Just over a year ago I came up with an idea. Here’s what I posted on the Warrior Forum on 12th June 2009…

This is the plan…

I’m going to create a niche portal for a specific retail industry. Then I figured there are several sub niches for this particular industry. So now I’m going to create 3 or 4 niche sites for these retailers, each one targeting a different audience. The idea being that the retailers can advertise on one, or if they advertise on 2 they get the others for free – something like that. I’ll prob have one main site for the general niche then a few smaller, mini niche sites too.

I’ve come up with my own usp, and as this industry is one that I’m passionate about – it makes it easy to talk to business owners. PLUS I don’t have to tone down my hot pink hair LOL!

(You can see the original post here if you like… Offline Cash Cow Variation – The Plan…)

So here’s what I did…

The Idea:

You can see above what the intention was, but over the 5 days that followed I modified, tweaked, brainstormed, tugged and pulled at the concept until I had it where I wanted it.

The Niche:

I haven’t finished with this niche so wont reveal it yet, though some of you may know, I’d rather you not share just at the moment – ta.

What I can tell you is that it’s a hobby niche, one that people can be incredibly passionate about – “It’s not a hobby… it’s an obsession!”. There are only around 700 bricks and mortar businesses in this niche across Australia and they are really struggling against the internet and the chain stores. They aren’t necessarily web savvy, but they know they should have a website – they just don’t know where to start.

The Launch:

When I started a year ago I had no website, I had a domain registered (I changed the name so ditched that domain within a week), an idea, a list of shops in my city, and sites that I’d built that I could show prospective clients.

I made 6 appointments and collected 4 cheques in 2 days.

That was $2400 in 2 days – WITH NO WEBSITE!

Basically I’d done a pre-launch special to make sure the businesses actually did want what I THOUGHT they wanted – and luckily they did!

The Site:

I run WPMU on the site. It’s a paid membership site. My members pay a year up front and for that I do everything for them. As it’s WPMU it takes 30 seconds to create the new blog for them, and I have a standard theme installed that has been edited to include an optin for the site’s email newsletter.

What do they get:

* A blog – which I call a ‘Web Portal’ – if I mention blog they instantly shut down, thinking they have to talk about their personal lives and their cats!
* Access to the email database – each time they update their blog it gets added to the weekly newsletter
* A professional premium theme
* Custom Header created by me
* Image gallery
* unlimited pages, images and content
* Analytics installed
* Free hosting of their site if they have one
* A link to their site from the contact page
* Their updates featured on the main site in several places
* All initial content created by me – home page, about, contact and gallery
* Google Map on their contact page
* Inclusion in a neat piece of software that helps their customers create a shopping excursion
* Inclusion in a website… www. Best[niche]Shops .com
* All pages are keyword targetted and SEO’d

Specials used to encourage shop owners to join straight away…

* 25% Discount
* Lifetime Discount
* Membership & Discount transferable on sale of business
* All updates done for them – they just email to me what they want uploaded including pics
* I register a domain name for them
* Host the domain for them
* Divert the domain to the new blog

The Membership:

For this first site I went with $799 for the year, less the discount is $599 payable upfront. I have over 100 members at the moment, and still have half the businesses to contact. I’m expecting to have around 200 shops – giving me a nice $120k a year.

Now you can charge what you like, depending on the niche – some niches you can multiply this by 10 or more and maybe offer less. I prefer to target niches that are desperate for help cause they are more ready to join on the spot – but they can’t quite afford a higher price tag – but that’s fine cause this niche is a passion of mine. I make the offer a no brainer.

Stats:

Today I have over 100 members at the moment, and still have half the businesses across the country to contact. When I finish, I’m expecting to have around 200 shops – giving me a nice $120k a year at the discount rate.

My conversion rate is incredibly high – I mean if I visit 2 shops today I know they are both joining.

I get over 4700 visits a month – with absolutely no traffic generation methods used.

1300 email subscribers – and 8 – 14 new subscribers a day

I started seriously adding members at the beginning of September 09 and had over 100 members by the end of April 2010

The Future:

While talking to these shop owners, drinking coffee with them, listening to their problems, needs, dramas… I’ve discovered there are 2 more areas they need help with that currently isn’t being addresses. This gives me the opportunity for 2 more sites – AND I already have a list of customers who are champing at the bit for one of the sites to launch! I’ve been telling the shops about this new site, how much I think it will cost and what it will do for them – they can’t wait! Plus this site isn’t limited to just the shops in this niche – but all the businesses on every level.

