Developing Warrior/Self-Improvement Brand

[SpartanWarrior77]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for ways to scale up my brand to the point where I'm making 5K per month.

I've been working on my brand recently. I've bought a domain, got a nice looking blog running, along with a Youtube channel. So far I've built up a small content base off: 28 articles for my website, 25 videos for my Youtube channel, and sent out 22 newsletters to my 53 Email-subscribers.

I'm currently on Facebook, twitter and Instagram as well. And recently started promoting a product I like on my website in order to get affiliate commissions. However, I haven't gotten any sales yet and I'm looking for ways to scale it up.

So far the only ideas I came up with are to increase traffic by coming out with more content. That way more people go on my site, subscribe and potentially buy the affiliate package or donate.

Does anybody have any experience with scaling up a business like this? Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

Ps. I'm pretty passionate about this project and feel the drive necessary to put in the extra mile.

Thanks!

 

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[ZCP]

Backup and ask yourself what 'value' you provide? What 'problem' do you solve?

Read your first sentence. That tells all. Come at this from the customers side.

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

Backup and ask yourself what 'value' you provide? What 'problem' do you solve?

Read your first sentence. That tells all. Come at this from the customers side.

I have asked myself that question before. I actually have an avatar of my ideal customer written up.

Maybe Im not specific enough?

I mean yeah...the problem I solve has to do with helping men become stronger and take ownership over their lives.

But now that I'm coming out with free content to solve that problem, I don't see how to profit from it.

 

[ZCP]

However, I haven't gotten any sales yet and I'm looking for ways to scale it up.

Are you creating something 'you' would want instead of something a customer would want? You have ANY sales??

What market analysis / testing have you done? Specifically.

 

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[Envision]

if you cant do it better than boldanddetermined.com and dangerandplay.com then I would encourage you to move on and find something else.

This type of thing is beaten to death and there isnt much new to it

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

Are you creating something 'you' would want instead of something a customer would want? You have ANY sales??

What market analysis / testing have you done? Specifically.

I'm creating content that reflects the unique lessons/perspectives that I gather from my life and books I'm reading.

I don't have any sales because I don't really sell anything besides my affiliate marketing stuff or my "coaching option" which nobody has bought yet.

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

if you cant do it better than boldanddetermined.com and dangerandplay.com then I would encourage you to move on and find something else.

This type of thing is beaten to death and there isnt much new to it

I take inspiration from both of those sites. Viktor Pride and Mike Cernovich both collaborated on several projects. If two supposed "competitors" can come together and create content. I don't see any reason why I can't offer a unique view on that field and potentially be a collaborator too one day.

 

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[Envision]

I take inspiration from both of those sites. Viktor Pride and Mike Cernovich both collaborated on several projects. If two supposed "competitors" can come together and create content. I don't see any reason why I can't offer a unique view on that field and potentially be a collaborator too one day.

You definitely could but you don't want to be seen as a copycat which is why ZCP was saying wheres the value? Both of those guys had success and experience and then started. What differentiates you and makes you credible?

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

You definitely could but you don't want to be seen as a copycat which is why ZCP was saying wheres the value? Both of those guys had success and experience and then started. What differentiates you and makes you credible?

Yeah, I admit that being seen as a copycat is a possibility I've pondered. If, I were to sum up what differentiates me in a few points, it would be:I talk about strategy, seduction and warrior mentality (meanwhile B&D talks a lot about business) (Mike C. talks a lot on politics) and I am passionate about tribalism and brotherhood (B&D is all about individualism and being a "ronin"). I'm only 21 and I've been studying for years and I feel like my personality is different as-well. I have a different way of mixing the knowledge I have learned which might resonate differently with people.

 

[mikey3times]

You "don't really sell anything", but you are confused about why you aren't getting sales?

I don't think most people go to a website, read a few free articles from an unknown guy, then spend a big chunk of change on personal coaching.

Start smaller:

Free article >> inexpensive ebook >> interactive course >> personal coaching.

Build up your offerings (funnel) as you build up your skills. I would never hire a 21 year old coach with no track record...you still don't know ANYTHING.

Also, find out where your potential customers hang out and start interacting with them. Build your brand. Get practice coaching.

 

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[ZCP]

So this is a blog w/ some affiliate marketing / ads and if someone wants you to coach them you'll take their money??

Seems like the market has let you know already.

Might be time to pivot....

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

You "don't really sell anything", but you are confused about why you aren't getting sales?

I don't think most people go to a website, read a few free articles from an unknown guy, then spend a big chunk of change on personal coaching.

Start smaller:

Free article >> inexpensive ebook >> interactive course >> personal coaching.

