How to analyze a habit

How to change a habit

How to keep from relapsing

How to build new habits

Here is a map showing all the home sales listed in the Realtor Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in Dearborn Heights, Michigan from October 2009 through September 2019. The sales used by the city assessor to calculate property values are red. The sales that were not used for assessment are green. You can click on the icons to get the address, sales price, and a low estimate for how much the city thought the property was worth at the time of the sale based on the property taxes.

For purposes of determining property values, only the red houses were used. So, even the green houses (houses which were actually marketed by commissioned Realtors) were valued based on red house sales. It seems to me that the assessor cherry-picked sales with high prices in order to be able to justify imposing high taxes.

Here are my notes for Neville Medhora's Mixergy interview:

Copywriting can make a big difference. People don't just buy the "product." They like being sold.

Copywriting can be learned. Neville began studying it just a year and a half ago and has improved a lot just during the last five months.

Tactics:

No one cares about YOU, they care about THEMSELVES.

Don't talk about yourself. Talk about what would interest the other person. People will be interested in you if you talk to them about what they are interested in.

Bad: "My name is XXXX and I own a company called YYYYY and ... blah blah... " = BORING

Good: "Hey Andrew, I noticed that you do a 3 interviews per day. I have a way that you could reduce your time by half. Interested? Call me."

Better: "Hey Andrew, I noticed that you do a 3 interviews per day. Here's how you could reduce your time by half. 1) ... 2) ... 3) ... 4) Call me for the fourth way."

How do you know what people are interested in? What are their pain points?

Just guess about your average customers.

Better: Construct your customer avatar from customer demographics. The average customer is probably similar to you.

Best: Call you customers, or email them. Talk to them directly.

Talk about the end benefit. Give a lot of detail. "Here's how X will make you more money. Talk about specific details."

AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

Try to follow AIDA for everything you write.

Attention: Are you a designer? Do you want to make more money as a designer? Let me show you how.

Interest: (give interesting facts) Did you know that steve jobs was interested in typography? <steve jobs quote: most people don't know why certain fonts look good > Kernest has been working in design for X years ... 

Desire: (how will this make their life better?) Remember the time your client was not satisfied? If they had Kernest, they would have wet their pants!

Action: (ask them to do something, explain in detail, take away the fear of the unknown.) Walk them step by step on how to get the product. If you don't tell them , they won't know. "If you want to impress your client, click on the "Buy Now" button below. This button will take you to a paypal page. Pay for the product. The first 4 fonts will be sent to you immediately. Enjoy your fonts . . .

(Here is the actual email)

Steve Jobs was originally obsessed with typography
1 message

AppSumo <noah@appsumo.com>	Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 7:03 AM
To: XXXXXXXXXXX
I'm going to save you a bunch of time If the names "Lucida Sans Unicode" or "Courier New" don't mean anything to you, go ahead and close this message. You see my friend, today we're reaching out only to the community of people known as font fanatics. You know who you are! If your knees go weak when I whisper, "GARAMOND."   ...you might be one of em. You can call yourself a designer or a developer to normal society, but behind closed doors we know the elegance of Verdana's curves turn you on...and that's why we're here today.  As Steve Jobs described his obsession with beautiful typography: "I learned about Serif and Sans Serif typefaces.  About varying the amount of space between different letter combinations.  About what makes great typography great.  It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way science can't capture...and I found it fascinating." --Steve Jobs   If like Jobs, your lust for fonts craves more and more every month, the solution stands before you: Kernest. Did you hear that?  I said:  KERNEST. It takes an obsessive eye to pick which fonts play well together, and every month a new combination of fonts are delivered to you...complete with HTML and CSS highlighting. Maybe you're like me: You can easily tell when something "looks really good"...but you sometimes don't know WHY. This is a problem I have.  I can see a "clean looking" webpage, but can't tell why my Franken-site doesn't look as slick.  Often the answer is  typography.  When I smash Arial 12 with Tahoma 36 it somehow doesn't work....and don't even get me started on the color schemes... Once again, Kernest to the rescue. When you get your new fonts, you can rejoice that you don't have to fool around with them....they are ready to implement and the grueling process of marrying fonts together has been taken care of by the Almighty Kernest himself.   Most things in life aren't free, and don't dare expect Kernest to be.  Kernest charges $15/month for delivering the most obsessively picked font combinations every month.  This my dear Sumo-ling is... $180/year. A fair price for making your clients knees quiver when they see your stunning work. But full price makes the AppSumo angry (and hungry).  We have konvinced Kernest (through intimidation and force) to giveaway alifetime membership at less than the yearly price.  This means no monthly payments, no yearly payments, no alimony payments, no NOTHING for life.  Just magical font combinations every month capable of making an ugly project come to life from beautiful typography. As you know from past AppSumo promotions, we always get late-to-the-gamers whining and pleading to let them buy the deal after it's over. The count down timer on AppSumo does not lie. If you are a designer, take action NOW to stand out from lifeless design and stay ahead of the game.  Get your lifetime membership to Kernest here: KERNEST. P.S. We also convinced (aka threatened) Kernest to give away the last FOUR months of font combinations for every lifetime signup through this deal.  You get them soon as you sign up.   Check it out >  Only 17 hours left.

