 85? Why? That, that there's a, there's a world where when we're 85, it's not, it's more like a 65, like a, like a today's 65.
That's true, but you gotta plan for what's going on today, not tomorrow. I mean, I don't know what the thing is going to be when I'm 85 and it's 40 years away, right? So I have no idea, but I did plan based on, uh, actuarial documents. So my likely death date is going to be when I'm around 78. So male born when I'm born, all that kind of stuff. I'm gonna probably die when I'm 78 by the stats. So 85 is actually like 7 extra bonus years. Then also when I was in high school, I wanted to be a doctor. So we had this awesome program. We've got shadow 10 different doctors. I shadowed 3 different geriatric doctors and several in dementia wards. And that's when I saw just people that were like, I mean, this is kind of sad, but it's kind of like they're just like sacks of cells that still existed, but they weren't actually the same people they were. Their brains were mush. And I remember thinking like, damn, that's really hard on them. It's also really hard on their families. And like, we'd watch like, you know, a daughter of one of these people come in and the dad doesn't recognize her and she's crying and the kids are crying. It was like a whole mess. And I was like, I would never want to do that to my family or anyone else in my family. Like if they, if I get to that point, I'm done. Like Neville, the chapter of Neville is gone. And so, um, everyone dies and everything that's lived has died. And even if you live to 200, you will die. And so I thought, well, wouldn't it be nice to at least plan it? Um, I've also seen a lot of families get torn apart when the, the main matriarch, the patriarch of the family dies and they have to divide assets and the kids start fighting over stuff and they're like, I want this and I want that. I've seen it rip the family apart. And I was like, you know what, wouldn't it be cool on your deathbed that you're just like, all right, here's what you all get, here's what it is, I signed off on it, I'm in good health, good sound, and then you take off. That's what I want.
But you don't have to die in order to do that. There's a great book called, um, Die with Zero, and it's the whole premise is actually really interesting. It's like basically, let's just say that you have a little bit of money and you're gonna donate it. It's like, well, maybe you should donate it now while you're still alive so you can actually see the fruits of your labor, or if you have a, uh, if you're, if you're going to give away money to your kids, it's like, hey, have you thought about giving it to the money, giving them the money while you're alive? So like you guys can take a vacation together, or if they buy a bigger house, you're able to go spend time there. And so you can die with zero. Are you— what?
I think one of the reasons people don't do that though is the estate tax versus the gift tax. Like, I think you get hit super hard if you gift it while you're still alive.
Yeah, but who gives a shit?
Yeah.
People with a lot of money do. Well, I know they do, but I think that's nonsense. I was talking to my father-in-law and he was telling me how he wants to give his daughters, my wife, money when he dies. He's like, you know, they're just talking about like inheritance or wills and things like that. And I was like, hey, I know this sounds weird because technically, like, you know, like what you give to her is going to be mine too. So it sounds like I'm asking for it, but I just want you to know, like, I'm not. But have you thought about giving it to— giving us whatever you want to give now so we can all like— I was like, I was like, we could like spend it together and enjoy it, or don't give it to us at all and just go and buy yourself some really nice stuff and we can all have fun together with it. But like, maybe we should do it. We can enjoy it together as opposed to, you know, like when you died, I was like, do you remember what it was like before you were born? And he was like, no. I was like, well, that's probably what it's going to be like when you die. So like, who cares? Like, you know what you left anyway? That's my opinion. I think that's a good point.
Yeah. I, I, I, okay. I, I remember I wrote a short book about this that I ever really promoted cuz it's not like a, a philosophy I wanna like actively jam down people's throats. I just thought it was healthy for me is that knowing when I'm gonna die makes me live happier. So if you know you're gonna die and someone's like, hey Neville, I wanna give you the awesome opportunity, but you have to live in like, uh, bumfuck wherever. And, uh, it's not gonna be ideal, but it'll just be for 5 years. Well, knowing that I'm gonna die, that those, those minutes and times and years are gonna be very precious to me. I'm gonna be like, no, I'm not gonna do it. Like, I just, I'm not, because that's not how I wanna live. And so I know I have this like finite amount of time and 85 is the date I've chosen. Now people are like, well, what if there's better technology? Well, I'll reconsider then. It's not like a bomb planted in my head that's gonna go off when I'm 85. It's like, it's just a, it's just a, a thought process of like, okay, this is the end of my days. What do I want to do before then? And then I don't think people take this into account. I've had a lot of experience with old people through some of the, the work experience I've had. And then also going to India a lot and seeing it. And what happens is after a certain age, you start declining in your physical health. And at the moment, that still seems going to be the case for a long time. And so you, if you want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, you know, after you're 70, it's going to be very difficult. So you may as well do it when you're younger and capable of it. And also as you get older and older, you have a lot more responsibilities. So if you want to do some dumb shit and get it out of your system, you better do it when you're young and healthy and have no responsibilities. And so I always kind of like planning life backwards like that. It's like, we're inevitably going to die. Like, why wouldn't you plan for it? Right. And so I feel like in the West, it's a very like taboo, weird subject to even bring up. And in most Eastern countries, I think like death is a little bit more of a, like an accepted part of life. And so I kind of like thinking like, oh, I'm going to die at 85. It makes me happier knowing that. And also it's kind of like, uh, Jerry Seinfeld had this great quote. He was just like, every good comedian knows like this weird moment where the audience wants you on stage longer, but you know, you have to get off right now. It's time. It's time to walk off stage. And I always thought like, '85, I'm walking off stage.' And that, that's how I think. I still haven't like changed my mind from that date yet.
