My 7 Figure a Year Niche Business Blueprint
I’m getting quite ambitious these days…and now I’m dead set on building a brand new niche business from scratch which I am aiming for 7 figures a year profit after 3 years. I wanted to share my blueprint with you – I was also hoping you would give me your thoughts on my plan by commenting below.
First off, you probably know by now that I am also involved in the Internet Marketing niche (no kidding! haha). I fully expect my IM business will be a 7 figure earner by my third year, however I don’t want to become one of those ‘IM only gurus’ – you know the type. The people who only make money online by selling how to make money online products (there’s a lot of them!). While I’ve made most of my money by working in niches outside of make money online niche, I want to keep it that way so I wanted to build a new niche business to keep my income distributed.
Here is My First Draft Blueprint to Developing a 7 Figure a Year Niche Business
As my skills improve, I’m seeing how important it is to go after the big fish instead of the little guppies. Here is why:
When you go after the little fish (we’re assuming the little fish are the easy catches), you can only go so far. You will make money A LOT easier, however your potential is limited. Your business is also very insecure because you don’t have a brand. An example of going after the little fish is building affiliate sites. I’m not saying affiliate sites are bad (in fact, they are a key component in my blueprint), they are just limited.
The big fish is what I want now. Going after a type of big fish would be creating your own products – however it goes way beyond that. The biggest fish is developing a brand and becoming a leader in your niche. That is the big fish I am after.
I’ve also been noticing that you are much better off focusing on one niche at a time – ideally something you are very passionate about. My passion is martial arts, and it just so happens to be a very big niche online, so this is what I am targeting.
This is how I am going to hunt down these big fish in methodical order:
First order of business: move into my office building. I now officially have office space that I can go to to get some serious work done. I’m noticing that working in my bed room is only hurting my business. Over the past like 9 months I’ve been unable to get more than 1 hour of work done per day and it’s really starting to get under my skin. If I want a 7 figure business, I need a place I can go to work at least 4 – 6 hours per day with no distractions. No video games to suck my time away, no bed nearby to demotivate me, etc.
Alright, on to the actual action steps.
Phase 1: Build a network of affiliate sites (there’s a twist)
Ok. Since I tore my ACL a few months ago, I physically can’t make the products I want to make, so I have to compromise. I need about 3 more months before I can do anything physical, so in the meantime I am going to build up my assets as best as I can.
You know how I said going after the little fish (affiliate sites) is limiting? Well, that is not entirely true if you use the little fish as bait for the big fish.
What I want to do here is build Amazon affiliate sites around buyer keywords. My goal is to build sites around buyer keywords for equipment, books, DVDs, etc. I will have no distinction on price point. Normally with physical product sites you want to sell items priced at $100 or more to make a good commission per sale. I am going after EVERYTHING no matter what price point. If it’s a $5 item, it doesn’t matter, and here’s why.
Think about this: When someone types a buyer keyword like ‘Top Flight XL golf club set’, what are they telling you? You know that they like golf, but most important you know they are someone who is willing to buy something online.
Now think about this: What if you were able to get this person on your mailing list so you can market products to them in the future?
It doesn’t matter the price of the item they are searching, as long as I am able to qualify them as a buyer. That’s the entire goal of my Amazon affiliate sites for this application. I don’t really care about making money with them by selling physical products as an affiliate (although that will be a side-effect), what I want is to get those buyers into my mailing list.
If you get 1000 buyers to your network of sites per day, and you can convert a very small amount of them to your mailing list – say 10% (average for opt-in conversion from a blog), you would add 100 buyers to your mailing list every single day. That is extremely valuable.
Phase 2: Build opt-in freebies and a basic product
Once I have my network of affiliate sites running and my ACL gets a bit more time to strengthen up, I am going to proceed to phase 2 where I will create my first freebies (training videos) as well as a basic product that I can sell for $19.95 (the average price of info products in my niche).
This is more of a test than anything else. I want to make sure that the type of product I want to sell (an info product) will take in this market. There’s no reason to invest insane amounts of time in making a product in a niche if you have no clue whether it will sell (I made that mistake with my first product I made).
So I’ll build my opt-in page, filter my Amazon traffic to it until I have an initial list of say 1000 buyers. I will then promote my basic product to them to see how it takes. From that test, I will be able to determine if that style of product is something martial artists are interested in buying online. If it doesn’t take, I will create another product with a different twist and repeat my test.
