Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 120

The 4-Hour Chef iPad App: iOS from Amazon Publishing? (Plus: Free Roundtrip Anywhere in the World)

Screenshot from The 4-Hour Chef iPad app

The 4-Hour Chef app, first available only on Kindle Fire, is now available for the Appleverse (iPad)! Check it out here.

It's rated 12+ for "Mild alcohol, tobacco, or drug use or references" and "mild profanity or crude humor." Fun stuff, in other words. Let me know in the comments what you think of things, and don't miss the exploding cow. The Android version is coming soon.

Two related notes, one for the book, the other for a free round-trip ticket:

- The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life is 50-80% off for a limited time to encourage pre-orders. You can cancel anytime up to ship date, so there is no downside, only a locked-in discount. Click here for the full book details.

- To spice things up, I'm offering a X-mas present: a free roundtrip anywhere in the world that Star Alliance flies. Here's how you get it…

- Download the app for free. iPad here or Kindle Fire here.

- Take before measurements (detailed below) and before pictures — front, side, and back — now.

- Follow the "Christmas Countdown" in the app from 12/18 – 12/25. For bonus points, let us know how you're doing in the comments here.

- Take after photos and measurements after 12/25.

- Post your before-and-afters in the comments here no later than 10pm PST, 12/28/11. Requirement for eligibility: indicate in the first sentence the most valuable thing you learned during the experiment.

- Then we'll pick a winner, based on the results and reporting.

The usual legalese applies: Void where prohibited, minors not eligible, etc., etc…

For measurements:

1) Weight

2) Take your "before" circumference measurements. Get a simple tape measure and measure four locations: both upper arms (mid- bicep), waist (horizontal at navel), hips (at widest point below waist), and both legs (mid-thigh). Total these numbers to arrive at your Total Inches (TI).

3) If possible, body-fat percentage.

More on The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life

Intended to be "the cookbook for people who don't buy cookbooks," The 4-Hour Chef will use food as a vehicle to teach the art and science of meta-learning–the skill of learning skills. Whether you want to learn a new instrument or a new sport (or anything in between), you'll have a field-tested and research-backed blueprint. In addition to insight from world-class chefs, we'll have an unreal cast of characters helping you to multiply your learning potential.

For a limited time, to celebrate the announcement, you can pre-order The 4-Hour Chef for 50-80% off. Instead of $30 for print, you can reserve a copy for $15. Instead of $22 for Kindle, you can get it for $5.99.

Sidenote…

Why might you buy the physical book, even in addition to the Kindle? Three reasons:

1) It will be gorgeous, a wonderful tactile experience, and truly unlike any cookbook you've ever seen.

2) I'll be thinking up bonuses for people who buy the print edition early.

3) It would really help me out. Inexplicably, The New York Times excludes all advice/how-to books from their e-book bestseller list, so only the print edition counts towards the bestseller list. Silly, but there you have it!

See the full book description, sneak-peek photos, and more here.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on December 13, 2011 18:15

The Painless Path to Endurance (Plus: Breville Winner and More)

"Victor" running an ultramarathon.

Pavel Tsatsouline is a former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor, currently a subject matter expert to the US Navy SEALs and the US Secret Service. In 2001, Pavel's and John Du Cane introduced the Russian kettlebell to the West.

Dan John is a former nationally-ranked discus thrower and Olympic lifter–as well as Fulbright Scholar–with more than four decades in the iron game.

T-shirt: Lance Armstrong to Pavel.

Enter Dan and Pavel

Years ago, my friend Dr. Jim Wright said something that got burned into my brain:

"Consistency and moderation over intensity."

Not nearly as sexy as "Do or Die!" or some other juvenile T-shirt slogan, but you could not think of a better set of directions for durable performance.

You are about to meet a man who embodies this maxim. He is a US military special operator whose name I shall withhold due to the nature of his duty.

Let us call him "Victor."

I met this quiet professional at one of our RKC military kettlebell courses. He was capable of a strict pullup with 160 pounds of extra weight, at a bodyweight of 195 pounds (and one-arm chins, naturally). He could close Iron Mind's iconic #2.5 Captains of Crush hand gripper, 237.5 pounds strong, for three reps. And he had run over ten ultramarathons, from 50 to 100 miles!…

Any of the above is an accomplishment, but combining either the first or second feat with the third is unheard of. Especially if one considers that this man is not a pampered professional athlete, but a warrior with many combat deployments under his belt. I had to know more.

Victor graciously described his training:

Low mileage. I only ran 30 miles per week in preparation for the 100 miler. The most important training event for ultramarathons is the weekly long run. I kept my heart rate low and breathed through my nose during training runs, and I think that this helped to minimize muscle damage. I can run 20 miles on a Sunday, and still perform strength exercises on Monday. The key is having the LOW INTENSITY. I use a heart rate monitor, and I stay at 60-65% of my MHR. This means that I am often walking on the hills. If I ran 20 miles at 70-75% MHR, my recovery time would be much longer. I would do high intensity track or hill intervals on one day during the week, but the interval workout never lasted longer than 30 minutes. I keep the intervals pretty intense, though.

Fueling. I am religious about using proper fueling for all long distance events, and I swear by Hammer Nutrition. I consumed exactly 270 calories/hour for the entire 100 mile race (7:1 carbs/protein) and this gave me all the calories that I needed. The protein in my race nutrition (Hammer Perpetuem) helps to prevent muscle cannibalization during the race. Post-race/run, I drink Hammer Recoverite immediately after finishing, and try to get a good meal within an hour of the race.

Prior experience. I did my first 50-mile race 11 years ago, and I have completed over 10 ultramarathons since then. I know how my body will react after long distances, and this experience helps with the mental side of the sport. I have also completed many similar types of endurance events in my military training. Having this experience is very beneficial. I know that I can walk out the door anytime/anywhere and run a marathon pretty easily.

The hand strength and gripper stuff is just fun to do. I train them "Grease the Groove" style [easy sets throughout the day, every day—Ed.]. Of course it helps that I have been doing literally 100s of pull-ups per week (on average) for the last 14 years. I also have done a lot of rock climbing in my past, which really helps with grip strength.

Variety. I have enough variety in my training (yoga, running, biking, kettlebells, clubs, calisthenics) help keep me injury free. I try to get 1-2 days of yoga per week. Sometimes I go to a class, and sometimes on my own. I work the basic poses and focus on releasing some of the tension that comes from lots of running and strength training. The yoga has been great for injury prevention. I also do not lift any other weights besides my single 53lb. kettlebell, and my two 25lb. clubs. The only 1RM training that I do is with the gripper. I used to do presses and deadlifts after reading Power to the People!, but I felt my ego pushing me harder and faster than my body wanted to go. So I decided to limit myself to one kettlebell and two clubs and just focus on adding repetitions and intensity. Staying injury free has helped me to maintain consistent progress for the last 10 years.