Do you think— so something that's interesting about you is that you do these roasts that I cannot stand. So Ben, they like throw— they like— Neville will like throw a party called a roast party, and he gets in front of like sometimes like 50 people and has these like elaborate roasts, like, and sometimes they're just like silly, funny jokes. Like, for example, like, like, like, well, you know, David found his first gray pube. Unfortunately, it was on his Big Mac.
Yeah.
Like, like, like, they're like great jokes. They're very creative.
Jeff Ross. Yeah.
Sorry. Yeah. Well, you said a bunch of— and you have way more that are exact. I don't even want to say on here. But, uh, and they're, but they're very, very creative and your writing is incredibly creative. Even if sometimes it's crude, it's very creative. Do you think that you can make people more creative or you just got it or you don't?
I think people are like curious or not. Um, also it's like what you like doing. I will spend it like, so it'll be like Sam's birthday or bachelor party. I'll spend like a month writing a roast. I'll have like a file and I'll sit. I'll think of a funny joke or I'll hear a funny joke on a podcast I could adapt with Sam's name in it and I'll write it down and I'll sit there just like laughing on my phone to myself. Like no one's around. It's just, it's just me laughing. I have a legitimately fun time doing it because it's very hard. Like if I didn't like doing this, it would be so much work for like what ends up being a 2 or 3 minute speech. Right. But it's just fun to do it. And I think it's just like the thing I like to do and it keeps me creative, keeps me sharp. It keeps me writing. And I think comedy is a, is a pretty high-level form of thinking. Like, you never meet someone who's super dumb that's really funny, uh, unless it's like they're not, they don't mean to be funny, right? Yeah. But like, generally comedians are smart people.
You've had tens of thousands of people come to you and, and you've taught them how to write better, particularly in the form of copywriting, but it's rooted in like creativity a little bit. Do you actually think that some of these people you just couldn't make better? Cause I, cause I think that some people I can't make, I cannot make them a good, I can't even make them good. Maybe I can help them improve. I can't make them good.
I think you cannot improve someone's like physical capacity for thinking, like their IQ level will not ever be raised beyond the age of like 20. However, I think you could technically make them better. So someone writing a really long email, if you tell them, what if you just put things in bullet points? What if each bullet point can only be 10 words long? You can actually make them better. Yeah, absolutely. But there's a, there's like a certain level of technicality you can make them better, but then there's a certain level of like high-level thinking that's difficult to instill in people, but you can give them frameworks to think. There's all sorts of little tricks you can make someone better. Yeah. Just like, I think, uh, that there's all this SAT prep, like you can take the SAT and get a low score, then take a prep course and become better because they're teaching you tactics and, uh, things like that. So yeah, you can make someone better to a degree.
Do you find, do you speak better? Uh, does like copywriting help people?
Hell yeah.
In like, in like verbal, like on, on a podcast format, stuff like that.
I think so. I mean, it's, it's kind of like no surprise that Sam is a real, like what I would consider a great copywriter, even though you don't like take contract copywriting work, but you also have like a super popular podcast, right? Like that's kind of no surprise.
Yeah.
I think people who are good copywriters tend to just be good communicators is another way to put it. So I think communication's the medium.
The, the thing about copywriting that I try to get into people's head, I'm like, it's kind of a bad name because you're thinking that it just means like literally the written word. And it's not actually that. A copywriter, every person in business should learn copywriting because what copywriting really is, is figuring out what motivates the person who's the, your ideal customer or your ideal target. And how do you use words or ideas? So that could be images, videos, music, anything. How do you use some type of communication tool to manipulate them, which sounds negative, but it's the right word, manipulate them to do or feel how you want them to act or feel. So that could be like Martin Luther King who wants to convince people in a speech that racism is wrong. It could be me selling a course or getting you, asking you to sign up or pay for something. It could be me trying to convince you that one thing is evil and one thing is good. And I can use words, I can use, um, a picture, I can use anything. Because when you, when you copyright, copywriting, it forces you to figure out what people want, communicate it effectively, and how to structure your ideas. That's what it is.
And to which specific audience you're talking to. If you're talking to high-end programmers that are CTOs and all know JavaScript, you could explain it in one way. If you're talking to a CEO who has no idea about tech stuff, you have to explain it another way. And a copywriter will know which way to explain it.
And I've seen pages and let's talk about this, Neville, because you actually know more internet marketing stuff than I am. And you're a few years older than me. So you've seen some more shit. Have you? Well, I mean, it's true. I've been able, like, I've been able to make money just by writing copy basically like in a Google Doc and putting that out there. And like, if your words are good enough, just in a Google Doc, I— people will send me money for whatever service I'm promising. Have you— what's an example of a website that you found that is literally just a wall of text that's so good, but it makes a shockingly large amount of money?