Build up your offerings (funnel) as you build up your skills. I would never hire a 21 year old coach with no track record...you still don't know ANYTHING.

Also, find out where your potential customers hang out and start interacting with them. Build your brand. Get practice coaching.

I mean I do sell "affiliate products" and there's a "consulting" tab on my site.

I also have a "free ebook" that I give away in exchange for an email address.

But I like the practice coaching idea!

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

So this is a blog w/ some affiliate marketing / ads and if someone wants you to coach them you'll take their money??

Seems like the market has let you know already.

Might be time to pivot....

Haha I keep hearing that word "pivot" in the business world. I wonder how to pivot effectively. Im thinking about interacting with some of my viewers and asking them what kind of product would they be willing to pay for or what kind of problem specifically do they want solved...

 

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[Envision]

Whats the website?

You need to ask yourself why someone would pay you for coaching or products in regards to strategy and warrior mentality when your 21 years old and havent really done anything yet

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

Whats the website?

You need to ask yourself why someone would pay you for coaching or products in regards to strategy and warrior mentality when your 21 years old and havent really done anything yet

The site is www.spartanownership.com

And true that! I don't have huge amounts credibility so I need to figure out a way to work around that...

 

[lowtek]

The site is www.spartanownership.com

And true that! I don't have huge amounts credibility so I need to figure out a way to work around that...

The way to "work around that" is to build credibility by demonstrating you can produce results.

Do you have any friends you could coach for free, in exchange for a case study?

 

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[Ninjakid]

The site is www.spartanownership.com
I don't have huge amounts credibility so I need to figure out a way to work around that...

In essence the existence of your business is to manipulate variables to give you a predetermined sum of money which you decided is good enough.

But what actually value to provide people if you're you're trying to appear authentic, but you're just merely baiting subscribers?

You could run a gig like this for a while, but your business will crash and burn once it's true nature is revealed.

My advice is to email your subscribers, tell them this marks the end, cancel your hosting, and work on a business where you provide genuine value.

 

[devine]

In essence the existence of your business is to manipulate variables to give you a predetermined sum of money which you decided is good enough.

But what actually value to provide people if you're you're trying to appear authentic, but you're just merely baiting subscribers?

You could run a gig like this for a while, but your business will crash and burn once it's true nature is revealed.

My advice is to email your subscribers, tell them this marks the end, cancel your hosting, and work on a business where you provide genuine value.

Maybe even hold on with business in general.

 

[Thiago Machado]

Is this you?

• Pay attention from 3:40 to 4:32
• The solution to your problem is at 4:10
• The solution your problem again at 7:10 to 8:18
• Ideas at 12:28 to 15:00

 

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[Vigilante]

You're 21. Who the F*ck are you going to "coach?" 16 year olds? They don't have any money.

I spent four minutes on your site, and your grammar is terrible, as is your use of apostrophes. At a minimum, please put your copy through a spell checker and grammar editor. Nobody should take this seriously if you can't use English in proper context.

Donate? You want people to just F*cking GIVE YOU MONEY? Your 53 email subscribers are your friends and family.

Come on, man. You have nothing to offer people yet. You're a wanna be guru with no substance.

No doubt the people nearest to you told you this stuff was gold. They're blowing sunshine up your a$$. We don't.

This is 100% bullshit. Go get a job, get some life experience, accomplish something, and build something based on value.

You're wasting your time on this. If you stick with this, you might find a more receptive audience at the Warrior Forum.

 

[Raoul Duke]

You're 21. Who the F*ck are you going to "coach?" 16 year olds? They don't have any money.

I spent four minutes on your site, and your grammar is terrible, as is your use of apostrophes. At a minimum, please put your copy through a spell checker and grammar editor. Nobody should take this seriously if you can't use English in proper context.

Donate? You want people to just F*cking GIVE YOU MONEY? Your 53 email subscribers are your friends and family.

Come on, man. You have nothing to offer people yet. You're a wanna be guru with no substance.

No doubt the people nearest to you told you this stuff was gold. They're blowing sunshine up your a$$. We don't.

This is 100% bullshit. Go get a job, get some life experience, accomplish something, and build something based on value.

You're wasting your time on this. If you stick with this, you might find a more receptive audience at the Warrior Forum.

 

[Maxboost]

You seem to have plagiarized a lot of RSD material (seducing women). There seems to be of nothing of value on the site and you don't really provide any eye opening A-ha moments to your audience. I really don't think you should be giving life advice at age 21, its kind of cringe worthy writing.