Site 1 currently: 110 members at $50/month = $5,500 / month
Site 1 to add another: 90 members at $50/month = $4,500 / month
Site 2 estimation: over 1000 members at $25/month = $25,000 / month
Site 3 estimation: over 5000 members at $10/month = $50,000 / month

Total: $85,000 per month

Even if I fail and only get an eighth of the projections it’s still a sizeable chunk of cash! Geez if I do nothing else – I already have over $1200 a week!!

Other opportunities:

The beauty of doing something like this is that it opens your eyes to the endless opportunities that are available – the secret to finding them is to genuinely want to help people!

I could have chosen a niche that had more than 700 business – hell that would be just about any niche – but I LOVE this niche and am trying to help these shops stay viable and open. Because I’m genuinely passionate about helping them – that shows and more often than not – that clinches the sale.

On my whiteboard right now there are 6 new membership sites planned – which should all be launched within the next few 6 months. All in different niches and all things I’m passionate about.

Next year I’ll be driving my hot pink hummer! (please don’t tell me it’s no good for our environment – I’m allowed to dream!)

Stef Rigby

Most people understand the potential of IM for offline business – but struggle to put it together.

Think a little differently…

Instead of finding lots of different businesses, in lots of different niches, with lots of different needs…

Find one type of business, in one niche, with the same set of needs.

Find a solution to all the problems the businesses in that niche have, then create a site with benefits and features, and a price point.

Try to offer something no-one else is. That’s not hard if you choose a niche that hasn’t been targeted by 50 gazillion other ‘web designers’.

NOW phone the businesses in the niche, explain (briefly) the problems they have and the solution you’ve created and ask if you can “drop in this afternoon, just have a chat and explain how …… site can benefit you and your business”.

When I use this method it’s incredibly rare to NOT get the appointment – and then from the appointment my conversion rate is over 90%.

The best thing about this system is that it can very easily be outsourced because it is a SYSTEM.

The initial website creation – outsource
Make the appointment with the business – outsource
Visit the business – outsource
Complete the work – outsource
Upsell – outsource
Enjoy your new lifestyle – oh hell do that yourself!

Think outside the box

It’s much the same as IM… you can create 100 different sites in 100 different niches, researching each one, finding products for each one, images, plr, articles, traffic, etc etc… or you can create one site in one niche and have an authority site, become an expert in your niche and have people contact you for help. Only one set of keywords, one lot of research, one range of images, plr, articles, traffic, etc etc.

Once you have this setup of course you can have up-sell products for the clients that want them.

Just a thought – think outside the box

Just over a year ago I came up with an idea. Here’s what I posted on the Warrior Forum on 12th June 2009…

This is the plan…

I’m going to create a niche portal for a specific retail industry. Then I figured there are several sub niches for this particular industry. So now I’m going to create 3 or 4 niche sites for these retailers, each one targeting a different audience. The idea being that the retailers can advertise on one, or if they advertise on 2 they get the others for free – something like that. I’ll prob have one main site for the general niche then a few smaller, mini niche sites too.

I’ve come up with my own usp, and as this industry is one that I’m passionate about – it makes it easy to talk to business owners. PLUS I don’t have to tone down my hot pink hair LOL!

(You can see the original post here if you like… Offline Cash Cow Variation – The Plan…)

So here’s what I did…

The Idea:

You can see above what the intention was, but over the 5 days that followed I modified, tweaked, brainstormed, tugged and pulled at the concept until I had it where I wanted it.

The Niche:

I haven’t finished with this niche so wont reveal it yet, though some of you may know, I’d rather you not share just at the moment – ta.

What I can tell you is that it’s a hobby niche, one that people can be incredibly passionate about – “It’s not a hobby… it’s an obsession!”. There are only around 700 bricks and mortar businesses in this niche across Australia and they are really struggling against the internet and the chain stores. They aren’t necessarily web savvy, but they know they should have a website – they just don’t know where to start.

The Launch:

When I started a year ago I had no website, I had a domain registered (I changed the name so ditched that domain within a week), an idea, a list of shops in my city, and sites that I’d built that I could show prospective clients.