I think Basecamp used to be a really good one back in the day that we would point to where it was just mainly just explaining what it did with a couple of pictures. And I thought that was pretty awesome. Um, now you do, you can use pictures, you can use videos. I think video has become a lot more prevalent and I think video is extremely powerful cuz that's how we understand stuff with our eyes and ears at the same time. But just a wall of text. Who, I don't know if anyone's still wall text.
Oh, there are. And I know a few. So there's this company called, years ago, Ben, do you remember a thing called Double Your Dating?
Oh, that guy with the big name.
I heard of it.
Okay, so if you are above the age of 30, you probably will know what this is. So Double Your Dating— I'm going all off memory— Double Your Dating was a lot around probably in year 2001 to 2008 maybe, and I was like 14 at the time, and it was basically this ebook. I think he sold more stuff, but it was an ebook for $29, and it was just how to talk to girls. And like every boy who's 14 years old, like, you're gonna buy it because you're uncomfortable and you wanna meet girls, whatever. And his website was just— you'd sign up and over the course of a week he would send you a series of emails that were literally 5,000 to 10,000 words. All it was was a text-based email, and it made tens of millions of dollars selling this $30 or $40 ebook. And then the guy who ran it. His name is now— his name, real name is Eben Pagan. His pseudonym at the time was called David D'Angelo. And my friend named Craig Clements worked for him, helped writing this. Craig has a company called Golden Hippo, which owns like 8 or 9 different brands, and they sell like probiotics, or one of them's called like Dr. Stephen Gundry. Have you guys heard of that? It's like a famous doctor and he like partnered with them and they sell probiotics to like women. Anyway, Craig took the Double Your Dating route, like kind of like ideas. And now he sells literally $1 billion a year of products. And it's like a probiotic, it's vitamins. And I don't know what their other brands are. And it's just one long sales page. And at the bottom they're selling a $39 probiotic. And that's something today that still exists. If you go to—
I remember W Dating was good. Yeah. I will, I will say though, I think that is from a bygone era a little bit. I'm sure there's like pages that are just strictly text, but for the most part I don't see it as much because now the places that make a lot of money on dating are generally— they have a YouTube channel or Instagram or whatever. They're not just text like they used to be. It used to be a big deal back then that you could just write a long page of text, but you don't see it quite as much because we have—
you know where you see it? Go to amazon.com and type in Kindle. Or like, ah, Amazon product or Echo. Hi, you might have a word— if most copywriters do this, do you have a word counter automatically installed on your Chrome?
Yeah, you can just— I just highlight it and it tells me.
Yeah, that's what I do. Go to Kindle, the Kindle listing, and tell me how many words it is. It's like 3 or 4,000 words. And I cannot stand when people say, well, no one reads long copy. And I'm like, no, like long copy almost will always outperform short copy. You just like, you, you, you, you, for some reason people think that long is not good.
That's the difference. Yeah.
So this is, this is like a very, there's a lot of things you need to go over with the Kindle that I'm looking at on this page. It's talking about the PPI, the glare-free, you can, you, it's water resistant, all that kind of stuff. So it has a lot of features, so therefore it has a lot of copy. But if you're selling a basic yo-yo for $5, you probably don't need a lot of copy. You'd probably just make it long-winded. So yeah, like this has a lot of cool things to write about so you can make long copy, but I don't think you should make long copy just for long copy's sake. In fact, I would say I've seen a lot of good selling on Instagram. Like a lot of, I, I run a site, site called swipefile.com where I keep all the good marketing that I see. And one of the cool things that I've noticed is on Instagram, people sell through stories now and I'm like, This is like the evolution of how to sell.
What's an example?
Um, I see a lot of these like courses and stuff and sometimes, or like business courses. And so I remember writing articles about how to make like a logo, how to make a good logo and headline. And then I see like, there's like a guy named Chris Do, the, this, uh, Asian dude I follow on, uh, on Instagram. And he has these great stories on how to teach you how to do that kind of stuff. And I'm like, this is brilliant. This is like taking that long article I made, and condensing it into an Instagram story that's visually appealing, it's fun, and I can go through it in like 10 seconds. I remember thinking, wow, I learned something in 10 seconds. That is great copywriting. That is instilling information in my brain very, very quickly and efficiently.
Why haven't you done that?
Uh, man, good question. Yeah, I don't know. Well, so one of, one of the things I think about social that I, I think you know, that if you build your brand on social media, like this is a direct quote from Sam Parr. It's like if you build your brand on social media, it's like renting a place where the, the landlord raises the rent every 18 months, doubles the rent every 18 months. And so I think what happens is whenever we write long form, uh, stuff for SEO, it every single day, no matter if Neville works or not, I get more, I get more and more people coming to the site. Whereas if I only focus on social media, you get people on the site while you're on that treadmill, but it falls off very quickly. And I'm not very, uh, consistent with social media, so it's not something I think I would like win in necessarily, but I could build a system around it.
Yeah.
So Neville, you talked about that first, uh, sales email for your, um, for your Rave website. I'm curious for both of you, uh, for you, Sam, like, do you have an equivalent, like where the light bulb went on where you were like, oh, like this works. Like I can get people to do stuff with my writing.