30% of the email can tell them how to buy. Remove all the fear. Tell them exactly what they are getting.

Design tip: Take 10 steps back from the screen. Can you tell what you're supposed to on the page? If you can't you're doing it wrong. Use BFB (Big F______ Button). Copy Google Site Search's page design. Foreign readers should be able to tell what to do with your site.

Write Casual

Write the way you speak. Formal writing is boring. Don't bore your audience.

What about offending your audience? Don't you lose credibility.

"Every client I've had has vehemently objected until they see the results."

People who love Howard Stern listen for an average of an hour twenty minutes. People who hate Howard listen for an average of three hours. It's because they're curious about what he's going to say. If it's interesting, your audience will listen. 

Try recording what you want to say and then transcribing it. This bypasses the boring-formal-writing part of the brain.

Here Neville recommends mybodytutor.com, a site belonging to a friend of his Adam. Neville lost 25 pounds in two months on Adam's program and has been able to keep it off. Adam promotes mybodytutor by emailing professional reporters who cover health. But he was doing it wrong and getting no conversions.  So Neville wrote a new email:

"Hey sexy female reporter: I can see why you write fitness articles. But I have a problem with your article: <insert criticism of reporter's article.> I have a couple of things that I think you might like: I used to write articles professionally. Here are three titles of articles that I wrote but never published: <juicy titles here> I'm not using these articles, you are free to use them without credit. Email me 

Objections: can't hit on the reporter, didn't mention product.

BUT: The email gets her attention. It's interesting. It gives her real benefits she can use. 

Reporters get a lot of email. The email needs to get attention. It gives her a clear benefit: articles she can use (reporters can always use articles.)

19 out of 30 emails now get a response.

Spend more time communicating and less time on the product.

If you have to be a little funny to make the sale, then so be it.

You can make good copywriters by sending them to Kopywriting Kourse.

Good copywriting can get better than 100% open rates.

Focus on the customer relentlessly.

You will get in proportion that you give.

You must give a lot to get a lot.

Gary Halbert: The number one problem with people trying to make money is that they try to get a lot without first giving a lot.

Example: Mixergy gives away interviews of tremendous value. It's therefore easier for Andrew Warner (owner of Mixergy) to monetize. 

Offer a lot of good information. 

How can you give people value before they buy, Especially if you want them to buy right away? EDUCATION: teach your customers something that will make their life better. Especially if the education involves the product you're selling. 

By giving away great information, you make your customers curious. You also come across as confident, which increases their confidence in you. Generosity is associated with trustworthiness. Generosity begets trust.

Give away a lot and expect just a little.

Understand that people care about benefits. If you know how to sell, you can do it in any medium. Selling is a mindset.

Gary Halbert Letter http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/

Very highly recommened. It will change your life. Also google for gary halbert boron letters. Print out chapters 1-25 and read them. These letters launched Neville's career.

How to make great headline

Go to digg.com. Search for your subject. Filter by "most dugg". You will see a lot of fantastic, socially proven headlines. Use these headlines in your copy as subject lines and headlines.