I rarely train for more than 30 minutes per day. The only exception to this would be a weekly long run (3+ hours) and a weekly trail run (50-min). I have always done lots of trail running and I find that the trails are much easier on the legs. The steep trails keep things fun and help to prevent overuse injuries. I also keep my exercise selection pretty minimal: pushups, pull-ups, kettlebell swings, get-ups, windmills, goblet squats, and club mills/swipes. That is pretty much it.

I attribute most of my success to consistency. I have been training almost daily since I was 14 years old, and I am also fortunate to have a job that requires me to stay in shape. I also don't think that there is any reason why strength and endurance have to be mutually exclusive…

Process vs. Outcome

In the mid-nineties, a curious book came out in the States: Body, Mind, and Sport by John Douillard. Given its focus on endurance sports, an apparent dislike of hard training and beef, and heavy doses of New Age discussions of Ayurveda, it is unlikely that it was read by many of our intense weightlifting friends. At least one did, though: Victor.

The book was dedicated to improving one's performance by reducing the effort to 50%, enjoying the process, and not focusing on the result. The author cited a University of Texas in Austin study of goal-oriented and process-oriented people in the workplace. Unexpectedly, it was not the hypercompetitive Type "A" people who were doing more for the company, making more money, getting more raises and promotions. It was the folks who were enjoying their job.

Ironically, not getting wrapped up in the result may deliver higher gains. I had heard that before. One of the best pistol shooters in the Russian armed forces made a breakthrough in his accuracy when a coach told him, "You know, you have the right to miss."

One of Douillard's techniques was practicing a competitive sport without keeping score. "Focusing on the score attaches you to the result. Focusing on the process lets you access your greatest skill and increases your fun." That rang true.

When I was working on my running in preparation for my military service, at least once a week I would leave my watch at home and go as far as I could while staying totally relaxed. I would draw out my breaths as far as possible comfortably, taking a series of partial inhalations (one per step), and then partial exhalations (one per step again). It took several steps, say six, to complete one breathing cycle. I scanned my body regularly for hidden tension and would release it by "breathing out" through the tight muscles and by shaking them off. I would keep my mouth closed, but not tightly, as relaxed jaws are essential to effortless running. Even after weeks when I did no other kind of running—no hard runs, no hills, no intervals, no running with weight—I could race any distance up to 10K very fast if I chose to. All I had to do was add some "gas" to the relaxation, and I flew.

Nose-only breathing was later stressed in my unit. They sometimes had us run with a mouthful of water—a brilliant self-limiting exercise in the best Gray Cook tradition. Some Russian marathoners hold a handkerchief in their teeth for the same purpose of preventing panicky and inefficient mouth breathing.

Not surprisingly, nose-only breathing and keeping the heart rate low were key components of the Body, Mind, and Sport program. The inventive author figured out a way to "make it a competitive endeavor. For example… run around the track and the winner will be the one who not only finishes first, but has the slowest breath rate and heart rate."

Here is how he scored the winners:

Finish Time + Heart Rate + (Breath Rate x 3)

The lowest score wins, and he multiplies the breath rate by 3 to emphasize its importance.

Victor stresses, "The low HR and nose breathing are essential. After a few months of consistent practice, nose-breathing should be used for the tempo run as well. Nose breathing teaches breath control, and also acts as a "governor" that helps to prevent overtraining." This is especially important to an athlete for whom running endurance is not the number one priority.

Endurance or strength, Dr. Anatoly Bondarchuk (Olympic hammer throw champion and coach of champions) makes a stunning revelation that the harder you push the body, the more stubbornly it refuses change:

"In our practice, with each year we have become more convinced that the stronger our desires to significantly increase the level of achievement… the less the effect… This is explained by the fact that the stronger the complex of training effects, then the more harmony there is in the defense functions in the body… This in every way possible creates barriers or prevents a new level of adaptation, where in the process of restructuring it is necessary to expend a significant amount of energy resources.

…the defense function of the body systems in high level athletes is more "trained" than in low level athletes. From here a very "bold" conclusion follows, that the process of increasing sports mastery takes place at the same level as the process of developing defense functions. In the end result, the defense functions prevail over most of the time of sports development… Up to this time, all of this is a "superbold" hypothesis, giving food for very "fantastic" propositions, but there is something in all of this… Today it is only sufficiently clear that in the process of sports improvement, the body always defends itself against the irritants acting upon it."

The ability to differentiate between "laziness" and "doing just the right amount to get the job done" is a mark of a winner. Recalls AAU American bench press record holder Jack Reape:

"I spent the first half of my training career learning to work harder and never miss workouts, and the second half learning when to sometimes go easier and when to back off."

The above is excerpted from Pavel and Dan's new book, Easy Strength. Learn more about it here.

###

ODDS AND ENDS: Breville winner and Angel Investor of the Year?

Jan Winklmann is the winner of the Random Show Breville competition. Please check your email. I need your final OK to ship. Danke sehr!

Angel Investor of the Year?

Reader Cody Candee nominated me as "Best Angel Investor of the Year" for the TechCrunch Crunchies. Thanks, Cody! If you've followed my investing or like what I've written on the subject (samples here), I'd very much appreciate your support.

To second Cody'd nomination, just click here and then click "share" next to my name. It takes just 5 seconds, literally.

I'm an advisor and/or investor with companies including Evernote (Just announced: Inc. Magazine's "Start-up of the Year" — congrats, boys!), Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Uber, Shopify, TaskRabbit, and many more. Thus far, no real fatalities in almost 4 years of doing this, and cost basis recouped 20x+.

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Published on December 06, 2011 21:51

The 4-Hour Chef – Cheat Day Sample: Tequila Hot Chocolate

For those of you waiting on the iOS version of the free 4-Hour Chef teaser app, and for anyone who'd like a cheat day experiment this weekend, I offer the following: Tobacco-infused Tequila Hot Chocolate.

It's absurd, decadent, and more delicious than you can imagine. Here's the kicker: I usually hate tequila, so this was a revelation.

PLEASE NOTE: This is intended as a really fun DIY project and a rocking cheat drink, not as a time-saving cocktail. There are times for efficiency, and there are times to explore and enjoy life unhurried.

This is the latter, and it's for FUN. Notice the last part of the subtitle for The 4-Hour Chef, which is "The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life."

"There is more to life than increasing its speed," as Mahatma Gandhi once said.

If you choose to tackle this challenge, share your experience in the comments!

Enter The Aviary

This spectacular drink was taught to me by Craig Schoettler, the executive chef at The Aviary in Chicago, without a doubt the most awe-inspiring "bar-less cocktail kitchen" in the world.

To set the scene: There are 30+ types of ice, and the customers are prevented from harassing the bartenders by a cage barricade. Perhaps you'd like an Old Fashioned served in an ice dinosaur egg? It's prepared with a syringe, and you drink it after shattering the bourbon-filled casing with a miniature slingshot attached to the glass. Or how about a botanical-infused whiskey that changes colors like a chameleon over the course of 30 minutes? They have that, too.