I think you should go back to the drawing board or provide some really ground breaking theories that no one has thought of which would want me to stay on your site and buy some products.

A better idea would be to document your journey and share what worked and what didn't work.

 

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[Choate]

SpartanOwnership is a cool concept and I don't think this market is overcrowded. Your main concern is how to differentiate yourself from the big dogs like bold and determined, rsdnation, and danger and play. Hell maybe even bodybuilding.com. This is the wrong approach. Before you can worry about competitor differentiation, you need to have a valid value add.

A comparison to what you're doing is shipping golf balls from China, dropping them in blue paint, and selling blue golf balls on Amazon because they are different. There is no value here, its just different for the sake of being different.

You're basically trying to make money off of people and your only concern is yourself. Your view on business is immature as there is a complete lack of focus on them, and all the focus is on you. How can I make 5k per month? How can I make them donate to me? Do I write more content in order to possibly get a coaching client?

Do you even have a legitimate offering set up if someone were to buy coaching?

Here's what I would do: scrap the entire concept. And we're going to go back to that concept of pivoting. Research, research, and research more until you get to understand your target audience. Or go out in the field. Find out what pain point they have and figure out how you can provide a solution and solve it. Instead, you are putting together random articles on health, fitness, "being a man" and throwing shit at a wall hoping it sticks...with someone, with anyone.

A legitimate pivot is that after your research, you find that 18-22 year old college males in Colorado are lacking in "cool", comfortable workout clothes. And with the climate changing so rapidly there, you find some material that makes it so its comfortable to workout in whether hot or cold. So now you develop a badass brand around this concept, which fulfills a need, and you can still make blog, videos, etc around this concept. And after you dominate the market in Colorado so that word of mouth spreads it, you can arc out into similar markets across the country, because you have a legitimate product which you tested with your target audience, found out it works, and have a cool brand and back story to back it up.

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

Hey guys, I just read through all of your replies. Matter of fact I read through them a few days ago. I gotta admit your responses got me thinking. Im 21 afterall. Who the F*ck am I to be giving advice on being a warrior? It's true that a lot of my subs are friends. And it's true that people might be blowing sunshine up my a$$. In the past few days I've been thinking a whole lot. I even seriously considered joining the French Foreign Legion to gain some experience in the armed forces to have more credibility (Mark Divine is a Navy Seal who writes a lot of books on self-development which inspire me).I dont want to do it though because it would suck really badly. My passion is to learn how to evolve to be the best man I could be and then serve other men to master their lives. I don't know any other way to do so other than creating my brand. Does anybody have any legitimate advice on how I could continue with my purpose? Because advice such as "get a job" or "research workout clothes" has it's truth but at the end of the day I would much rather make Spartan Ownership successful. The other paths don't contain "evolving and helping other men evolve". Either way, I'll consider everything you guys wrote but I figured it was worth elaborating my position further.

 

[devine]

Hey guys, I just read through all of your replies. Matter of fact I read through them a few days ago. I gotta admit your responses got me thinking. Im 21 afterall. Who the F*ck am I to be giving advice on being a warrior? It's true that a lot of my subs are friends. And it's true that people might be blowing sunshine up my a$$. In the past few days I've been thinking a whole lot. I even seriously considered joining the French Foreign Legion to gain some experience in the armed forces to have more credibility (Mark Divine is a Navy Seal who writes a lot of books on self-development which inspire me).I dont want to do it though because it would suck really badly. My passion is to learn how to evolve to be the best man I could be and then serve other men to master their lives. I don't know any other way to do so other than creating my brand. Does anybody have any legitimate advice on how I could continue with my purpose? Because advice such as "get a job" or "research workout clothes" has it's truth but at the end of the day I would much rather make Spartan Ownership successful. The other paths don't contain "evolving and helping other men evolve". Either way, I'll consider everything you guys wrote but I figured it was worth elaborating my position further.

You seem to miss the whole point.

You're 21 years old. Does it mean that you can't coach other men on, let's say, how to pick up women? It depends on how well you do it yourself.
Does it mean that you can't coach other men on how to look better? It depends on your own appearance.
Does it mean that you can't coach other men on how to form relationships with other people? If you're excellent at this - you can.
The point is, you don't need to look more credible, you need to be more credible. When I was 21 years old I was coaching local politicians how to speak. I was credible enough, because when I opened my mouth I was my own best testimonial. Be a representation of what you preach.

What can you really offer?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

or my "coaching option" which nobody has bought yet.

You want to coach people when it appears you can't coach yourself?

Are we being trolled?

Nope, we aren't.