Yeah. On the, on the—
and Neville also for you afterwards, like, was that that for you or was there another moment that where that light bulb went on even more?
Oh, sorry, go ahead. Neville was at the time it happened. For me, it was, um, I hosted the first HustleCon. I had the idea for it, I think on May 1st, and then it happened in June. Whatever it was, it was like the idea to event was 6 weeks, and I made $40,000 in profit or something like that. And I didn't spend a cent on marketing, and it was all through these sales emails that I was sending people. And it worked so well. And my website was ugly and I was like, this works. And then when The Hustle launched, we created a welcome email. And welcome emails typically are like, I call it the forgotten text. So there's like your thank you page. There's like the confirmation page when you subscribe to a website. There's the welcome email after you've given someone your website, uh, given someone your email. They're like, there's like these, these forgotten areas of people's websites.. And I was like, let's make all of those areas incredibly funny and surprising. And I bet you people will share it and it'll get us more traffic. And so we did. And so if you Google the Hustle welcome email, we created this welcome email and it was like funny and people started writing so many articles about it. And I'm like, dude, this took us like 4 minutes to do. And we kind of stole the idea from someone else. It's not that original. This copywriting thing is awesome. So that was like when it hit for me.
Also, also behind the scenes, I knew you when you were throwing HustleCon. You made really good cold emails to speakers cuz you, cuz you knew that like if you get the whales, everyone else will follow. So if you get the big speakers and you made these awesome, uh, emails with GIFs, which like, you know, 10 years ago was like kind of cool. And yeah, and you held up like the volunteers, they would hold up a sign and said like, hey Ben, will you come to speak at HustleCon? It looked like you made like a custom email. In reality, you just like Photoshopped their name on it. Yeah. It's the same one over and over. Yeah. Yeah. Those, there's, there's definitely light bulb moments like that. I said I had my House of Rave one. And then the next one was when Noah Kagan was building AppSumo off my couch. I started, he was sending out to, he had 50,000 people on an email newsletter for AppSumo at the time. It was kind of like a side project of his, which is like, you know, 50,000 email subscribers is pretty good for a side project. And he would send out like grasshopper.com, 25% off coupon, buy.. And I was like, man, that's a pretty shitty email. That's, that's not great. And so I was like, let me apply some of this copywriting stuff to some of these emails. And the first email we sent out was AppSumo's first $10,000 profit day. And Noah was happy. I was happy.
Was it the one on, uh, font?
Kernist.
Yeah.
You gotta read, read that, that, that first sentence. Listen to this, Ben. The first sentence on that email. Is in the Hall of Fame.
It is.
Can you read that? Read that first. It was like the first 3 or 4 sentences were beautiful.
I'm gonna read, I'm gonna try to say off the top of my head. This is like 10 years ago, but it says like, if I whisper the word Garamond in your ear and it makes your knees weak or something like that. It was basically kind of like fantasizing about fonts, which is like a very specific person.
You were talking about having a sexual fantasy with fonts. It was so funny.
Look, it was a different time.
I forget what the name of the font is, but he's like, let's just say, it was like, does if I whispered the word Comic Sans into your ears, does it make you weak at the knees?
Yeah.
And then he was like, it was basically having like a sexual fantasy about font. And then it like went on for like 6 sentences with more things like that. And then it was like, well, I've got good news for you, you dirty dog. Like, you know, we're having a sale on all these fonts that you could purchase today. It was beautiful. That is such a beautiful concept. I've stole that, uh, on a bunch of different, uh, oh wait, I'm pulling up, wait, I, I totally forgot this.
It said the first letter, this first sentence is, if the names Lucidia Sans Unicode or Courier New don't mean anything to you, go ahead and close this message. And then it goes on, uh, to, to the whole thing. It quotes Steve Jobs in there about, about him talking about, uh, font types. And we remember thinking like the reason Noah gave me this deal was he didn't think it was, it was going to be that big because it was so specific for like designers who did typography. And I was like, you know what, let's just have fun with it. And that ended up being like the biggest deal so far. And we're like, holy shit. Like the only thing that was different was the copyright. Like this was like we took some time to write the copy and it took about an hour. Like it wasn't that long. And so we did it again and again and again. And then for like a long time, I wrote every single email until we like hired enough copywriters to replace me.
Do you, so you said it took you about an hour. Do you ever feel like you come to a copywriting problem and you just never crack it? You just are like, man, it like the light bulb never hit. Or are you just like, can you power your way through any problem?
I'd be curious to think what you think, Sam. Sometimes, sometimes like if you're not in a good mood, like I think like there's a cool time in the morning, like when I wake up and drink a bunch of caffeine that like come up time. Like my brain starts getting a little, like, start like thinking of funny jokes, start getting a little giddy and I'm like, oh, this is a good time. But it like, if it's late at night and you have to just write something for a deadline, sometimes it'll be like, ah, this is kind of boring. But then every once in a while, just, it just hits you like that. I don't know. How do you think about it, Sam?
