Sep
01
How To Make an Extra $285 a Month, And An Awesome Story
Man, I have so much to say, it’s ridiculous. Go get a coffee or something. It’s cool. I’ll wait.
Where Naomi builds a school in Cambodia.
No shit. Not kidding. Details in a week or so, if you want in.
Where Naomi rethinks her stance on social media.
It is not a secret that I think Twitter and Facebook are the biggest wastes of time in history. People say television was bad when it first came out, but it wasn’t even on after 9 pm. How bad could it really have been?
Anyway, here’s my cool story.
We are having a hell of a time finding child care. (The first daycare fired us because the other parents thought Jack’s allergies would be a pain in the ass. The second advertised wanting children between one and three, but figured Jack would be too old. It should be noted that he turns three on Friday.)
Yesterday, I tweet about my tribulations. I say, “can somebody please come to my house and be my nanny? or intern?”
Joel Corriveau comes on and says, “I applied for that job 2 weeks ago!” I think he’s being funny. Sure enough, no. He really did. Several months ago, Jess stopped working for me. It never occured to me to change the information on my contact page, which still directs people to her. This dude emails her, pitching, basically, child care and an internship. I never got the email. I send him an @ back, he DMs, we talk on the phone.
I meet him at Starbucks, he seems amazing, and assuming his I-Am-Not-A-Pedophile references work out, he starts work on Tuesday.
But does it get cooler? Oh yes it does. Turns out he heard of ME because he bought Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself, which comes with some free SEO School stuff. Chris, it just so happens, just came out with a product called the Unconventional Guide to Social Media, which I was going to review today.
And cold-calling me to be my nanny is a pretty cool way to use social media, n’est pas?
Oh, BUT IT GETS BETTER. Back in March, Chris wrote a blog post called Why People Hate Marketers. Cliffnotes: Some guy emailed Chris telling him he could make asstons more money if he started acting like a sleazy internet marketer. Chris disagrees, and uses an email from a very grateful customer as his evidence. The customer says he bought his first ever e-product from Chris, basically because Chris is NOT a sleazebag. Who’s the customer? Why, Joel!
Joel meets Chris on Twitter. Buys the Unconventional Guide because Chris is the first non-dirtbag to make the pitch. Meets me because of the free thing. Gets a job as my intern through Twitter. He gets coaching for his online biz by virtue of being in the employ of yours truly, and I get a nanny/intern.
I hereby take back nearly all the bad shit I’ve said about Twitter. It is no longer 99.998% inane time suck. It is now 99.997% inane time suck.
Where Naomi Says The Last She’s Ever Gonna Publicly Say About Teaching Sells
Ahh, how to tackle this one? Every time a rich and successful person sells something, the socialist proletariat rallies their troops to wave their communal sharp stick, quote Karl Marx, and seethe in the corner, muttering at their tea. Oh my God, the banality of it all.
(Thirty second music montage for those of you just joining us… the professional blogger wannabe blogosphere is losing their shit to a.) sing the praises of or b.) tar and feather the about-to-be-rereleased Teaching Sells by Brian Clark. As far as I can tell, with about four exceptions, NOBODY currently running their mouth off has actually taken the course. I am among the four. I have taken the course and am trying to bring an air of something resembling reason to the proceedings. You know things are nuts when I’m the reasonable one. Jesus.)
Answers to questions I’ve been getting by the email:
Q. Can I share it with someone to split the cost?
A. Sure you can. There are lots of husband and wife teams, cobloggers, business partners and so on who share the product. Don’t share it with your fucking alumni organization or they’ll shut your ass down. But legitimate partners and stuff? Dive on in.
Can I use it if I have a day job?
If it were me, I’d probably only use it if I had a day job. Either that or if I had a very unbusy ittybiz. If I was busy, I would know damn well that I wouldn’t have time to, you know, learn. Or do shit. And that’s where the whole colossal waste of money thing comes in.
Is it worth it?