Of course, you'd expect nothing less from the owners, who also run Alinea, the highest-ranked restaurant in the United States. Bartending through the lens of world-class chefs is otherworldly…

This recipe has been modified to fit a few standard measurements. This takes it from super insanely awesome (The Aviary) to merely very insanely awesome.

Want to see what all this looks like before you get started?

Here's a video of my very first attempt, uncensored and unprofessional. It ain't pretty, and that's the point–even you, as a novice, can make something incredible if you're willing to fumble a little. Below the video, you'll find all the instructions you need:

As with all recipes, read through the entire thing before you get started or even go shopping! This will prevent hiccups and guarantee a better (and tastier) buzz.

Ingredients

FOR THE CIGAR MILK:

945 ml / 4 cups Whole milk

40 g / ¼ cup Sugar

1 big pinch / ¼ tsp. Salt

1 Cigar (something cheap is fine)

FOR THE HOT CHOCOLATE BASE:

475 ml / 2 cups Whole milk

40 g / ¼ cup Sugar

1 pinch Salt

100 g / 3½ oz. Bittersweet chocolate, such as Alpaco 66% cacao, chopped

FOR THE BOOZE:

90 ml/g / 3 fl. oz. Tequila, preferably Fortaleza Blanco

10 ml/g / 2 tsp. Fernet-Branca

MAKES: 2 drinks, plus enough cigar milk for more

HANDS-ON TIME: Approx. 20 mins.

TOTAL TIME: Approx. 1 hr. 30 mins., max (30-60 min. of letting the cigar smoke)

Equipment

FOR STANDARD HOME METHOD:

• A large baking pan or a roasting pan

• A smaller baking pan for the milk, sugar, and salt

FOR TIM'S GHETTO METHOD (seen in the above video):

• A largish cereal or soup bowl

• A large stock pot

• A candle lighter or butane/lighter torch

FOR BOTH:

• A cigar

• Aluminum foil

• A saucepan or skillet (or both, if you want to melt the chocolate separately)

• An immersion blender, ideally with a cream-whipping attachment or milk frother

• Ice trays (for freezing extra cigar milk for later)

Now, How to Make It

STEP 1:

Make the cigar milk foam. You have two choices: the standard home method or the Tim ghetto method.

Standard home method:

• In a baking pan, mix the milk, sugar, and salt.

• Set the pan inside a larger metal baking or roasting pan (choose a disposable one or something you don't mind smelling like cigars).

• Split the cigar in half lengthwise and place it on a piece of aluminum foil in the larger pan.

• Light the cigar with a candle lighter or a butane lighter/torch, then quickly cover both pans with a piece of aluminum foil. Let smoke for one hour.

Tim ghetto method:

• Mix the milk, sugar, and salt in a largish cereal or soup bowl.

• Put this bowl inside a stockpot. I prefer a large and cheap stockpot (don't forget to buy a lid!) that I use mostly for cooking sous-vide and lobsters.

• Split the cigar in half lengthwise and place it on a piece of aluminum foil at the bottom of the stockpot.

• Light the cigar with a candle lighter or a butane lighter/torch (remember canisters), cover the pot, and let smoke for 30–45 minutes. Thirty minutes is plenty, in my experience.

• Later, to de-stench your stockpot, just clean it out and leave a bowl of white wine vinegar mixed with peppermint oil inside, covered, for 1–2 hours.

Step 2

While the milk is smoking, make the hot chocolate base. In a saucepan or skillet, combine the milk, sugar, and salt and bring to a simmer.

Step 3

Remove from heat and slowly add the chocolate. I like to put the chips in a separate skillet and slide them in. Do NOT add them by hand, as scalding milk can splash upward and Phantom of the Opera your hands. Stir until chocolate is melted, then cover and set aside.

Step 4

Foam the cigar milk: Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat it to just below a simmer or a light simmer. Use an immersion blender—ideally one fitted with the cream-whipping attachment or a milk frother—to blend until foamy. No attachment? Just blend for 45 seconds, then wait 2–3 minutes for the bubbles to surface.

Step 5

Combine the tequila and Fernet-Branca into one of your serving cups, then pour half of it into the other. You can use a scale, but I just eyeball it. Into each cup, pour about 7 fluid ounces (210 milliliters) of the hot chocolate base and top with some of the cigar milk foam.

Serve warm and love life.

If you don't finish the cigar milk, freeze it in ice trays to surprise future guests with unusual iced coffee.

Enjoy!

###

The 4-Hour Chef is available for a limited time at 50-80% off list price. Read all the details of the book and learn more here (as well as download the free app for Kindle Fire).

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on December 01, 2011 17:07

The 4-Hour Chef – The First Kindle Fire Book Teaser (Want a Free Kindle Fire?)

A first look at the beta-cover of The 4-Hour Chef. Let me know what you think.

The magic elves and I have been hard at work on an early Christmas gift for you all. In fact, there are quite a few goodies in this post, including 50 free Kindle Fire devices!

Let's start with one of the most time-sensitive…

The 4-Hour Chef is Live!

The 4-Hour Chef is now on sale on Amazon!

I've been keeping things under wraps, but there is one big surprise. For the last 5 years, the most frequent request from blog readers has been a guide to mental performance. In other words, answering the question: how do you deconstruct and learn any skill?

Well, I've been listening all along, and that book is here!

Here's the complete title: The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life. Intended to be "the cookbook for people who don't buy cookbooks," The 4-Hour Chef will use food as a vehicle to teach the art and science of meta-learning–the skill of learning skills. Whether you want to learn a new instrument or a new sport (or anything in between), you'll have a field-tested and research-backed blueprint. In addition to insight from world-class chefs, we'll have an unreal cast of characters helping you to multiply your learning potential.

For a limited time, to celebrate the announcement, you can pre-order The 4-Hour Chef for 50-80% off. Instead of $30 for print, you can reserve a copy for $15. Instead of $22 for Kindle, you can get it for $5.99.

You can cancel anytime up to ship date, so there is no downside, only locked-in savings.

Sidenote…

Why might you buy the physical book, even in addition to the Kindle? Three reasons:

1) It will be gorgeous, a wonderful tactile experience, and truly unlike any cookbook you've ever seen.

2) I'll be thinking up bonuses for people who buy the print edition early.

3) It would really help me out. Inexplicably, The New York Times excludes all advice/how-to books from their e-book bestseller list, so only the print edition counts towards the bestseller list. Silly, but there you have it!

See the full book description, sneak-peek photos, and more here.

A Christmas Countdown Experiment: The 4-Hour Chef Teaser

Next, I present to you the first Kindle Fire book teaser and app!

100% free and titled "A Christmas Countdown Experiment: The 4-Hour Chef Teaser," it includes a seven-day Christmas countdown advent calendar, with unusual tips that allow you to enjoy wine, cookies, and all the other holiday vices… while losing fat.