I think that there's like, usually the way that I'm almost positive that this is universal, but the way that you get good copywriting is you sit down The problem is, is that most people are afraid to start, but you, what you really need to do is you have to sit down and you just have to write and it's, and you acknowledge that it sucks. And then what you do is, so long as you have enough time, you then let it marinate so you can like go and do something. And then the next day you come back to it and then that's where the really like the good shit actually happens. But every once in a while you could sit down and it just works. So I have this thing that. It's like, uh, that this— I've been working on this thing called Copy That, and I just wrote this, this little TMI. I was just sitting on the toilet and I just wrote it, and I have not touched it because it's perfect. I'm like, this is just perfect. This works. And sometimes things like that definitely happen where you— it just is— it just happens. But I don't think that— I think it's pretty much impossible to come up against a problem that you can't solve. For two reasons. One, that incubation phase always works. And number two, you can just copy other people. So you go to swipefile.com, which is Novosight, or you just like go and read old— you just search like best ads of all time and you can just like read really old stuff and you're like, oh, sick, they were selling shirts using this big idea. I'm gonna steal that for selling this other thing.
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of tools available for like research generation. I think actually Pinterest is kind of what inspired swipefile.com. You type in like good sales letter, uh, product, like dog leash sales letter, you'll find a ton of stuff so you could copy. The other thing that I think is cool here, here's a method I use all the time, and I don't know if it's just unique to me. If I work with other people where I think they can see my screen, okay? So if we're on this call, I would share my screen and do work. So right before this, I host a thing called Writing Wednesdays, like for our members, and like certain, like a certain amount of people show up and we just share our screens and work. That's it. And whenever I do that, I tend to get the best work. I get a lot of work done. Um, I invite, uh, Sam and Sarah over to my place to co-work every once in a while. I have my neighbors over. I have people over to co-work all the time. And what I make them do is I tell them, I'm like, at least one person has to sit on the same side of the table as me because otherwise I'll just be on Reddit or Instagram just goofing off. But if they're looking at my screen, for some reason I keep pushing forward and write good stuff. Sam, Ben, tell me this. Have you ever been like in an airplane and you're like in the seat and there's other people next to you and you know people can see your screen? I bet you get some good writing, right? Yeah, for sure. Like there's something about other people seeing it where you're like, I gotta, I gotta keep powering through and I just can't let my brain stop. And so I think that's kind of a secret weapon. I have people work next to me or share my screen and work, and that's when I get the best writing done for some reason.
Hmm. What do you think, Ben? Are you gonna start doing some copywriting shit?
Yeah. Well, like I kind of already am, right? Cause I script out all my episodes, so. I'm writing and like, I think it's pretty good, but now I'm actually trying to start selling stuff, uh, cuz I haven't been making much money on my show and now I'm trying to make money on my show. And so this is all—
ooh, that'll be the true test. That'll be the true test.
But you know, you know what, listen, listen to what happened, Neville. Listen to what happened to Ben. Ben had this guy. I'm gonna kind of butcher the story because I don't, I don't know who the actual guy is, but I also don't wanna reveal any information that he'd previously told me. Let's just say he's worth 9 figures and he's an investment banker. And he came to Ben and he's like, hey, can I pay you a certain retainer every month and you just be my guru where you study history and like you just make sure that I tell you what my strategy is, that I'm like not repeating the errors that Julius Caesar has made, or that I am doing what like a successful Napoleon has done. Can you like kind of like guide that? And he came to Ben and I was like, that's actually brilliant. You should charge like $2,000 or $3,000 an hour and like consult and do this. It's kind of a good idea.
Is it what Morgan Housel does with like that, that firm that he's part of?
I don't know.
There was a guy who just put out a really good blog and a large investment thing. Morgan Housel, look it up. He did a podcast about it recently. He talked about it. I forget where.
And he, uh, he collaborated. Collab Fund, I think it's called.
There you go. That one. And so they reached out to him and they're just like, we're gonna pay you a bunch of money and you just write stuff and you just be cute. You write about anything you want. And, and that sounds reminiscent of what you're doing.
Huh? Yeah. So after that, Sam, I don't know if I told you, I got, oh, I, I did tell you cuz I asked you, uh, I know the guy listens to this show, so it was a little weird to be airing about. I was asking you how much to charge and, uh, that's not weird.
So he said, will, he said, will you speak? And how much do you charge? And you're like, hey, how much should I charge?
No, but it's weird because he listens to the show, so he's going to be like— so now he knows that when he was like, hey, do you want to come speak to my company? I went, oh, and said, how much should I charge?
And what did I say? I said, ask them what's their budget.
Yeah. And he didn't help. He didn't— that was— that didn't work.
He was too smart for that.
He's going to throw it back to you.
He was like, I want to be respectful of your rates. Just let me know.
