Creative Thinking & Why Shoemoney is a C.U.N.T.

Posted in: Business April, last year

Shoemoney, aka Jeremy Shoemaker, is a huge online financial success, from being debt ridden to earning over a million dollars per year, and it’s time for me to call him out as a C.U.N.T.

That’s right - he’s a Creative, Undeniable, Naked* Talent.

* The naked refers to the admission he works butt-naked in his basement developing uber-code. I suspect he may be telling porkie’s there, but experience tells me these developer types can be very, very strange.

To get to the point, I’d like to explore creativity and its helping hand in success, and the reason I’ve chosen Jeremy to head this entry is that I have heard him on numerous occasions emphasizing creativity as a primary tool of success plus I’m going to use one of his success stories as an example.

Let’s get started - what is creativity?

This seems like a dumb question to ask, but it’s not. I believe it’s important to understand what creativity actually is and break it down in to specific examples.

Creativity isn’t just thinking of a new idea or cooking up some weird hair-brained scheme, and you don’t need to wear a funny hat or roll a doobie to get the creative juices flowing.

The Dictionary definition of creativity is: “The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations”

For our purpose as cash-hungry online entrepreneurs, let’s add “..and turn them in to products or services that have the potential to generate revenue”.

In the simplest form, taking old websites, services or product functionality and using modern tools and technology to create meaningful new forms of interactions and delivering content or services to website visitors or prospects.

In the example below with the recently launched Auction Ads (by Shoemoney), the now-standard contextual method of advertising by Google Adsense (which was very creative in itself) is combined with the idea of serving up ads from eBay’s affiliate program to form a “meaningful, new method” of delivering advertising and generating revenue for our websites.

It’s smart, it’s creative and yet so very, very simple. I don’t know much about the business end of Auction Ads, but I suspect this technology could be sold to eBay for an extremely large and disgusting amount of money if that’s the route Auction Ads wish to take, though I don’t get the impression that’s what is going on here.

Example number 2: The Rich Jerk E-Book, a get rich online package.

The Rich Jerk E-Book There are hundreds if not thousands of get rich quick packages on the Internet. Most are marketed the same, have similar names and don’t jump out and grab you at all - The Rich Jerk by Kelly Felix not only jumped out and grabbed you - it insulted you, smacked you around the head and called you a loser while boasting what a wonderful life The Rich Jerk had.

It provoked a response that shocked but also made you laugh which had this great charm about it and made you curious about what it contained inside. It was a concept, idea and above all else a product to fall in love with before you even purchased.

The Rich Jerk quick became the best-selling product on Clickbank and continues to be amongst the top few get rich products out. Can you say C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E? There was only one, again, very simple ‘tweak’ to the old get rich quick mantra, and that was in the branding and marketing used.

The same information contained in the Rich Jerk can be found in most packages, yet they will never attain the success or status of the Rich Jerk.

Applying creativity to your own products or websites

It’s clear if we get our creativity on there is potential for making some really nice money online. If you own your own websites of products (or are stuck for new ideas), here’s what you can do to get the ideas flowing:

Check out successful and innovative products in closely related or other industries completely - you can venture as far away as possible from your niche and explore. Look around, what services, features or technologies are other companies using on their websites or products that you could apply to your own?

Do you run a website with a discussion forum? Think about features on Myspace that you could apply to your own forums that will improve interaction with your members. Don’t go all out and buy a script that emulates Myspace, but pick a few features and implement them.

Do you run a membership website that sends out tips on property investment? Why not take the standard property search and develop a service that searches property for sale in their local area with specific attributes for investment buyers, which e-mails them between your tips, creating more value and ensuring better retention levels from subscribers. This could be a whole new website idea in itself.

Once you get in to the right mind-state, being creative becomes easy. Write ideas down, research them, check the market if one exists, don’t be afraid to try something new - that’s what it’s all about. Out with the old, in with the new.

You can even dive in on a limited budget, so there’s no excuse. If you need coding done, bring in a programmer from college or university who could do with a few extra bucks or who would be interested in becoming a partner or a share-holder and would do the work for free. Creativity doesn’t just stop at thinking of new-fangled website and product ideas.

Step outside that box and get your creativity on - I know I am.

P.S. Jeremy didn’t pose in a C.U.N.T. t-shirt, I modified this photo from his gallery.

7:30 pm

2 Comments

I guess I’d like to be considered a C.U.N.T. but I don’t have a creative bone in my body. I just wing it and hope I know what I am doing. My client’s like what I do so I guess that’s all that matters;-)

Like to be a zilion heir though, that would be nice. Then my progeny could really bug me for money;-)

Comment by Tommy B. — January 30, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
I just had to comment on a post with Shoe wearing a cunt t-shirt.

Comment by Robert — February 4, 2008 @ 11:02 pm