From strategic yo-yo dieting and tequila hot chocolate, to exploding cows and tattoos, it's full of surprises. Here's are a few screenshots and the introduction video, followed by the download link…

Main menu – just tap any food for the recipe and much more.

I love advent calendars! Tap any day for your prescription or reward.

Download The 4-Hour Chef Teaser here. Please note! This version is limited to Kindle Fire at the moment, but the iPad (iOS) and general Android versions are almost done. They'll be coming along shortly, and I'll keep you posted.

But… why not get yourself a free Kindle Fire? That's next.

50 Free Kindle Fire Devices

If you don't yet have a Kindle Fire and would one for free, I'm giving away 50 of them. This is a thank you for providing so much helpful feedback over the last six months.

Here's how to get one:

1) Just spread the word in the next 48 hours! Send people to this blog post or The 4-Hour Chef page on Amazon. Here are some ideas: Facebook like, Facebook sharing, retweets, Twitter, e-mail, e-mail signature, street miming. The last one doesn't scale as well as the others.

2) By 11am PST this Thursday (Dec. 1), leave a comment on this post telling me what you did. If possible, quantify the impact (clicks, page views, etc.), and be sure to follow these two rules, which are required for your entry to be valid:

- In the first line, tell me what you'd most like to learn in The 4-Hour Chef.

- Keep the entire comment to 200 words or fewer, so use bullets!

We'll consider the first 300 submissions, and a few judges and I will choose the 50 we think did the best job (subjective, I know). Then we ship them off! Void where prohibited, Martians under 21 not allowed, etc., etc. Winners will be announced next week.

Happy holidays!

Much more to come…

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on November 29, 2011 11:41

Random Show – Episode 17 – Start-ups, Investing, and Pickled Vegetables

Long overdue, join me and Kevin Rose as we catch up on topics ranging from investing and Steve Jobs to pickled food and start-up launches. Thanks to Glenn for his usual Jedi videography.

For the Breville contest, just search the Oink app for user "Tim Ferriss" to find my profile.

Two odds and ends:

1) You all ROCK. The last post's goal has been exceeded, and my $25K match is happening. The goal was $25K, which I'd then match. You have so far helped raise $45K, and that number is growing quickly. INCREDIBLE.

2) To the 100s of readers who have asked when the hell the personal-use BodyMetrix would be ready: it's finally here. As a thank-you for your patience, I've asked the manufacturer for an additional discount. Until Nov. 30, you can get 25% off (which should be around $125) by using the code 4HOURBODY at check out. For those interested, here's the site. The pro version has been used by everyone from the New York Yankee's to AC Milan.

For previous episodes of The Random Show, click here.

Last but not least, The Random Show is now on iTunes! If you simply want audio-only, or if you'd like to watch the episodes on your iPhone or iPad, here you go:

VIDEO: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-random-show-podcast/id417595309

AUDIO: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-random-show-podcast-audio/id417635513

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on November 22, 2011 23:18

Filling the Void: Thoughts on Learning and Karma

Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (Photo: Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

-Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor, author of Man's Search for Meaning

I believe that life exists to be enjoyed, and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself.

Without the latter, little else gets done.

Each person will have his or her own vehicles for achieving both, and those vehicles will change over time. For some, the answer will be working with orphans, and for others, it will be composing music. I have a personal answer to both–to love, be loved, and never stop learning–but I don't expect that to be universal.

Some criticize a focus on self-love and enjoyment as selfish or hedonistic, but it's neither.

Enjoying life and helping others–or feeling good about yourself and increasing the greater good–are no more mutually exclusive than being agnostic and leading a moral life. One does not preclude the other. Let's assume we agree on this. It still leaves the question: what can I do with my time to enjoy life and feel good about myself?

I can't offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens of fulfilled people I've interviewed, and the thousands who've provided feedback on this blog, there are two components that are fundamental…

Continual learning and service.

What follows is how I think of both.

LEARNING UNLIMITED: SHARPENING THE SAW

Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.

-Dave Barry, American writer and humorist

To learn is to live. I see no other option. Once the learning curve flattens out, I get bored.

Though you can upgrade your brain domestically, traveling and relocating provides unique conditions that make progress much faster. The different surroundings act as a counterpoint and mirror for your own prejudices, making addressing weaknesses that much easier. Learning is such an addiction and compulsion of mine that I rarely travel somewhere without deciding first how I'll obsess on a specific skill.

A few examples:

Connemara, Ireland: Gaelic Irish, Irish flute, and hurling, the fastest field sport in the world, and perhaps the most amazing sport I've ever played (imagine a mix of lacrosse and rugby played with axe handles)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Brazilian Portuguese and surfing

Berlin, Germany: German and locking (a form of upright breakdancing)

I tend to focus on language acquisition and one kinesthetic skill, sometimes finding the latter after landing overseas. The most successful serial vagabonds tend to blend the mental and the physical. Notice that I often port a skill I practice domestically-—martial arts-—to other countries where they are also practiced. Instant social life and camaraderie. It need not be a competitive sport-—it could be hiking, chess, or almost anything that keeps your nose out of a textbook and you out of your apartment. Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign language stage fright and developing lasting friendships, while still sounding like Tarzan.

Language learning deserves special mention here. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.

Quite aside from the fact that it is impossible to understand a foreign culture without understanding its language, acquiring a new language transforms the human experience and makes you aware your own language: your own thoughts.

The practical benefits of this are as underestimated as the difficulty of language learning is overestimated. I know from research and personal experience with more than a dozen languages that 1) adults can learn languages much faster than children when constant 9-5 work is removed and 2) it is possible to become conversationally-fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months. It is beyond the scope of this post to explain applied linguistics and the 80/20 of language learning, but here are a few starting points.

Don't miss the chance to double your life experience. Gain a language and you gain a second lens through which to question and understand the world.

Cursing at people when you go home is fun, too.

SERVICE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS: TO SAVE THE WHALES OR KILL THEM AND FEED THE CHILDREN?

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.

-Oscar Wilde

Service to me is simple: doing something that improves life besides your own.

This is not the same as philanthropy. Philanthropy is the altruistic concern for the well-being of mankind–human life. Human life and comfort have long been focused on to the exclusion of the environment and the rest of the food chain, hence our current race to imminent extinction. Serves us right. The world does not exist solely for the betterment and multiplication of mankind.

Before I start chaining myself to trees and saving the dart frogs, though, I should take my own advice: do not become a cause snob.

How can you help starving children in Africa when there are starving children in Los Angeles? How can you save the whales when homeless people are freezing to death? How does doing volunteer research on coral destruction help those people who need help now?

Children, please. Everything out there needs help, so don't get baited into "my cause can beat up your cause" arguments with no right answer. There are no qualitative or quantitative comparisons that make sense. The truth is this: those thousands of lives you save could contribute to a famine that kills millions, or that one bush in Bolivia that you protect could hold the cure for cancer. The downstream effects are unknown. Do your best and hope for the best. If you're improving the world–however you define that–consider your job well done.