All in all, it will take me about 6 hours to create my opt-in freebies and my first test product. No sweat if it doesn’t work out for whatever reason.
Phase 3: Build out my sales funnel
Once I determine what style of product sells, I will then start building out my sales funnel. One key piece of the funnel is a monthly membership program (this is going to be my big fish later on). Why is a membership site important? Well two reasons: Once they sign up, they won’t cancel if the price is low ($10-15/m). The reasoning is like this: ‘If I cancel this membership, I am giving up on my health and my martial arts. I am a failure if I quit’. It’s like a gym membership. If you quit your gym, you give up on yourself. No one wants to do that.
The second importance of this membership program is that it will lay the ground work for my ‘big fish’ later on. I will be able to use this membership to start building up my community and brand.
Phase 4: Map out paid traffic sources
Once I have a converting sales funnel, I will start pumping in the paid traffic to my opt-in list. The good thing about the martial arts niche is that you don’t have to worry so much about the guidelines of the sites you advertise on. A martial arts business is seen a legitimate subject, so you won’t get declined or slapped. Things like make money online, weight loss, forex, etc. are considered shady to these networks, so it’s very hard to get paid traffic to niches like that.
I’ll be using Facebook, Adwords, and Yahoo PPC for this. I will also contact some of the bigger martial arts sites and get some media buys going with those niche sites.
The importance of using paid traffic is that not only can you build a list really really fast, you don’t have to do any extra work once the traffic gates are open. No need to spend time on manual traffic generation.
Phase 5: Tackling the big fish!
Once I have a massive list of people who are interested in martial arts, I am going to make my monthly membership program my front runner product. I don’t want to give too many details away on this, but this membership is going to be my 7 figure a year baby. Eventually I want to make it the go-to site for anything martial arts related. A big free community with a paid membership as the back end. And once I have my big list, I can do a real ‘launch’ for the membership site. At this point, I also plan to have some JV partners I’ve worked with prior so they can help me get the word out.
The big fish is my big dream idea. It’ll be a truly unique idea that no one has ever done before. While it will be based off of proven principles, the overall concept I have in mind is so unique that I will be the front runner in this niche. I don’t know if you read my post about not going after the ‘big dream’, however in this case it will work since I will already have a large subscriber and fan base, and will also have all the knowledge I need to follow through with my idea. It also helps that I am extremely passionate about martial arts, so I will always have an interest in pushing my business further.
So there you have it! This strategy, in my opinion, is the way to go (at least for me) for now on.
What do you think? Leave me a comment!
I’m interested in knowing what you think about my plan! Feel free to comment below with thoughts, tips, suggestions, etc.
Thanks!
Dan Brock
Dan, thanks so much for sharing this. You are one of those “Anti-Gurus” and we love it. A breath of fresh air to the IM industry keep it up. Tell us more on how to get CHEAP, traffic that converts.. this is one of the hugest problems most of us have now, is getting cheap traffic. SEO is hard: unless you have an older site with built in PR..
Sounds solid Dan. Keep us updated!
As a side note, I’d like to pick your brain about some issues I am having with some amazon affiliate sites I have made.
I’m getting traffic, and clicks through to amazon but there hasn’t been many sales, only one or two a month (about 1-2% conversion, I know this can be higher!)
Hopefully you’ll be able to find some time in your schedule to help a noober like me out.
You can catch me on the warrior forum under the handle mystline 🙂
Thanks and keep the good advice coming!
Hi Dan,
I think your plan Rocks!. This is where I think a lot of new internet marketers fall down. They are promised that they will make big bucks because the “Guru’s” sold them this or that and expect it to happen overnight. Internet marketing takes dedication and hard work. Combine that with an action plan like what you have set out, means that there is no way anyone can fail. Great Post!
Dan,
I always read your news with breathless excitement because you are so inspiring, innovative and full of fun ideas! I am so proud of your big dream with the big fish! Keep it going! I am learning from your thoughts and dreams as well.
Kristie
Do you have a blueprint for making six figures online we could see? or just how to make a thousand?
I found the martial arts niche interesting, but with the UFC all the martial arts myths are broken. Brazilian Jujitsu is by far the most effective fighting style against someone who doesn’t know how to defend submission holds. James Toney the boxing legend just got choked out by UFC’s Randy Couture. The next most effective fighting styles are wrestling and muay thai kickboxing. I would be very curious of what kind of product you would make for that niche.
Some good Ideas Daniel.
Perhaps you could give some instruction on how you set all of this up and maybe deliver regular updates on your progress.
