CNCKing.com: My video inspirations growing-up
Well, it has taken two years and the final finishing touches are now being made on my 4th design book (7th overall) CNCKing.com: Rise of the CNC and I’m very excited at the potential it has in the market place. It has taken me 5 years to get to this point and time has really gone so fast… I’m having it checked over by another editor with a fine tooth comb before releasing the digital PDF version first followed by the printed on-demand version a few weeks down the road.
Now that the book is essentially out of my hands, it’s nice to reflect on how much I’ve learned and processed through the years – there is yet so much to be made and so many directions I can take CNCKing.com. Looking at Ben Heck’s videos (who wrote the foreword to my book) I see I have a tremendous amount of growth to make in the video component of my site – I’ve finally gotten over my “video fright” and instead of having to make hundreds of takes because I kept forgetting what I was going to say or memorized as soon as the “record” button was activated, I can do it now pretty much in only a few.
There are many things that I like about his videos but I see myself getting into something that’s a mix of his style and Norm’s New Yankee Workshop (which I watched endlessly watching up)
and Bob Villa’s Home Again and all it’s deviations.
Wow… I got to stay away from YouTube otherwise I’ll get NOTHING DONE and just relive my childhood with Bob Villa and Norm! I love it how each one questions the experts who come onto the show and ask them such amazing questions that if you didn’t even realize were of any importance!
These guys were great inspirations to me, I learned so much from them that I had absolutely no ability to follow-through with. They had the perfect mix of personality, incredible in-depth knowledge and authority that I’m trying to build myself with CNCKing.com’s videos. I have several ideas as to how to follow in their footsteps – instead of using my hands, using CNC machines… lots of them. I’ve gotten to the point where I can pretty much look at a picture and figure-out how to design it for any CNC machine I’ve worked with – quite amazing considering this was my first design!
Of course, during all this time, my father was busy basically rebuilding our entire house room by room – I wished I would have been more helpful to him while he was doing this but it’s one of those things you never even think about growing-up… I was just so much into video games but I could have learned so much from him in hindsight!
What I really like about all these videos is that the hosts are all self-made, they learned things the hard way and after years and years of practice, got to the top of their trade and then began sharing it with the general public. That’s what I what I want to get into!
Another aspect, specifically to Bob Vila is how he flipped his TV personality into a very profitable career… give this a short read as to what his son is up to (following in his father’s footsteps).
http://observer.com/2011/07/this-new-loft-chris-vila-flips-another-fixer-upper/
So make money producing and syndicating a TV show on a building you buy cheap and then sell it for a profit… you make money ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE PROJECT! It’s a massive win-win-win-win – builds your name recognition, get lots of free or heavily subsidized sponsored products, get ongoing royalties from the show you produced AND then flip the house for a massive profit. Mind numbingly brilliant all while doing something you love to do! Of course, his name recognition and the fact that the project was shown on TV means you can fetch a far higher price than otherwise possible. That’s business genius!
Of course, later in my life, I got into Holmes on Homes which goes along the same lines but unlike Bob Vila that just seems to help introduce the viewer and explain things in simple English, Mike Holmes actually gets dirty showing him doing a lot of the work (much like Norm in the New Yankee Workshop).
That’s the way to live life! Make great money helping others doing what you love!