Service isn't limited to saving lives or the environment. It can also improve life. If you are a musician and put a smile on the faces of thousands or millions, I view that as service. If you are a mentor and change the life of one child for the better, the world has been improved. Improving the quality of life in the world is in no fashion inferior to adding more lives.

Service is an attitude.

Find the cause or vehicle that interests you most and make no apologies.

###

Afterword: My Current Passion

I'm passionate about many things, but one of them is timely.

In one of the most ecologically diverse areas in the Bahamas, I am working with Summit Series and others to help create a Marine Protected Area (MAP). Think of it as a ocean-based national park. It would be patrolled and run by the Nature Conservancy. I am passionate about saving the oceans upon which we depend.

To get this protected area to the finish line for funding, it needs just one last nudge. I'm therefore offering a match:

For the next week, up to $25,000, I will match every dollar donated here. This means that if you donate or help raise $25,000, I will donate another $25,000 for a total of $50,000.

As a bonus, anyone who donates $10 or more is automatically entered to win one of five seats on a shark tagging trip with the University of Miami research team (all the fine print here). I did this myself, and it's AMAZING.

Please take a look at it all here.

If we raise less than $50,000, I'll still match dollar-for-dollar, but I think we could raise $25,000, don't you? Then I'll make it $50,000.

Thank you in advance to anyone who decides to give this a shot. Thank you also to everyone who politely declines but asks themselves: how might I make my own dent in the universe?

Be the change you want to see.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on November 16, 2011 01:40

The Truth About Abs: How To Make $1,000,000 Profit Per Month with Digital Products (Plus: Noah Kagan results)

Six-pack abs sell. (Photo: San Diego Shooter)

Once or twice in the past, I have referred to "someone" who has earned $5,000,000-$10,000,000 per year with e-books and cross promotion.

For that, I should apologize, as it's not accurate: his numbers are now closer to $1,000,000 per month, and "e-book" doesn't begin to explain what he does. That someone is named Mike Geary. He prefers to keep a low profile, skiing powder and refining his "muse," or automated business, to a precise science. From strategic customer service in Germany, to testing for trending, it's all piece of a well-planned puzzle and well-oiled machine.

For the first time, this post will explain how he built his business, some of the key lessons learned, and common mistakes with digital products.

As you read, keep in mind two things:

- He is, without a doubt, considered one of the smartest online marketers and traffic buyers (a key differentiator) in the world.

- He started off knowing nothing and got there through intelligent testing.

As Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM, is famous for saying: "Nothing happens until someone sells something." Planning is valuable, but–long-term–it's your ability to improvise and adjust that makes the difference.

Enjoy…

Enter Mike Geary

Can you describe your muse?

My "muse" (i.e. business) is composed of three main components:

I sell a fitness information product called "The Truth about Six-Pack Abs," which has sold more than 500,000 copies since 2005.
I publish a fitness and health newsletter to about 680,000 subscribers (with subscribers in almost every country), and have built a large content based website that goes along with this fitness newsletter.
I act as a media buyer, purchasing large amounts of traffic (mostly in the fitness/nutrition niche) that I funnel to a few select partners. This allows me to become integrated into several other large fitness and nutrition businesses (they promote my product extensively on their backend) since I act as a very large source of their overall traffic.

What is the website for your muse?

My main website, which has the sales process for my "Truth About Six Pack Abs" product, is: www.TruthAboutAbs.com

[Click here to see an affiliate landing page, click here to see the standard non-affiliate/PPC landing page]

How much revenue is your muse currently generating per month (on average)?

The business as a whole (all three components listed above) generates just shy of $1 million in revenue per month. Total revenue for last year was approximately $11 million.

While the financial freedom that this business has created has been amazing, it's also been very rewarding to receive thousands of emails in our support center from customers who have literally changed their lives with the help of my fitness advice. I still get chills when I read a glowing email from a customer that has lost 100 lbs with my program, totally changed their confidence and energy, and just overall changed their life! So cool.

To get to this monthly revenue number, how long did it take after the idea struck?

To be honest, I was a little slow in learning marketing and building the business, so it took me about five years to get to those numbers. About two years into this venture, I was finally making about $50,000 per year with the online business. As I explained above, growth exploded once I quit my corporate job, and my earnings increased about 10x the following year. Growth in following years went to $3.6 million, then $6 million, and finally $11 million in annual revenue.

How did you decide on "Truth About Abs"?

It was simple really… A mentor told me to follow what I'm most passionate about, and that passion was fitness and nutrition. I can talk all day long about fitness and nutrition, so why not do what I love?

I initially bought an information product that was about $300 (a big investment for me at the time) from a marketer named Ryan Lee. The product was all about teaching fitness professionals how to build a more successful business, particularly online. To this day, I still give Ryan credit for being the guy that got me into this career and changed my life. Thanks, Ryan! [Ed: The product Mike is referring to is no longer available. For those interested, this course covers similar content.]

As I studied Ryan's course, I thought about my ideas for a potential information product. Working as a personal trainer, I knew that about 90% of the questions I got from clients were always about "six pack abs" or getting a flatter stomach. I also knew that there was a load of crap out there on the internet and on TV infomercials for all sorts of garbage like ab machines, belts, and worthless pills. Finally, I'd seen a ton of bad exercise advice floating around online. That was where my initial idea for "The Truth about Six-Pack Abs" came from. Little did I know that the idea would eventually become such a phenomenal success!

What ideas did you consider but reject, and why?

As crazy as it sounds, "The Truth about Six Pack Abs" was my very first idea, and it's been the product I've continued to focus on throughout the years. I haven't strayed into other businesses or distracted myself from the product that I knew would be a best-seller. I wanted to keep my focus on one main product. With that said, I do have a couple other products that sell okay, such as my skiing fitness product (AvalancheSkiTraining.com), which I produced solely because it was a labor of love. But to this day, the "Truth about Abs" product remains my bread and butter.

How did you get started? What ultimately lead you to your current lifestyle?

I started my internet business in 2004 because I had become fed up with the time and freedom constraints that came with my old 9-5 corporate lifestyle. My main goals in designing my "new life" were:

To build more time freedom into my life. I desperately wanted to design my new life with much more free time to enjoy my hobbies, friends, and family. This "time freedom" was actually a higher priority for me than the financial rewards of starting a web-based business. And this may sound funny, but I also had a goal to eventually NEVER have to wake up to an alarm again (aside from traveling). I despise waking up to an alarm!
The ability to travel as much as I wanted, to anywhere in the world, with no financial or time constraints.
More financial security for myself and my family.

When I set these goals back in 2004, I was basically working three jobs. I worked an engineering consulting job from 9-5 at an office. I also worked 15-20 extra hours per week as a personal trainer at a local gym, and I was attempting to build my online fitness business.