You know what I've done in those situations, by the way, that's very helpful. Sometimes you at this debt, you're at this stalemate where it's just like both people want everyone to win. Like, I don't think this guy's trying to screw you over, right? I don't think so. You're also not trying to screw him over. You both just want to arrive at a nice junction. So I would say something along the lines of this. I'm like, look, I want— I know you're trying to do good by me. I'm trying to do good by you. But I would also like to be happy with the amount of money. My lowest that I would be happy with is I'm just going to make up money, $1,000. Okay. But I would be like ultra, ultra thrilled to work for you if I was getting $40,000 a month. I mean, that would be like my dream. I would dedicate all my time. I'd tell everyone else, I'd be so thrilled. Is that something that's like in the realm of possibility? And then what happens is he's gonna be like, well, it's a lot of money, da da da. Maybe we can settle on $25,000, $30,000, right? Which it, you'd probably be happy with. So I think those are generally the things. And also being just ultra honest, I found, um, makes it happy. And sometimes, a lot of times they're like, you know what, if you're gonna be that happy and wanna do really good work for me, I will pay you that money. That's, that's the way I would approach it.
Yeah. What are you gonna do now?
Uh, no, that's, that's, I'm gonna, I'm gonna transcribe what you just said and I'm gonna say basically exactly that. Might change the figures a little bit, but yeah, I, I see why you wanted this guy to come on the show, Sam. That was, that was good.
I wanna talk about one more thing that I think is interesting. So, uh, basically I tweet about this a lot and a lot of people say this is my dream. So Neville and I live, um, like 2 or 3 doors down, enough that we pretty much see each other every single day because each of us will take walks. Um, and I actually think when people were like, that's amazing that you guys are best buddies and you live next door to each other. And I'm like, yeah, I think everyone should do this because it will make you happier. It's kind of interesting because I'm almost positive that this is what a lot of immigrant families do when they come to America, is they like move to like some type of housing complex or some type of cul-de-sac or something where they're with, you know, you're in a place that's new to you, you're nervous, it's more enjoyable to be around a bunch more people and you kind of like raise your kids together. I think more Americans who aren't immigrants, just Americans who are born and raised here should do that. It is. I'm happier because we live by each other.
Oh, totally. I think the key is, so a lot of people, there's like this newfangled plan that everyone has. They're like, let's buy a plot of land and I'll be neighbors. So that actually doesn't work. And the reason is because you're neighbors, that's too close. You got to have like some separation. So me and Sam live around the corner from each other. We actually share an alley, but there's some semblance of privacy, but also I can walk 100 feet to his house. You know, like I saw you this morning, just like you were like, Showing your dad your motorcycle over FaceTime or something like that. And I was like, hey, what's up? We saw each other for 10 seconds and I'm like, that was, that was a hangout. That was a hangout. And so I think that's the key. And then also I grew up like this. We had a lot of family friends in our neighborhood and it's kind of cool. Like if you, if you're kids, you can, your parents like don't mind if you hang out with other kids they know. And so you can walk over to their houses if you need to borrow a cup of sugar, whatever, you can walk over. I think it makes you immensely happy. Like the whole point of life is to have like a really fun, good community. And also whenever I go to India all the time, people live in what are called colonies a lot of times. So it's essentially like an apartment complex. Imagine it like that. And you know everyone in that colony. And so you have like a million people over at your house. You pop into other friend's house, you don't even knock on the door. And it's really fun. And when you have that much stimulation and fun activity going on, the last thing you're asking is like, what's the purpose of life? Am I happy? Da da da. It's cuz you're just You're active, you're happy. The old people are happy. The young people are happy. It's really fun. And then when people come over here and live in a big house, but by themselves isolated, like you get very lonely. And even though you have an awesome house, it's like, who cares? Like if you don't have a lot of friends around, what's the point?
Do you guys see each other more often, more days than you do not? Do you see each other majority of days?
Yeah. Yeah. Walk his dog in front of me.
It could be as short as just waving and saying 3 words.
Do you have anything that you regularly, like you guys don't lift together, you don't run together, you don't—
we exercise sometimes together. We, we kind of just sit on the porch and do nothing.
Yeah. I think like the art of the pop-in is pretty fun. Just like popping in, hanging out. Uh, so one of our friends that we both know, John Arrow, uh, that we both really like, I used to see him the way me and John Arrow would hang out is we both used to live downtown sort of near each other. We'd see each other randomly on the street about once a week. We chat for like 15 minutes on a street corner and we're like, all right, gotta go. That's it. That was the hangout. And it's just like, it felt like we hung out even though it wasn't like a deliberate thing. And in fact, it almost feels more special cuz it's random. So a lot of times, uh, I'll be, uh, drinking some coffee and I walk over to Sam's house and just knock on the door and I come in and say hi for like 5 minutes and that's it.
Or it's like, uh, uh, hey, we bought, like this happens, it feels like a, a nice amount is I have a bunch of food that's going to go bad in a couple of days. I got to, I got to make a ton of it. You just want to come over.
Yeah.
It's like that.
Or, you know what, you know what Sam does? I have like all these alarm sensors all over my house. And so if someone opens my back gate, which no one ever opens my back gate, there's an alarm that goes off my house. It goes back gate opened and Sam will open that. And then he'll, he'll wait like 5 seconds for me to like run out the door and I'm like, what's going on? And he's like, Hey! I'm like, Sam! Yeah, that's his way of greeting me. Like, I know it's Sam if the back gate's open.
Do the Mormons do that, Ben? I thought you guys all, like, you guys have a pretty good community.