Depends. Are you going to use it? If yes, then yes. If you’re just buying it because you’re afraid you won’t be able to get it when you want it later, well, it’s probably just going to sit on your hard drive. It’s kind of like the Havinator’s destuckification thing. It’s, what, $117? For like, 45 minutes of audio and a fucking picture book? Seems insane, until you use it. Whereupon you realize that it costs less than a month’s worth of Xanax, changes your life, and you get to keep it forever.
What do you actually DO? Is it cool?
Teaching Sells is many things. Cool is not among them. There is a time, somewhere around the beginning of the course, when you strongly consider gouging your eyes out and screaming, “WHEN DO I LEARN THE SECRET TO MAKING FUCK TONS OF MONEY IN MY UNDERWEAR? Where is the SEXY!?!” The sexy comes later, after they teach you all the boring stuff. The boring stuff, incidentally, is the stuff that separates, say, Brian Clark from the rest of us. He’s willing to do the boring stuff.
Do you get an affiliate payout if I buy this?
Yes. A really fucking big one. And as much as you would like to think I’m going to use it to buy the new fall handbag from Coach, I’m actually not. (I like the small Sabrina in grey, if you’re interested. It’s nice. Flashy, but functional. Not quite a clutch, not quite a tote. Mmm.) I’m going to use them to, um, keep 70 girls in school and out of the sex trade in Cambodia. Because I am ALL ABOUT the dirty, filthy affiliate marketing tactics, baby.
I’m not sure if I can afford it.
Neither is anybody else, if it makes you feel better. (I just heard Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama, among a bunch of other substantially less cool people, are talking about social entrepreneurship in Calgary next month. And I’m quibbling over the price like a dumbass. You’re not alone on this one.)
While the price of Teaching Sells is not public — like it or not, that’s a pretty yummy little marketing tactic, don’t you think? — I can tell you it will be something that could fit on the average person’s Visa. (I am not an average person in that I don’t have a Visa. So I admit, I’m reaching a little.) I can also tell you that it’s not a continuity — as in, you don’t have to pay for it monthly forever. You can pay once, or you can pay in installments, but it’s not like a membership or anything.
Which leads me to…
How To Make An Extra $285 a Month
If you are thinking of enrolling in the September semester of Teaching Sells and are concerned about being able to afford it, I’m giving a class tomorrow night called… wait for it… How To Make An Extra $285 A Month. (Don’t ask me how I came up with that figure. I could tell you, but then I’d have to… you know.)
I’m running it on Wednesday, September 2nd at 7 pm ET. (That’s 4 pm in LA, midnight in London, and I think 9 am in Sydney et al. You may get screwed on the exchange, my Aussie friends, but for once, time zones are working in your favor.)
Coming to the class isn’t dependent on you getting the course or going through my affiliate link or anything sleazy. I just got some hate mail from the proletariat and I’m trying to do something nice.
Call this number: 785-686-1996
Enter this code: 366495#
If you can’t get in, try again. If you’ve tried a few times and you still can’t get in, the room’s probably full. If you don’t know if you’re interested, go over to the Teaching Sells page and poke around at the free stuff and give it a good look.
(If you just think the topic is cool in general but want it for non-Teaching Sells reasons, I’ll be making the recording available for free later, too. If that’s the case, I’d appreciate it if you just got the recording, though. There’s only room for 200 people in the teleconference room, and I don’t want people getting booted because you had nothing better to do on a Wednesday night.)
Wow. I love what you’re doing, and I happen to love Cambodia. I know you said details later, but are you going there? Where is the school? :)
When I was in Phnom Penh earlier this year, I made this teeny video showing the children who live in the city dump. It’s a quick, but very worthwhile glimpse, I think! http://www.essentialprose.com/change-choose/push-ahead-a-video
Fun stuff!
Just don’t call the school in Cambodia “Edu-Bullet University”. People might get the wrong idea.
Anyway, I’m so gonna be there. At your teleconference. Not Cambodia.
-Nick
Woohoo!! Australia!!
Sorry, the silly part of me got out. I’ll lock him in now!
Look forward to hearing about Cambodia. Sounds awesome!
P.S. The exchange rate is much better for us now too!! Sweet!