From 2004 to 2006, I made consistent but SLOW progress on my internet business. By the end of 2006, the internet business was making just as much money as my corporate job. I quit my corporate job in January 2007, and never looked back. Quitting my job at that critical point in time was the best decision I could have made as that freed up the time I needed to dedicate solely to my internet business, which started to boom in the months that followed.

Within another year, my internet business grew into a 7-figure annual business and, eventually, an 8-figure annual business in revenue.

It may have taken a few years to achieve, but I eventually successfully reached all three of those goals… time freedom, ability to travel anywhere/anytime, and financial freedom. Oh, and — except for when making flights — I haven't had to wake up to an alarm clock in over four years now!

What does your daily/weekly routine look like? Where do you live and what does your lifestyle look like?

It has really been a dream come true. After I quit my corporate job in 2007, I moved to the mountains of Colorado and skied almost every day that next winter. I don't ski every day anymore in the winter (I'm more picky about the ski conditions now), but I never ever miss a powder day. For those who aren't hard core skiers: a powder day is like the holy grail of skiing. If you love skiing, you never want to miss a powder day!

In the summer, I do a lot of hiking, mountain biking, and other outdoor fun. And because of my time freedom, friends and family can come out to visit me anytime in Colorado, so I love to host friends and act as a tour guide.

As for traveling, my girlfriend and I now travel at least 10-15 days every month. We've traveled to dozens of countries and done all sorts of fun stuff, like heli-skiing in Chile, ATVing and ziplining in Costa Rica, dry suit scuba diving in the Silfra Ravine in Iceland, and tropical scuba diving throughout the Carribean. We've also traveled extensively throughout Mexico, Central America, South America, and lots of islands! We plan to do more traveling through Europe and Asia soon.

When I travel, I still work on my business about 1-2 hours per day. That's what I've decided personally is a good schedule to allow me to enjoy traveling and still keep up with my business. When I'm not traveling, I basically allow myself complete freedom of schedule. Some days I'll feel like I'm "in the zone" and just work all day long, maybe 10-12 hours or more. Other days, I might only work two hours and enjoy the rest of the time doing fun outdoorsy stuff, going to a nice dinner, or golfing with friends.

What were some of the main tipping points or"A-ha!" moments? How did they come about?

In the very beginning, I had this foolish idea in my head that this flood of people would automatically rush to my website, buy my product, and I'd be a millionaire within months. Reality struck when I had a whopping 5 visitors to my site in the first month. At the time, I didn't understand that you actually have to DRIVE traffic to your site, as people won't just magically find you.

After about six weeks of having my site "live" and still having yet to make a single sale, I started to get discouraged and thought that this whole internet marketing thing just didn't work. Then I had a tipping point: I got my first sale! But when I looked at the details of the sale, I noticed that the buyer was one of my mom's good friends. I had to laugh, but at the same time, it gave me the motivation to push forward, as I saw that the website could make sales if I just produced traffic.

The next tipping point came about 18 months later when I started playing with Google Adwords, and learning how to purposely drive traffic instead of just hoping people would find the site. I'm very technically minded, and Adwords is a numbers game, so that fascinated me. Within a couple months, I started learning how to split test ads, find what converted best for my site, and get massive amounts of traffic for reasonable prices (at least reasonable enough to break even, or make a small profit on the front end). Running a massive amount of traffic on Adwords and doing lots of testing taught me how to buy traffic in other places too, beyond Google's network.

Another big tipping point came in early 2007, when I finally put my product on the affiliate network, Clickbank. The biggest thing that I did was set my affiliate program apart from the crowd. Here's how…

At the time, I noticed that most vendors on the Clickbank marketplace were only paying affiliates 35-50% commissions. Even the highest paying vendors were paying 55% to 60% commissions max. To some, that might seem very generous. But at the same time, we're selling digital products, so we don't have as many overhead costs as with a physical product and can be more generous.

I decided to be OVERLY generous with affiliates and truly set myself apart from the crowd. Instead of the normal 35-60% commissions, I set my commissions at 75% (which is the maximum percentage you can pay to affiliates in Clickbank). Immediately, this made my product more lucrative for most affiliates than other products that were paying lower commissions. I had hundreds of affiliates shift their traffic to my site instead of some of my competitors. Within a couple months, I jumped up to one of the best selling products on the entire Clickbank marketplace, out of more than 10,000 products.

[Tim postscript: As Mike mentions in the comments, this means:

"For a clarification on revenue, the way that Clickbank works is to take the processing fee and the affiliate fee out before the revenue ever flows into my account, so that $11MM 'per year' actually did not include gross sales numbers. With gross sales, it would be more around $20MM-$25MM per year, I'm guessing."]

Within 6-12 months, most other top selling Clickbank vendors followed suit and switched to 75% payouts. Currently, as a vendor (product creator), if you pay affiliates any less than 75% (as that's now the standard), it's very hard to be competitive, because most affiliates will only promote products that pay 75% commissions.

Some vendors still have the wrong mindset and can't stand the idea of the affiliate making more per sale than they make as the creator of their own product. That's foolish, however, because the math is simple: would you rather get 10 sales and make $30 per sale ($300), or get 1,000 sales at $10 per sale ($10,000)? Better yet, how about 500,000 sales at only $2 per sale in profit ($1,000,000)? The answer should be obvious. The more generous you can be with affiliates and other business partners, the more sales VOLUME they can send you, especially if they're buying traffic and incurring that cost. Plus, there's more backend revenue potential with a higher volume of customers.

The above was a huge takeaway for me, and it led to the development of two priorities that are still at the heart of my business today:

Treat my customers like gold. Without happy customers, any business will eventually die. I wanted people to get RESULTS! I don't just want to sell them some fad or gimmick that doesn't work.
Treat my affiliates (and other business partners) like gold. Going above and beyond while being overly generous with business partners and affiliates effectively jumpstarted my business success. In fact, in additon to being one of the first vendors to pay affiliates 75% commissions, I was also one of the first vendors on the Clickbank marketplace that started to reward affiliates that sent over a certain number of sales each month with bonuses up to 85% or even 90% commissions. The additional percentage points had to be paid manually at the end of the month as a bonus.

What resources or tools did you find most helpful when you were getting started?

I remember buying lots of low priced marketing e-books about search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC marketing). Those e-books that I bought 5-6 years ago are mostly outdated now, given the techniques change so rapidly. Regardless, the benefit was that I learned how to use both SEO and PPC and stumbled onto new discoveries as I worked with both.

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

A couple that I can think of right off the top of my head…

I got approached once to buy an "email drop" in a list that supposedly had 5 million names. The list was apparently built through credit card surveys or something like that. I think it only cost $600 to run an ad to this list, so I thought it HAD to be a winner, and I tested it. I ended up getting 1 sale ($40) from that $600 test. Even with a list of 5 million names, that list was basically worthless since there was no relationship, and it had been built solely from credit card surveys. Compare that to a JV (joint venture) partner who has a great relationship with their list. We've had some affiliates get hundreds of sales from relatively small lists of maybe 10,000 emails.