It is always very helpful to see a real business being built.
When you say a network of sites are you talking about many small, one product sites all linked together as opposed to a large authority site with many pages?
I have often wondered which would work the best.
Regards
Rob
Just starting my first amazon affiliate website and reading this was great timing. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how you progress. Thanks Dan
Dan,
Oh man oh man. Torn ACL? Been there man. Snapped mine right off the bone on Thanksgiving Eve of 2008.
All I can tell you is to rehab it hard and man up during the forced ROM exercise 😉
You’ll be back to almost normal in no time. But don’t be in a hurry either.
Hit me up if you ever need some moral support regarding your knee. Worst pain I ever felt, before AND after surgery. lol
Talk Soon,
Jason
It’s been many years since I was involved in martial arts, but I don’t remember my fellow students spending much money on it beyond uniforms and money for lessons/gyms. Is there enough money in the market to make 7 figures? Have you thought about marketing to kids/youth?–that is to the parents? Parents will spend money to make their kid outdo the next. Just a thought–you probably know the market better than I.
Dan – Great Goals! I wish you all the best. Sounds like a solid plan to me. Amazon affiliate sites can be hard to rank so you might want to throw some paid traffic on them to test.
Stay Strong & Get Well Soon!
Andy
Dan,
You are the man. Seriously inspiring. Good quality information. You can’t help but succeed.
Keep it up man. And like others are saying please keep us updated!
Tony
I’d particularly be interested in how the paid traffic works out. I may have to consider that route and would be interested in what works best, PPV, PPC, Banner Ads, etc.
Hey Dan,
I’m sorry to hear about your knee injury. I wish you a full and speedy recovery.
If you subscribe to the idea that there’s a silver lining in every cloud, your injury has given you the opportunity to focus on your online endeavors,so…
Your plan to take on the big dogs is a bold one indeed, but the fact that you’ve thought this through very carefully, mapped it out and written it down makes me believe that you will succeed.
We can all learn a lesson from you in this regard… the importance of setting goals. I’ve read that if we actually take the time to write down goals, we’re actually motivated to achieve them. Some sort of self-applied Jedi mind trick, I guess.
As for setting the goals, be careful and start out simple. Consider this… if you decided to take up jogging, you wouldn’t start by running in the NY City Marathon, would you? No, you’d start with one lap (maybe), then two, then three, then a mile and so on. Apply that same logic to your online business. Set small, simple and reasonable goals, and as you reach each milestone, you’ll start to gain confidence and build momentum!
From the bedroom to an office space? Good for you, Dan! I’m guessing you were spending a little too much time playing UFC, eh? It happens, so don’t feel too terribly bad.
Take care,
Fred S.
Dan,
I think you truly have the chops to make it to your 7 figure niche business goal. And congratulations on making the move to office space! I think you’ll find yourself getting a lot more done.
hi Dan
another great post speaking as a nite club doorman martial arts is of great interest to me its called survialling .What type do you train in ?
Anyway thats 4 really great realistic posts in a row what are you taking is it the old wheat biscuits
thanks and regards
peter mcgrath
Dan,
I appreciate your originality. I think like you concerning the people who only make money online by selling how to make money online products. And sometimes I wonder if they are really able to make money on line selling other stuffs than make money online products.
However I am on your mailing list and I don’t understand why you recommend the products of these people and why you say at the same time you don’t want to be like them. Finally you sell affiliate products about how to make money online with clickbank.
Concerning your project, I have the feeling you will be successful. I think the passion is a must have ingredient and it seems you have it.
Good luck with your project.
Great ideas and blue print Dan. Sorry to hear about you injury. I’m a newbie and have been following your posts. Good information. I have a long way to go… I’m learning the hard way… PPC sucks… It cost me over $450 to make two sales for a grand total of $64… I put the brakes on and am looking for a new plan. Keep the info coming.
Get healthy and good luck.
Bill
Hey Dan
Nice article.. also another point about a paid membership site is the creation of residual income. When established, regardless how big or small, it can provides a financial baseline from which to budget monthly expenditures.
Thanks again Dan, and keep us in the loop, it will be exciting to watch as you build this MEGA giant…
Dbutah3
Should also eventually have a forum and grow it large! So, people will come to it as the no #1 martial arts resource forum..:)
Hi Dan,
Having been in sales for several years (ie., Commercial Finance in Banking and Insurance for Small Business, plus my own small business for several years from home)I feel that your business plan is solid–the residual income (especially marketing from the internet)is KEY! I also believe that you are not the type to throw something out to the public that isn’t quality–that is going to take you much farther than a lot of the “gurus”.