You can even send out related info, and then segway into your product.

related idea: search for your topic on Google. Use headlines from the search results and the ads. 

It's not about the money.

Once you have enough, it's not about the money anymore. Successful people care about quality and how they can help other people's lives. People often don't really care much about what they have plenty of.

Correctness != Effective

George Carlin: "Why? Why? Why? Why is it that everyone you see at an abortion rally is not someone you'd want to___ in the first place?!" -- opening his act at Carnegie Hall.

from http://mixergy.com/neville-medhora-kopywriting-kourse-interview/

Here are my notes on Tom Woods's presentation to the Libertarians of Northern Kansas.

"Nobody says, 'Mitt Romney, A Thinker for the Ages.'"

Talk about ideas, because this is what's really important. Talk about ideas will outlive you.

Get yourself a Youtube Channel.

Because you can get an audience. You'll learn how to write, organize your thoughts, and speak in front of the camera. Bonus: all you need is a camera. The channel itself is free.

Get yourself a blog.

You can reach the whole world by commenting on interesting articles and videos. A blog is a much better way to spread your ideas than sending emails to your friends. After a while, even your friends will delete your forwarded emails, because they are busy.

Austrian economists have the economic answers.

The have predicted the problems that are here. And they are predicting the future problems. Yet they are almost universally ignored. 

The publishing industry is ready to collapse.

Regnery, working very fast, went from manuscript to finished book in the stores in four months! Normally this might take one year. This means that unless they deal with very long-term subjects (ideas) or histories, books are out-of-date by the time they hit the bookstores.

The free market organizes itself.

Nine months to build a toaster from scratch. 

Great Analogy #1:

Q. You don't want to throw out the baby with the baby water, do you?

A. Yes you do, if the baby is a DEMON BABY!

Great Analogy #2:

If children were taught in walmart schools that deify Sam Walton, we would recognize that something is wrong. But that is what government schools do with respect to the state. Kids are brainwashed that the state is looking out for them. The state has its own interests that's different from the publics.

Examples of state propoganda:

Safety trends after regulatory agencies usually just continue as they were before the agencies.

People are talking of real change now.

Real tax reform is not just shuffling the tax burden around. It's about reducing the tax burden in total. Revenue-neutral reform is not reform.

Real question about the Fed is not "what should the Fed do?" but rather "should there even be a Fed?"

Inspirational Conclusion

We are in special times. A time of change. Peaple are asking serious, basic questions. We should be guided by Mises's counsel. "Everyone carries a part of society on their shoulders. There are no exceptions. Nobody can find a safe way out for himself when society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore it is in all of our interests to throw ourselves into the intellectual battle, into the great titanic struggle that our age has placed us."

Q&A

On Occupy Wall Street

Obama got more Goldman Sachs donations than all the Republican politicians at all levels.

People know something is wrong, but they are confused. The don't have the answers.

In his book, Animal Farm, George Orwell tells the story of some animals that decided to take over their farm. They chased off the human owner and installed their own democratically-elected government. All of the elected representatives in the new government just happened to be pigs, because the pigs seemed to have a natural disposition for government work. 

The pigs were good at government work because they were very clever at explaining why appropriating the best products of the farm for themselves was actually public service. So, for example, the pigs got to eat apples with milk, while the rest of the animals had to content themselves with grass, because the pigs needed the apples and milk to maintain their health for the benefit of all. Similarly the pigs slept in beds in the house while the other animals slept in the barn, as a public service.

The pigs also focused on education: they did an excellent job of training fierce dogs. With well-trained dogs at their command, the pigs eventually were able to take whatever they wanted, because everyone was afraid of the dogs.

Of course Animal Farm is just a fictional novel. Our government is not composed of pigs, but rather hardworking public servants who earn twice the average private-sector wage for the public good while the general populace is struggling to make ends meet, many are unemployed, and many have lost their homes.

Also, we don't have dogs who enable the pigs to take whatever they want, we have police and IRS agents that practice civil forfeiture and enforce the tax laws so that government has been able double in the last ten years while the private sector has shrunk. It's for our own good.