Yeah, it's interesting. Um, we do, but not in a, like, living near to each other sort of way. Like, we just, you know, have activities that we get together at the church, and we see each other at least, you know, a couple times a week, but Um, yeah, this is something, Neville, for background, I've been thinking a lot about of like, I am one of those people. I think a lot of people are rethinking this right now. Uh, pandemic, a lot of people have gone remote and they're like, if I could live anywhere near anyone, why do I not live near my family and friends? Like, why do I not live near the people I want to spend time with? And so, you know, all the boys are scheming. All the boys are like, how do we move into a compound together so that we can see each other?
Everyone says compound. It doesn't—
you don't want a compound.
You want to come separate. Yeah, you don't want shared resources. I think you want like same block.
Yeah, I would find it very awkward if we were actual neighbors. Like if me and Sam were actual neighbors, it would be like, I think it'd be too much. I think it'd be a lot.
And there would be some conflict. It's like, dude, what the fuck? Why don't you like, why are you being messy like this? Or why? Why is this thing overgrown?
Yeah, for you want to have people over and like you're like, oh, they're having people over, but not me. Like I feel like that's too weird. It's too much. Like you get, there has to be some separation. So I think that the compound idea never really works. It never gets off the ground because you don't want to look out the window and your neighbor's right there. That's, that's a lot.
Well, I think the reason that people go immediately to compound is that like the logistics seem easier, honestly, of just like, okay, blank slate, we'll build houses next to each other than the like, all right, let's hope the serendipity lines up.
That's way not easier. Yeah.
And also, by the way, in a lot of other cultures, like in Indian culture, a lot of times very rich families, what they'll do is they'll build gigantic houses and each, uh, they have separate entrances for each floor. And the kids, like, one son will live on the second floor, another son will live on the third floor with his family, and the parents live at the first floor. That's pretty common where they all live together in a big house and they have like some semblance of privacy but also not. So, and it's kind of fun.
But so that is the, that is the compound right there though.
That is a compound. It's, it's like, it's not ideal. I wouldn't wanna do that cuz it's, it's, it is your family and it is you, they're all kind of up in your stuff.. But I think the ideal is in the same neighborhood, like around the corner, like where you're, you wouldn't mind your kid just walking to the other person's house by themselves. That, that would be ideal. Yeah. I think it's the most fun. It's getting to know your neighbors, having that strong sense of community. I think also there's like a security aspect that's kind of cool. Oh, Sam, Sam wasn't getting back in time for his motorcycle to be delivered, so he just had it delivered to my house. So yeah, like just convenience factors like that are pretty cool. And then also, like, whenever I show people my house as a tour, I bring them to Sam's house as part of the tour. Like, it's like part of the— it's like an extension of the tour. It's fun.
And I actually think it's helped you meet more girls because you have— if there's like a girl who you're trying to see and you're trying to impress her and she sees that there's just like action happening in the neighborhood, it's like, oh, this is exciting, this is fun to be around.
Well, thanks for blowing up my, uh, my secrets. But, uh, yeah, it is fun when people come by. Like, even when like Noah comes I remember the other day, um, you and Sarah stopped by in your car and you're just stopping and chatting in front of me, and then Noah came by in a different car, just totally random, and we were all three like talking to each other. I was just like, that's a pretty cool moment. That was a fun moment.
Yeah.
Have you guys had any moments of conflict? Uh, sorry, I'm not meaning to be your therapist right now, but like, has there been anything?
Not really. So we both— we, we knock Last night, uh, he was on a date and I, and I didn't want to ruin it. And so I had to make sure that he answered the call before, uh, before I came over. And so I go, because, because Neville's single. And so I'll be like, hey, are you with anyone? Are you alone? Like, are you dating anyone? Like, you know, are you seeing someone? Can I, can I come over? So sometimes I do that. I'm married, so we don't, I don't have that issue.
No, I mean, I, I think we also knew each other pretty well and we're, I think we're, but if there's ever any issue, we bring it up right away.
And so I don't think we have like lingering issues.
Issues with each other. So no, I don't think we've had any conflicts about it yet. It's been about a year, right?
No, it's been a year and a half. Uh, yeah, you're right, a year.
And eventually, and I think if Sam and Sarah eventually have kids, they'll probably end up moving to New York or something, probably. And I even actually, like, it makes me sad to even think about that.
I told her, I was like, dude, I don't— I'm like, this is kind of perfect because I don't love Austin. I like Austin, but the reason— the only reason I would stay is because uh, like, because of the convenience with you and also a couple other friends. And now that we're all in the mode where we're all, we're all having kids at the same time too, I'm like, man, this is sick. We should all— it's all— Ben, did you raise your kids with anyone else? Uh, like, did you like— did like close friends all have kids within one year?
Yes.
Is that awesome?
Yes. So for us, it was two doors down, this other Mormon family called the Coons. And, uh, it was like literally just like, it's not racist.
It's just that that's a horrible name. We can name anything. Anyway.
Uh, and anyway, it was just like, um, all, you know, the kids were all at the same ages and we just ran back and forth and who knew where dinner was gonna be for everyone that night. And it was great.