I can tell you one thing as a newbie here–you are definitely right at the top of my trusted source list. Very best of luck with this future project!
Hi Dan, great to see you put your plan out in the public domain. Good luck. I’ll be following with interest.
Sounds like a nice plan Dan 😉
I wish you kick their butt and dominate the market;)
Ivelin
Hi Dan,
Thanks so much for posting this – I found it very inspiring. Please keep us posted on your phases and progress.
Take care,
Di
I love the idea and I think it will work really well because you will be providing value and gaining your subscribers trust all the way from first offering them really helpful reviews on products in their niche, then giving them a cool product for free and then selling them an even better product and ultimately your membership site. By that time your prospects will take out their wallet without even reading all of the sales copy.
Great plan and thanks for sharing.
Jan
This is really good info.
I’ve decided to rethink my sales funnel on my current project and stop going after big fish as I haven;t really tackled the smaller fish yet.
Cheers Dan
Martial arts should be a very lucrative niche and it sounds like you know a lot about it good luck I am sure you will blow them away. Like you said and I agree 100% start a niche that you are passionate about it will make it that much easier for you too succeed. Great post, thanks!
I design strength & conditioning programs for fighters/MMA. I’ve been a fan of MMA, done my own training, helped out fighters w/their workouts, been a mod on the biggest MMA forum on the internet, even had my own column on a major MMA news site off and on for many years now.
I’ve got a ton of opinions on this topic (at least MMA related, anyway), and why I’ve actually seen the number of products available *decline* over the years. Yeah, you’d think it’d be the opposite given the growth of MMA, but it’s not.
NOTE – I’m talking mainly instructional products, books, DVDs, and the like. Accessories for actual fighters (pads, gloves, wraps, rashguards, etc.) have of course gone up, but many times, these things are a ‘one-and-done’ kinda deal, or at least for the most part.
Fan merchandise has gone up through the roof, but MMA is largely (and by ‘largely’, I mean the overwhelming vast majority) made up of fans – *not* guys that actually train.
Hey Dan,
Sorry to hear about your knee. Hope you get better soon.
I like your plan and thanks for sharing your blueprint.
I think you are right on when it comes to going after the BIG products, and not limiting yourself to affiliate sites.
We recently started a company to offer media services (both online and offline) and we have our own affiliate program, which is already producing results.
Mind you, we are just a startup, and we are already looking at a 6 figure income annually – and growing.
Thanks.
Hi Dan
As everyone has been saying above, you come across as young, fresh and honest… all good things in my book…
I remember doing karate as a kid and paying £3 a session and a few quid for gradings and a “gi”…
I remember seeing something about clubs these days.. which are like monthly memberships by direct debit.. and they make a fortune… so I know they are big money especially if you build a brand … I guess the same would apply to an on-line membership site, but I expect it will need to include some ‘off-line’ stuff as well to make it of more value.. i.e. .. you could organise some martial art guru conferences/demos… do trips to the far east.. etc etc….
Hope you keep us all posted over the coming years..!
Paul
(Warwick, UK)
Dan, You ARE the man, I love your posts – I read every one of them, because I always learn something new! You are truly amazing to be so young and so smart!!!
I would love to take your seven figure idea and do the same in a weight loss niche since that is my passion, but unlike you have, I have to figure out and carve a particular niche that won’t be blackballed as spammy in the weight loss niche. I’ve been thinking about it as I jog, and I KNOW I’ll figure it out.
In the meantime, I’ll keep reading your wonderful genuis ideas!
Thanks for sharing them with the rest of us!
Kristie
A Georgia Girl
Sounds like a great plan, Dan. Branding is everything and can set anyone apart in a lot of ways. It will be interesting to see how you do it in a niche like MMA. Sounds like you may be able to create your own product / promote relevant MMA gear?
I like your thinking. Having a plan and mapping it out is the path to success. I have a plan which I revisit every quarter. Change the goal post.
Hi Dan,
Your biggest fish will be the day you create an event that people have to pay 1500$ to 4,000$ to attend and that you will invite “martial art” gurus. You will take six months to create the event with 100 people paying you to assist at the event and you will bank 150 >400.000 $ dollars, and also sell the event on DVD afterwards.
Hope you like this tip,
David Norden
http://www.secretmarketinglinks.com