Tools of Titans was mentioned 59 times on The Tim Ferriss Show in 56 episodes.
“For 4our Chef and gave away the audio book for free and like all these experiments, they don't all work out. I don't think the Bit Torrent experiment really panned out as I would have hoped, but that's how I workshop. I do think and look, the CE of the company, you don't necessarily have the time to do this, but I imagine that you have the opportunity on these calls that you get on with the live coaching. I think in-person workshopping is just the fastest way to get feedback, real feedback, because sure, you can get feedback that is measurable in the forms of clicks and so on, and you can use user testing and see how people are reacting to a website, which I think is interesting. If you have a webcam on, you can look at like their face and like where they pause, which is not going to be transmitted if you're only getting clickthrough data or click data in the case of a heat map, let's say. But when you're talking to people in person and trying to explain what you do, it's like, do they lean in or do they lean back? Do they follow up with a question or they're like, "Oh, interesting." Right? If I'm at a party and someone's like, "What do you do?" And I'm like, "I write books." 99% of the time, even if they don't want to talk to me, they're going to ask, "What kind of books?" Right. >> Mhm. >> On the other hand, if I'm like, "I'm an accountant and I have some accountants I love." But if I'm like, "I don't really want to be at this party." And they're like, "What do you do?" I'm like, "An accountant." They're like, "Oh, yeah, that must be a job." You know, like there, right? There's no followup. And you can get a feel for which messaging is working. Or if you give them a paragraph and then they two or three people in a at a bar you're just having casual conversations with at an event, they all ask about the same little thing that you've been discounting that has been a minor cameo in your messaging as opposed to the leading headline and you're like, you know what, maybe I should test that. >> Yeah, actually that's brilliant. It makes me think of like comics like trying out at open mic nights, right? I'm I'm leaving so much on the table. I'm I'm doing all these intro calls with our new customers. I should be asking them like, you know, if I said this, like, how would you have reacted to it? What were the pain points that got you to sign up? >> Yeah. >> I should be, you know, networking events trying more taglines and seeing what gets people interested in having longer conversations with me. >> Yeah. You're going to be having these conversations anyway. >> Yeah. And just like it's more signal if you ask someone to buy and they actually pay as opposed to do you prefer A or B. >> Mhm. >> Similarly, it's not bad to ask do you prefer A or B? But the fidelity of that signal isn't as strong in my opinion. It's not as reliable as if you mention a few lines and then just wait. And if they don't follow up and two or three people don't ask follow-up questions, it's a problem. >> But if they latch on to something, you're like, "Okay, that was an organic. That was like a proactive [snorts] move on their part. It wasn't in response to a question. They're not trying to appease me necessarily. I mean, maybe maybe they are. Maybe there's a component of people pleasing or just being social, but that's why you have to talk to more than one person, right? >> And like the 4-hour work week was workshopped. I mean, I didn't intend on writing a book, but it was notes from a class that I taught twice a year as a g it was a guest lecture. It wasn't ongoing class, but I got to see what didn't work. It was very much like a stand-up comic. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> If I tried [snorts] a joke and it fell flat twice, I was like, "Kill it. Yank it. That's got to go. It's not working." >> Yeah. >> So, I'm not sure if that's helpful, but there are other things you can use, right? I mean, for instance, with some of these mockups or if you're testing copy options, >> I think it's most valuable if it's on your own website because you control it and you can try to discern intent to purchase, >> right? >> However, there are many services that do this. I don't know how I ended up finding this one. There's it's one called Pikf Fu. P I C K FU. [laughter] We'll put the branding aside, but instant consumer feedback, split testing, and market research. So, they've got their fancy social cred with these logos. HBO Max, L'Oreal, Wayfair, etc. have supposedly used it, but you can I believe I think it's Pikfu that's allowed me to do this. It might have been another similar platform, but basically picking Amazon Prime members and then serving up you can spec out your demographics and then it just surfaces three options. M >> and the reason this can be helpful, well there are a few reasons like I use this for split testing different aspects of the design and packaging around the coyote card game which I created with Exploding Kittens which came out I don't know a year or two ago