Intro - $1m /yr with Self Improvement Webstores

Yeah it was a merch I meant to ask about.

Banks in the uk are full on retarded when it comes to processing
 


Yes, JVs are the key.. I'd say I make 90% of my money in a roundabout way because of JVs.. the initial money there and then and the growth of my business and lists forever more... taken me 5 years to build up to this point tho and 3-4 years to build a circle of 30+ JV partners, and I'm only JUST getting the trust and to work with some of the bigger people I've been chasing for years... long game...

Can you talk more about identifying and courting JV partners ?
 
Can you talk more about identifying and courting JV partners ?

Talked about this in a post above... its really hard to sum up, especially just to a general request for more information like this as I have no idea who you are or what you already know..

The essential element is YOUR OWN list size, if sending an email to someone new then tell them your list size and what you can send to them.. no one really cares about the conversion rate of your product (provide this as an afterthought), just about the growth of their business.

Dan, if you were to recreate your success in another niche, what would be some of the biggest and most important steps you'd take (knowing what you now know) for the fastest growth/income?

As talked over above I would make sure any businesses I start in the future had a mailing list element, start collecting names and emails... with a 2% conversion rate youre going to be fighting for every sale and need HUGE numbers to make good money.. off smaller numbers you can still build a nice list and remarket to your list over and over and over and still make good money.

Get a list.. no one really does.. but it will be the making of you if you follow the route of setting up your own product. As said above in a round about way perhaps 90% of my money comes because of my list, and in my recent launch ALL of my top affiliates we re list owners.. JV partners that I know... they made $1000s each, the bloggers made like $100 or less...

Getting a bank account is easy, getting a merchant account, less so.

From what he's said he doesn't have a merchant account anyway.

Even so - he now has enough trading history for that to be easy, too.

Yes, I think just a regular bank account.. and to answer another question about how I got it for a wacky niche... I never had any problems, never even thought I might, just described my business as online sales for personal development products.. but actually hypnosis isn't so wacky.. just to you as this isn't an area you know anything about or think about in your daily life, but it is very viable, and it is a big market worldwide.

If you've taken the time to build it into a sustainable business, what you can see from the site will only be 10% of the story.... backend funnel, customer relationship affiliate relationships, business systems and industry reputation are far more important than the easily replicable bits. Of course, those take several years to build up, so most people will have wandered off to play Battlefield 3 long before they get going.

Unfortunately, I still wouldn't recommend outing your shit here, because there are still one or two dickheads who will screw stuff up for you short term by scraping your content and copying some of your links, then reporting you as a spammer to Google out of idle malice.

For sure our site isn't just 1 page with 1 product, it is 100 products and like 130 pages... each product has it's own salespage, there is a ton of information on there.. it's an authority site... yes you can still copy it of course though, but yes, in the background there is a TON of work that goes on and it's not anywhere near just about having the surface of the site and the product.. networking, relationships, JVs are 90% of it, and yeh, that's taken me 3-4 years to learn / grow.
 
Welcome to WF, I'm glad some of the sensible posters got to you before the dickrollers/boob requester's did.

When you're looking for JV partners, how closely related must their product be for you to consider it? Would be good if you can give an example or two of other niches you cross promoted.
 
Nice post with some very solid points.

I did have one question. For the 'list,' are you referring to customers who have already bought or intend to buy? I have a decent size list of people that have double opted in in one of my niches but I haven't tried to sell them anything. Would that list work with a JV? And would it be likely to convert at the 2% figure you mentioned above?

Great post, just trying to wrap my head around some things
 
-bump-
 
Welcome to WF, I'm glad some of the sensible posters got to you before the dickrollers/boob requester's did.

When you're looking for JV partners, how closely related must their product be for you to consider it? Would be good if you can give an example or two of other niches you cross promoted.

Well my hypnosis site is pretty broad itself, and with 50k subscribers i can send decent enough traffic to most people... but generally personal development products, confidence, success mindset - ebooks, training programs, membership sites, especially audio programs... manifestation.. weight loss a little...

.. but most people dont do it like me, most people have a weight loss site perhaps with a weight loss list.. much narrower focus.. each to their own, both approaches work.. with the weight loss list / site you gain focus, conversion rate... with the big wide site you can work with different people in different niches to a point, and make up for lack of focus and conversion with upsells, and repeat purchases..

Nice post with some very solid points.

I did have one question. For the 'list,' are you referring to customers who have already bought or intend to buy? I have a decent size list of people that have double opted in in one of my niches but I haven't tried to sell them anything. Would that list work with a JV? And would it be likely to convert at the 2% figure you mentioned above?

Great post, just trying to wrap my head around some things

Generally that 2% is a number out of the air, but could be an ok conversion rate... mine is about 2.5% site wide...

but then to lists... its 5-10% to my freebie subcribers - always let people join a list for free, for a sample, free product, free ebook or whatever

then conversion rates can be as high as 20%+ on clicks to my buyers list...

but this is to my own stuff... on doing externa promotions i measure simply by average epc - i like to make 0.50.. any less and its not successful, but can be as high as $2+ epc to a good offer..

I cant say what YOUR conversion rate would be as I dont know your offer your site, your emails... but just try it and find out :)
 
So.. maybe something like year 1 - $30k, 2=$150k, 3=$300k, 4+$700k, 5=$1m+ ... roughly.. revenue not profit, across all 3 sites and all money...

Did you have yearly profit/revenue goals when you started out or did you just go with the flow ?
 
the only one of my problems is traffic, what do u say?

... this is everyone's problem isn't it really... it's less about the product and more about the promotion. I love my products and believe them to be high quality, but I'm not product creation, my full time job is marketing, getting traffic, and recruiting affiliates and I've learnt this skillset over 5 years (and still aren't as good as many)

Focus on traffic or you have nothing, no one cares how good your product is.

So if you don't have a merch account how are you processing cards?

I don't know :P Weve just got a regular UK business bank account and we use Paypal Payments Pro and also take Google Checkout payment.. they both pay into our bank... it works for us...
 
Did you have yearly profit/revenue goals when you started out or did you just go with the flow ?

When I started out I had nothing, no money, no history of success, especially financially...

But yes, I did have big aims, I saw what other people with existing sites were getting in terms of traffic and I saw our early numbers and knew we could compete.. I saw on a smaller scale on Ebay how much feedback people were getting for similar products and saw there was a market and sales numbers there ... I believed, and I believed we could make really good money..

I always set huge targets and I've NEVER hit one... I always shoot for the stars and land on the moon, or whatever that saying is.. still good overall.