I know that buying "email drops" can sometimes work (and I've made other successful ad buys in newsletters), but you have to know exactly how the list was built, if it's maintained regularly, and if it has a loyal following. Otherwise, it could be a garbage list.

Another failed test was a direct mail postcard we tested. The whole campaign cost me about $30,000 to implement (postage costs, postcard creation costs, copywriting, list rental, etc). It seemed like a viable test as I had friends that had moderate success with direct mail pieces before. The postcard tried to get the user to go to a website from the postcard and purchase our fitness product. It backfired big time, as we only made back about $3,000 out of the $30,000 investment in the test. A 90% loss to the tune of $27k… No fun.

Now, I'm not saying that a postcard-to-website sales process can't work. However, in our example, we obviously had a big missing link to the puzzle and it just didn't produce sales. I think it's a trickier process than someone who's coming to your site after clicking on a PPC ad or banner ad.

What have been your key marketing and/or manufacturing lessons learned?

I haven't manufactured any products, so I can't comment on that. As for marketing, my biggest lessons (as mentioned above) were being overly generous with affiliates and paying them every possible penny that I could. This is the only way to be competitive with affiliates: to be the business with the biggest payout to them. Even if you have to pay affiliates 100% of your front end revenue, at least you know that you obtained those customers without incurring a loss (which doesn't happen with every type of advertising), and now you have the opportunity to build a long term relationship with those customers and sell them your other products in the future.

Another key marketing lesson I learned is that when buying traffic, be prepared to not make any profit on the front end. Sometimes, in order to compete with other advertisers, you need to be willing to take a small loss on your advertising spend in order to bring in lots of customers. You just need to be careful to know your backend numbers (average future revenue amount per customer) well enough to ensure that your front-end losses aren't so steep that you can't make back the advertising loss after a certain period of time.

Any key PR wins? Media, well-known users, or company partnerships, etc.? How did they happen?

I've had various radio interviews, and had content picked up by popular websites, blogs, etc. However, some of my best relationships have been companies that I've partnered with on media buying (think AOL, MSN, etc.) Spending a boatload of money with certain big companies, and building a long term relationship with them by advertising for years has resulted in special deals for cheaper traffic. If you think about it from the publisher's perspective, it helps to save them administrative costs by dealing with fewer advertisers, so sometimes I've been able to get better deals by agreeing to large contracts upfront. Another advertiser might only buy 1-2 ads, instead of the 50 ad placements that I would buy.

Where did you register your domain (URL)?

GoDaddy.com

Where did you decide to host your domain?

I host with a company called Rackco. It was just a referral from a friend at the time, but I've stuck with them for years.

If you used a web designer, where did you find them?

The only thing I had "designed" was my cartoon based header graphics. Again, this was simply a referral from a friend, and the guy I used was a talented cartoon designer named Vince Palko. I've also heard that 99designs is a great place to get designs.

Do you have any employees?

I have customer service representatives in a few different countries and major markets. Specifically, I have one person in France, one Swiss for German translation help, an English-language affiliate support rep in Trinidad (he also handles Spanish translation), and one German-based woman who handles German affiliates. Finally, I have a webmaster who helps with site maintenance.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Nothing. I've learned so much, even from my mistakes, and everything has happened for a reason.

What are some common mistakes when buying media/traffic?

The most common mistake is not letting enough traffic flow to see true trends. Some people shut down their campaigns after only a couple hundred clicks thinking that it won't be profitable, but they haven't let it run long enough to see for sure. For example, a newbie might shut down their campaign after only 500 clicks and 1 sale. But what if they would have made 3 sales in the next 500 clicks, for a total of 4 sales in 1,000 clicks? Data can be pretty variable when you're still under 1,000 clicks. I generally test an ad for at least a couple thousand clicks. However, keep in mind that I deal mostly with the fitness and nutrition niches and they require high volumes of clicks to see true data.

Another big mistake is not split testing enough variations of ads. Many advertisers give up on losing campaigns after testing only a couple ad creatives. However, I've found that simple modifications — such as a one word variation in a headline or a slightly different image or background color — can be the difference between a losing campaign and a profitable campaign. In some instances, I've used the exact same ad text combined with slightly different pictures and seen DOUBLE the click-through rate (CTR).

The last mistake is also very common: most advertisers aren't willing to lose money to find what works. I EXPECT to lose money the first time I test a campaign. Then I tweak the ad copy, offer, etc. based on our testing results, and we see if we can restart the campaign a second time and make it profitable based on what we learned [i.e. what lost the least money, etc.] For example, if I do a $10,000 traffic buy test on a new website that we haven't worked with before, we'll usually only make back maybe $6,000 to $7,000 for a net loss of about $3,000. But we also usually learn that one of our ad variations performed MUCH better than the others, and we can work with that specific ad from that point forward and possibly negotiate lower rates. Sometimes we find that the numbers are too far off to work in the future, so we just decide to cut all ties with that particular website and not buy traffic from them again if they can't offer lower rates.

Any tips for Facebook media buying? Common wastes of money or newbie screwups?

The three mistakes that I listed in the previous question apply to buying Facebook traffic, as well. I've found that the most important aspect of Facebook ads is the image, so it's necessary to test at least 6-10 variations of images for each ad. The image attracts the eyeballs first, then your headline needs to finish the job and get the person to click your ad. One thing I've found is that images that have done well for ads on other sites may not always be effective on Facebook. Each site is unique with its style, colors, and layout, and I've been surprised by some images that work well on Facebook and others that don't.

One common mistake I've seen with people buying ads on Facebook is paying WAY too much per click. In my experience, you almost NEVER need to pay the recommended bid amount that Facebook displays when you set up your ad. For example, I've set up ads where the recommended bid amount was $1.12 per click. I'd bid $0.30 cents instead, and would still be able to get large amounts of traffic (assuming that I was able to get a high enough click through rate on the ad). In order to pay a lot less than the recommended bid price per click, you need to get an above average click through rate, so it takes good ad copy, good images, and the right targeting.

If you had $5K to start media buying, what would you do right now, assuming all sites/platforms (e.g. AdWords) were available to you?

The best quality and cheapest traffic is available on Google's content network. That's easier said than done, as Google is currently very picky about what offers they will allow to run. In certain industries, it's not even worth trying anymore, because Google won't allow some types of websites to advertise at all. But if you are advertising in an industry that Google still accepts, the content network is wide open, and it's the cheapest source of quality traffic available in most cases. It's also one of the highest volume traffic sources available (along with Facebook), but in some industries, the Google content network can be easier to advertise profitably compared to Facebook.

Sometimes you'll hear marketing "gurus" say that the search network is better quality traffic than the content network. This is false, as it's industry specific. In my case, I spent over $5 million advertising on Google over the years with fitness and nutrition products, and I can say without a doubt that content network traffic is MUCH cheaper than search traffic, and converts even higher than search traffic in many cases.