By the way, you know, my working backwards from '85 plan and Sam, you could back me up on this. I've been saying it for years. I wanted to, I wanted to have kids around 2023. That's when I'm 40. That's when I wanna have kids. So I started telling all my friends like 5 years ago, I'm like, 2023, let's all have kids. Because I grew up with like a pack of kids, like a pack of friends, almost my exact age within 1 or 2 years. And it was awesome. Like it was really fun. We're all still best friends to this day. Like that'll never change. And I think it was great. And I was, I would love for my kids to have that. And also I think as a parent it's much better. Ben, you could probably attest if your kids wanna go play, you could be like, yeah, go play at the Coons, right? Like you can go play over there. And you don't have to worry about it. It's kind of better for the parents and the kids, and the kids get to have like their whole pack of friends, which is awesome. So I've been telling everyone 2023, that's the date everyone had pop out some kids around then.
All right.
This episode went all over the place. What do you think, Ben? Are people gonna like this?
Uh, I hope so. Uh, they're definitely gonna like copywriting. That all stuff is just like our bread and butter. Uh, but I hope people like the, the living next to your neighbor stuff too.
So Sean's not here, so he inevitably should, would promote his thing. So I'm actually gonna promote it. It's called Power Writing. So Sean has a writing thing. It's not the same as copywriting, but it's like, uh, kind of like for Twitter writing and cold emailing. And then Neville, so Google Power Writing, it's on maven.com. And then Neville has copywriting course, it's spelled C's exactly how it's, I'm saying it, copywritingcourse.com. Where do they go to buy the thing though? Because you used to have copywritingcourse.com/courses. Steal.
What is, uh, join slash join.
So copywritingcourse.com/join. And it's a monthly subscription now and you get the course, but also the community, right?
Yeah. Monthly, yearly. The community is like the real thing that you actually have a thing called copy reviewer tool. You post your copy, whether it's a sales page, cold email, Twitter post, anything. And like professional writers, including myself, go in there and like redo it for you.
And so it's easier to—
Yeah.
And you also tell people what I didn't— I've never seen this. March 2022 had 1,200 posts, 2,000 likes, 212,000 words written in the community.
That's a whole other story, but we moved away fully from WordPress, which I love, but we moved fully to like Forum Software, cuz I'm convinced that like this is where all the sites are gonna go in like 2 years. They're all gonna try to make their own little social network for their own community, but not on anyone else's platform. So that's what we did. We just switched over this week and it's pretty awesome.
What's the conversion rate of copywritingcourse.com/join? Because it's just like, it's like 4,000 words. It's pretty cool.
It super depends on whenever we do email promotions. So on a normal time, I don't know, maybe 1 to 2% on just like normal days, but then whenever we do promotions, it's much higher.
Yeah. So what, just on a nor— just from traffic coming to the website and people clicking on the /join, do you know what the conversion rate is?
I don't know the exact conversion rate. Um, there's certain times like beginnings of quarters, it's good. End of the year, beginning of the year is really good. Almost like gyms, like seasonal. And then, uh, through the summer is more like slog months where you have to like actively promote. And then at the end of the year, we just crush like Q4 is just, it's just easy.
Yeah. This page. Oh, hey, I'm on the, I'm on the page. You're on the page. Sick. Well, copywritingcourse.com/join.
Do we all have copywriting courses? Copywriting course, Copy That, Power Writing.
So our— no, Copy That, which is my thing, copythat.com, that's not a copywriting course. That's just a set of drills to keep sharp. Your thing actually teaches you how to write persuasive copy. Sean's thing is like, uh, it's called— he calls it Power Writing, and it's— you can use it for Twitter and cold emailing. So I actually think that your thing is like covers all of it, and then me and Sean's thing are very specific subsets, uh, of that, right?
Yeah, I think so.
I think—
I mean, people always ask me, they're like, is it competitive if someone else has another copywriting course? And I was like, I don't know, it kind of expands the pie in my opinion. Like, I've noticed, like, uh, you remember Dan Lok? Did y'all ever talk about that guy?
He's kind of— yeah, I don't like that guy.
That voice, he's kind of a little bit in the scammy range, like a Tyler—
that guy's totally A fucking scammy.
Well, well, here's the, here's the funny thing. Here's why I love and hate him. One, he would talk, he would talk, have these YouTube videos that are very popular, very well done, but they would say you should become a copywriter, you'll be a millionaire overnight. It was just like kind of lies in my opinion. But the point is it kind of drummed up interest in copywriting in a way. And I remember a lot of people coming from his stuff to ours. Um, it was, it was 50/50. Some people were realistic about it and some people were like, well, I'm ready to start earning six figures tomorrow. How do I start doing it? And we're like, oh God, you came from Dan Lok, right? Um, so in a way it kind of expands the pie whenever other people talk about it, it becomes a more popular thing.
And I promote your, yours in mine.
Oh, of course. Yeah.
Um, all right, cool. Ben, hopefully this turns out well. Neville, thank you.
Oh, and, uh, Ben's copywriting course is coming out next month, uh, called, uh, How to Take Over Copywriting.
There we go.
Yeah. Write copy like Napoleon and Julius Caesar.
That'd be pretty good.
How to write strong memos like, like you're Napoleon Bonaparte. Neville, what's your Twitter?
@nevmed. N-E-V-M-E-D. Nevmed. Awesome. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Ben.