I made 6 appointments and collected 4 cheques in 2 days.

That was $2400 in 2 days – WITH NO WEBSITE!

Basically I’d done a pre-launch special to make sure the businesses actually did want what I THOUGHT they wanted – and luckily they did!

The Site:

I run WPMU on the site. It’s a paid membership site. My members pay a year up front and for that I do everything for them. As it’s WPMU it takes 30 seconds to create the new blog for them, and I have a standard theme installed that has been edited to include an optin for the site’s email newsletter.

What do they get:

* A blog – which I call a ‘Web Portal’ – if I mention blog they instantly shut down, thinking they have to talk about their personal lives and their cats!
* Access to the email database – each time they update their blog it gets added to the weekly newsletter
* A professional premium theme
* Custom Header created by me
* Image gallery
* unlimited pages, images and content
* Analytics installed
* Free hosting of their site if they have one
* A link to their site from the contact page
* Their updates featured on the main site in several places
* All initial content created by me – home page, about, contact and gallery
* Google Map on their contact page
* Inclusion in a neat piece of software that helps their customers create a shopping excursion
* Inclusion in a website… www. Best[niche]Shops .com
* All pages are keyword targetted and SEO’d

Specials used to encourage shop owners to join straight away…

* 25% Discount
* Lifetime Discount
* Membership & Discount transferable on sale of business
* All updates done for them – they just email to me what they want uploaded including pics
* I register a domain name for them
* Host the domain for them
* Divert the domain to the new blog

The Membership:

For this first site I went with $799 for the year, less the discount is $599 payable upfront. I have over 100 members at the moment, and still have half the businesses to contact. I’m expecting to have around 200 shops – giving me a nice $120k a year.

Now you can charge what you like, depending on the niche – some niches you can multiply this by 10 or more and maybe offer less. I prefer to target niches that are desperate for help cause they are more ready to join on the spot – but they can’t quite afford a higher price tag – but that’s fine cause this niche is a passion of mine. I make the offer a no brainer.

Stats:

Today I have over 100 members at the moment, and still have half the businesses across the country to contact. When I finish, I’m expecting to have around 200 shops – giving me a nice $120k a year at the discount rate.

My conversion rate is incredibly high – I mean if I visit 2 shops today I know they are both joining.

I get over 4700 visits a month – with absolutely no traffic generation methods used.

1300 email subscribers – and 8 – 14 new subscribers a day

I started seriously adding members at the beginning of September 09 and had over 100 members by the end of April 2010

The Future:

While talking to these shop owners, drinking coffee with them, listening to their problems, needs, dramas… I’ve discovered there are 2 more areas they need help with that currently isn’t being addresses. This gives me the opportunity for 2 more sites – AND I already have a list of customers who are champing at the bit for one of the sites to launch! I’ve been telling the shops about this new site, how much I think it will cost and what it will do for them – they can’t wait! Plus this site isn’t limited to just the shops in this niche – but all the businesses on every level.

Site 1 currently: 110 members at $50/month = $5,500 / month
Site 1 to add another: 90 members at $50/month = $4,500 / month
Site 2 estimation: over 1000 members at $25/month = $25,000 / month
Site 3 estimation: over 5000 members at $10/month = $50,000 / month

Total: $85,000 per month

Even if I fail and only get an eighth of the projections it’s still a sizeable chunk of cash! Geez if I do nothing else – I already have over $1200 a week!!

Other opportunities:

The beauty of doing something like this is that it opens your eyes to the endless opportunities that are available – the secret to finding them is to genuinely want to help people!

I could have chosen a niche that had more than 700 business – hell that would be just about any niche – but I LOVE this niche and am trying to help these shops stay viable and open. Because I’m genuinely passionate about helping them – that shows and more often than not – that clinches the sale.

On my whiteboard right now there are 6 new membership sites planned – which should all be launched within the next few 6 months. All in different niches and all things I’m passionate about.

Next year I’ll be driving my hot pink hummer! (please don’t tell me it’s no good for our environment – I’m allowed to dream!)

Stef Rigby

Many years ago, in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender.

The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven.

2) If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven.

3) But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag.

He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.“

Since the remaining pebble was black, it was assumed that she had picked the white one.

And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don’t attempt to think.