What would you do if you had $20K to start media buying?

At this spend level, you can do test campaigns on nearly any major website, as most major sites require test campaigns of around $5k to $10k minimum to get started. We're talking about big news websites, politics sites, weather sites, and major sites like Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. From my experience with media buying, testing is all that matters as it's hard to compare CPM rates from one site to another, since placement locations, sizes, etc. are all different. For instance, I've had CPM campaigns that were profitable on some sites at super high rates of $6.00 CPM or more, and on other sites, a price as low as $0.50 CPM resulted in a loss. You never know how an individual site will perform until you test.

The usual steps for a media buy on a large site are:

Run $5-10k test campaign (most times, initial test loses money). Smaller sites accept much lower test amounts.
Optimize the ads that performed best and delete the ads that performed worst.
Negotiate a lower CPM rate if the publisher can go any lower (sometimes they can, and sometimes they can't go lower — depends what other advertisers are paying on average and how much inventory they have available).
Re-launch campaign when you're confident that you will be able to profit.

What are your recommendations for developing information products?

Sell the customers what they want, but give them what they NEED. In my market, what people want are six-pack abs exercises. But that's not what I give them, because that's not what they need. They need the right nutrition, the right full body training program, and the right mindset to be dedicated to their goal. Basically, I sell six pack abs, but I teach them how to live healthier and adopt a fitness lifestyle in order to lower their body fat for life.

What have you learned about price points?

It's been really interesting to see some of the testing for pricing. We've tested price points for various fitness info products at $29.95, $39.95, $47.00, $67.00, $77.00, $79.00, and $97.00. I've found a sweet spot in the $47.00 price point for most online fitness info products that seems to maximize front end revenue and the total number of customers. Lower price points can sometimes bring in more customers on the front end, but the backend marketing plan needs to be solid in order to make up for the lower price (especially if you're buying traffic and need that front-end revenue to come close to break even on your ad buys).

How have you tried to minimize requests for refunds?

Truthfully, I've just focused on producing a great quality product, which goes a long way to reduce refunds. I know that some people are dishonest and will request refunds even though they liked the product. But I feel that, overall, most people are honest and won't take advantage of someone on purpose.

A surprisingly common scenario for requesting a refund is when people don't understand that the program is downloadable, even though it's spelled out on the site. They think they're getting something in the mail, then request a refund when they don't. It's best to be as clear as possible to make sure people understand that this is a downloadable program. This can prevent loads of customer service requests from confused customers. Of course, if you sell a physical product, this isn't a problem, though shipping and delivery time may be more of an issue.

How do you test for your content pages?

At this point, it's fairly easy to test the interest in content pages. I simply come up with an idea, prepare the article, and send it to my email list of about 680,000 readers. The open rates of the email give a good representation of how interesting that topic (email subject line) was to most people.

Also, on each content page, I have the social media sharing buttons (Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon). I can guage how much people like a particular topic based on how much social media sharing occurs. I have some pages with over 40,000 Facebook likes and others with only a couple dozen likes.

Best and worst performers? Most unexpected winners or losers?

My best content pages are typically topics that surprise or shock people in some way, or clear up a confusing topic. Take note of the amount of Facebook likes, tweets, etc. on some of these pages below:

Successful example #1: "Are Whole Eggs or Egg Whites Better for You?"

In this article, I surprise people with my arguments as to why egg yolks are actually the healthiest part of the egg, and anybody eating only egg whites is making a foolish decision. This is a great example of the type of information that goes against the grain and shows how people have been misinformed by the media.

Successful example #2: "The Salad Dressing You Should NEVER Eat."

This is another good example of a content page that shocks people. Before reading this article, a lot of people had no idea that most salad dressings at the grocery store are a health disaster, full of additives like corn syrup, unhealthy soybean and canola oils, etc. People want to share articles like this.

Successful example #3: "Does Canned Food and Bottled Water Increase Your Abdominal Fat Through Hidden Chemicals?"

This is another article that shocks most people, as it teaches them about a rather unknown chemical that they might be exposed to in canned foods and plastics. These types of surprising articles help people to want to share the article with their friends to help protect their health.

And now for an example of a content page that didn't seem to work that well:

"The Nutrition Benefits of Kale."

You can see this page got less than 100 Facebook likes, compared to the examples above that have thousands, or even tens of thousands of "likes." What's the difference? Well, I think the main difference is that kale is just not a "sexy" topic. People already know that kale is good for you, so there's nothing shocking in this article. Compare that to the egg yolks article, where most people think egg yolks are horrible for you, and I give an argument to show why that's wrong. It's more shocking and therefore something people want to share with friends.

Most common mistakes and/or easy fixes for content pages?

Assuming the content is interesting and well-written, one mistake I see is that people don't always make it easy for people to share things on their website. For example, they might just have a Facebook like button at the top of the page, but not the bottom. I like to have sharing buttons at the top and the bottom so that people see the buttons right as they finish the article. I think it's important to have the social media buttons at the top of the page too so that people see that the page has social proof and is popular right at the beginning.

I also think some site owners can use too many sharing buttons, even more than a dozen total. I like to use the "Big 3″ (Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon) to keep things uncluttered.

What's next for you?

Honestly, I just want to continue simplifying my business more and more as time goes on.

I have plans for a couple new small projects, one of which is an upcoming healthy fat-burning recipe book that I'm working on with a co-author. Other than that, one of my main goals is to maintain my current lifestyle without getting bogged down by too many business projects. I want to continue pumping out great fitness and nutrition content that helps my readers live healthier lives.

###

Odds and Ends: Noah Kagan competition results

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in Noah Kagan's contest! For those who haven't read his post, Noah made a simple offer: The reader who generated the most profit in two weeks with their new business or product would win $1,000 of AppSumo credit and RT airfare for a romantic candlelit taco dinner in Austin, Texas.

We had some truly amazing entries, and ended up having to split the prizes. Here were the results:

WINNER: Tom from RaceCrowds.com, who made $600 profit in 4 days. Tom ran a sale on his site over the weekend, using many of the tips Noah suggested in the post:

"I basically did a Motorsports version of AppSumo. I did a 50/50 split with my promotional partner and Chompon takes 10%.

Stats from Chompon.com

Total Views: 981

Total Shares: 23

Total Purchases: 6

Total Revenue: $1,350.00″

Runner-ups: Adam Nolan and Russell Ruffino from ultimatesalesfunnel.net. These two made $17,867.64 in profit… "WTF?!" Yes, they did. However, according to the rules in the post, each competing business/product had to be brand new. Their product, while new, was created four days before the contest was announced. Either way: BIG congrats, guys!

All entrants: For everyone who made an attempt at starting up their million dollar business: Be sure to check your inbox for complimentary credit to AppSumo :)

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Published on November 02, 2011 12:01

The Truth About Abs: How To Make $1,000,000 Per Month with Digital Products (Plus: Noah Kagan results)