Being new to this, what is the recommended way to call?
Naomi, you know I love you, girl, but your social media perspective is whack. If you were trying to connect with pole dancers, for instance (and I know you wish you were), you would find that, in addition to forums and blogs and video channels, there are also a ton of pole dancers happily frolicking all over Facebook and Twitter.
And you would find you could meet and talk with them there and, instead of saying inane things about your cat, you could talk with them about POLE. And you could get to know them and they could get to know you. All without a product push. And then, lo and behold, when they find out about your product, they already know you and feel comfortable asking you questions and trusting you.
To me, hating Facebook and Twitter just means you haven’t gotten the hang of using it. If building relationships is essential to your business, then Facebook and Twitter are a huge help with that IF you humanize the interaction. If you just randomly add friends and talk about your cat, well there’s the problem.
Eh…. I’m sitting in a hotel room at 9.00am tomorrow! Oh, no, it will be 8.30am for me because I’m interstate…
Why do you do this on short notice!!! LOL! Just kidding Naomi! :-)
Just realized my above comment sounded like it was all about you, Naomi, but it was, more, at the end, “you” in general. But, really, I don’t get why you, Naomi, wouldn’t like FB and Twitter, since you are all about the connection and not at all about the push. So maybe it’s a time issue?
@ Jennifer — I do not in any way doubt the capacity of social media. I very much doubt the capacity of the average user. Lots of people are using social media in ass kicking ways. The other 99.997 are talking about their cat or their new blog post. (I include myself among the latter.)
My primary issue with the use of social media for businesses and causes is that in so many cases, the user’s goals could be much better achieved with another method. (Hmm, I want to raise money for a school in Cambodia. I know, I’ll write a BLOG POST! And then I’ll TWEET it. Lots and lots! And I’ll ask my FRIENDS to tweet it! Where is the business acumen in that?) But we hear all this, “OMG, Twitter/Facebook is where it’s AT, man!” and figure, well, I guess social media is it.
Very few users are viewing their use of social media critically. They’re thinking, gee, speaking at conferences is kind of unpleasant and expensive and everybody knows nobody reads the newspaper anymore, so PR is useless, and interruption advertising is dead, so I guess it’s social media now. And I just think it’s bullshit.
From a social standpoint, social media can’t be beat in many cases. But from a business standpoint? I stand by my original 99.997% estimation.
“To me, hating Facebook and Twitter just means you haven’t gotten the hang of using it.”
Also, I don’t hate Facebook and Twitter. I think they’re an inane time suck. Kind of like me insisting on watching endless reruns of Queer Eye. Great fun. Still inane and still a time suck.
I find Twitter to be 100% disenchanting and recommend we call it Anti-Social Media for what it really is. And, I come from a visual arts background and think that crappy URL the Twitter app. generates burns the eyes.
Fantastic post. I never comment on blogs, generally. But I wanted to let you know I really admire your writing style, and your site as a whole. I work the graveyard shift, and I get your posts just at the end of my shift, when my energy is at its lowest. In the couple of weeks I’ve been a subscriber, I’ve found your material thought-provoking, funny (funny really helps at 5 AM), and motivating. Thanks. Please continue to be awesome.
That call is going to be hawt. I’m on kid duty tonight or I’d call in and heckle, er, lovingly support you.
Look forward to the audio. Unfortunately I won’t be able to get TS, credit card already maxed out, grrr.
And now for something completely different… your email details still show Jess. I also tried to contact you through Jess just before you left for Canada with some info which may help with your immigration problem. My family and I have three nationalities and immigration statuses between us, some of the situations may be relevant to Jamie’s. Still have the copy in my sent folder, if you want me to email it to you. You can contact me through my website with your email, or change your contact details ;-).
You are an inspiration. I am an educator in Harlem and my wife and I have a school in India for poor Hindu and Muslim girls – the Sulaxmi School. Your writing has helped me to move away from a traditional mindset to explore what I can do through the online world to support this mission as I improve my own quality of life. I’m also enjoying “How to Launch the ***out of Your Ebook.”