Turns out, this is becoming a disturbing pattern for 20-somethings. We see it here. Young people marketing themselves as experts when they haven't put forth any effort worthy of an expert. No life experience, no wins, no failures; nothing but a slick website with empty claims and vague credentials.

I commend you on the effort but IMO, it's a little cart before the horse. Rack up some wins, some life experience, and then see if you still want to be a guru afterward. I'm guessing you won't. Good luck.

 

[kkompoti]

Turns out, this is becoming a disturbing pattern for 20-somethings. We see it here. Young people marketing themselves as experts when they haven't put forth any effort worthy of an expert. No life experience, no wins, no failures; nothing but a slick website with empty claims and vague credentials.

i believe two words can help: me too.

you, gary vaynerchuk , grand cardone , robert kiyosaki ........ the list continues.
they see your success, they listen to what you say.. they twist some of their learnings
and on the way to create a me too market.

the reason they are at that age is because all of the above are targeting younger audience through the internet.
they want the lambos, the speaches, the 10x everything, the houses, the rich dad no one ever had, the 4 hours of everything....
and they see your example and say: i can do that!easy! credentials? what is that?
then make a site, some vblogs, some nice copywriting and of the cliff!

failure is coming.

 

[Ninjakid]

Hey guys, I just read through all of your replies. Matter of fact I read through them a few days ago. I gotta admit your responses got me thinking. Im 21 afterall. Who the F*ck am I to be giving advice on being a warrior? It's true that a lot of my subs are friends. And it's true that people might be blowing sunshine up my a$$. In the past few days I've been thinking a whole lot. I even seriously considered joining the French Foreign Legion to gain some experience in the armed forces to have more credibility (Mark Divine is a Navy Seal who writes a lot of books on self-development which inspire me).I dont want to do it though because it would suck really badly. My passion is to learn how to evolve to be the best man I could be and then serve other men to master their lives. I don't know any other way to do so other than creating my brand. Does anybody have any legitimate advice on how I could continue with my purpose? Because advice such as "get a job" or "research workout clothes" has it's truth but at the end of the day I would much rather make Spartan Ownership successful. The other paths don't contain "evolving and helping other men evolve". Either way, I'll consider everything you guys wrote but I figured it was worth elaborating my position further.

You need to do some serious soul searching, and educate yourself before you're ready give anyone advice.

I took a quick look at your website, and I found nothing but new-age hegemonic masculinity mumbo-jumbo; the kind that's prevalent in blogs written by sexual-frustrated basement-dwellers.

Your article, "How to master women and seduction" made me want to kill me myself more than I wrote a thread here saying I actually wanted to kill myself.

I'm not sure where you're learning this shit, but judging by the kind of content you post it sounds like you've never read a book in your life. My advice, READ SOMETHING! Start small. Maybe you can start with Green Eggs and Ham.

Learn about actual science before you start going on about how men are "scientifically superior to women."

Become successful in your own life first before you start trying to tell others how to do it.

Develop your own voice instead of regurgitating what other more successful blogs have done before you.

Become an empty cup so you can learn, rather than assume you already know the truth.

Take a step back and look at your own beliefs. Ask yourself why you hold the beliefs you do.

If you can't understand this, then I'm sorry, there's no point in trying to help you.

 

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[kkompoti]

made me want to kill me myself

READ SOMETHING! Start small. Maybe you can start with Green Eggs and Ham

@Ninjakid you should write only the above in your post and then pull a @Andy Black , like this: [drops mic]

time saver!

 

[SpartanWarrior77]

Ok, so I'm getting some guys giving me advice where they say "add value before you start asking for value" and then a lot of guys judging my content and telling me that my grammar wanted to make them "kill themselves". To be honest, I could get the guys asking me to add value but the rest of you aren't helping me much. I mean I'm not getting emotional about it so I'm not going to start insulting you guys. I want this to be a productive discussion. I read a lot actually. I read a minimum of an hour a day and regularly go for 2 or 3 hours. Yeah, some of the stuff I write might displease you but that's not the point. I already know my content isn't for everyone. By posting on this forum, I was simply looking for a way to start getting paid for what I do so I could be 100% focused on it. Discouraging me isn't going to work because I'm pretty resolute in making this work. Besides, most of the reasoning here to discourage me is simply based off of the fact that I'm young and that my content isn't great. But with time, I'll gather experience and wisdom and my content will get better so why would I quit now? A few guys here seemed genuinely interested in helping me (thank you) and some other guys in here...im not so sure. Im starting to think that the best route for me will be to make a few changes, maybe with my content, and give more of a "this is my journey" instead of "here's what you should do" type advice. Or at least be less "guru" about it all. Any feedback on that?