which was a really fun experiment. I've never had anything in, you know, thousands of Walmart and Target stores, which is super fun, but you're not going to get much data from Amazon. And you don't really want Amazon to be your debutant ball where you like show up in your new dress for the first time and see if people like it. I really I do not like taking that type of risk. And there was internal debate, right? I mean, there's a lot of there were diverging opinions. And in the case of like Mantaba, it's like I don't know what your traffic looks like. So, if you are going to get a statistically significant signal with which you're going to make an important decision about something, you you might just not have the volume necessary. Maybe you do, but maybe you don't. And in this case, it's like, look, if I want 5,000 people to vote on something in 72 hours, I can do that. It's a function of cost. And maybe it's like 500 bucks, 600 bucks. It's it's very affordable. Mhm. >> And you could very easily, I can't recall what the competitors are, but you could use, you know, Claude or Chetchip or whatever to ask like what are the three most compelling competitors to Pikfu with similar pricing cuz some of them are going to be very very very expensive intended for large enterprise. They do the same thing. Frankly, [laughter] it's gussied up a little bit in a tuxedo and you have to do a sales call or they demo and then like quote you a price. If you see that and you're just looking for fast, quick, and dirty, then you know, I wouldn't proceed. But these are all kind of different tentacles that are all out probing. >> Mhm. >> That bring information back to like the central brain that then determines which I want to split test in a place with higher stakes, but better signaling for purchase intention, which would be your website. >> Yeah. >> Like, you can do it really fast. I'm famously impatient. I do not want to wait weeks and weeks and weeks. So, I'm like, "Okay, cool. 72 hours over the weekend, great. I'll just let this run and then on Monday we can look at it." And if it's an edge case where we've got something, it's like, "Okay, well, it's like 49% 51%." It's like, and let it run. Like, don't be too cheap on this because you can get a false positive on something. >> I mean, you know this, you did more bath by 8th grade than I did throughout all of high school. So I I don't need to tell you about statistics, but the point is don't do the bare minimum because very often the results will flip when you get just a larger sample size. >> And these tips are so helpful because I think it it makes me realize how many opportunities we're leaving on the table to iterate with our messaging and and get it dialed in. So I'm I'm pretty excited about this. >> Let's throw out a prompt for people who are still listening or watching this. Let Neils know. Look at the website, you know, menntava.com. Check it out. Of the things we've talked about, what has resonated? What should the tagline be? What language or features or anything have resonated most? Just let them know on X, right? Tag him at Neilshovven. That's N I E L S H O V E N. I was dying to ask you about Beauty and the Geek, honestly, [laughter] but I'll save that for our round two. All right, >> that's round two. Anything else that you'd like to say or point people to? Any requests you'd like to make of people listening or watching before we wind to a close and land land the plane at least for now? >> I think my one request to people whether or not they try Mntava is you will have to advocate for your child throughout their lives, especially when it comes to education. And never ever let anybody make you feel guilty for advocating for your kid. M love that. That is a great place to close. Neil, thanks for taking the time, man. Great to see you. >> Thank you so much, Tim. >> Yeah, love Menava, the mission behind it, the purpose behind it, ethos, not to mention the product. Go look at these testimonies on the website. It's bananas. And to everybody listening, we'll include links to everything. Probably not the sex compatibility tests, but we'll include links to just about everything in the show notes at tim.blog/ blog/podcast. If you search Neil's nie or menntaba, it will be the only result. So, you'll find it there. And until next time, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. Make sure that your compassion includes yourself. And thanks for tuning in.”
“put an edited or i don't think it was highly edited but like a slightly shortened version in i think it was tools of titans because it had such an impact on me”
“I want readers to pick that up and do something better. And with with every book so far, from The 4-Hour Workweek all the way through Trust Mentors, I've seen that”
“I know that uh Amelia Boon who also appears in tools of Titan so three-time world's toughest mutter Champion does quite a bit of the closed chain glut work”
“I have a new book that is coming out. It is available on, you name it, barnes &oble.com. You can go to booksamillion.com and of course Amazon.com. Tools of Titans.”