Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

In the past few weeks we have seen some fairly high profile blog sales, at least in the make money online niche, including -

• BloggingFingers.com ($6,000)
• CashQuests.com ($15,000)
• OneMansGoal.com ($8,500)
• Blogtrepreneur.com (Not Sold Yet - Predicted low five figures)

If I had the writing resources available to me I would have loved to have snapped up all these blogs to create quite a nice make money online network, but that would simple be beyond my capabilities to manage at this time.

Blogging Fingers was the first to tip the scale, gathering attention from plenty of other blogs about the sale. This in turn led to the other sales, which haven’t quite garnered as much attention but that certainly hasn’t harmed the final selling price and I think therein lies one of the main motivations for this spurt of blog sales - the money is good.

I’ve been in personal contact with a few of the people behind these sales and I think it’s safe to say for every blog listed above, the main reason for selling is “personal reasons” of some kind, which to me means there are other projects they would like to move on to, they have grown tired of writing to their blog or something a bit more serious has forced them into the sale.

Does This Indicate The Start Of A Mass Exodus?

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Kevin Plank’s unremarkable career as a college football player hardly ranks him with the greats of the gridiron. But Under Armour, a bright idea hatched during his days as a walk-on fullback at the University of Maryland, has taken Plank, 31, to the promised land in the sports apparel industry.

For anyone involved in athletics, you know that perspiration can be the pits (no pun intended). Kevin Plank set out to capitalize on the perspiration that goes hand-in-hand with sports by creating clothing that wouldn’t become saturated with the stinky stuff. After playing fullback for the Terrapins, Plank knew what just about any other football player knows… pads, clothing, and shoes flat out STINK after games.

From this simple concept a multi-million dollar a year business was born. Under Armour was the brainchild of Kevin and Scott plank and those humble beginnings have now led to a full-fledged sporting craze.

For those that are unfamiliar with the product, you can find it at any sporting goods store. Under Armour is thinly layered - tight-fitting clothing that doesn’t hold moisture. For athletes, this idea was better than sliced bread. The clothing (since it doesn’t retain moisture) not only doesn’t weigh you down with sweat, but it actually helps to cool you! The science behind it is similar to that of perspiration itself. The clothing doesn’t hold moisture so it forces it to the top layer. It sits on top of the top layer and when you catch a breeze, it can actually cool your body by up to 35%. Amazing!

Under Armour was started with a twenty thousand dollar budget, and a lot of legwork. The company never spent a dime on print or media advertising (until much later), but instead, relied on word of mouth. They passed out samples of their clothing to football players from Georgia Tech. The players fell in love with it almost instantly, and Under Armour received it’s first order… for $15,000.00. This was just the beginning though. Still relying on word of mouth advertising, what happens next is what really catapulted this fledgling business into the limelight.

The equipment manager for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons just so happened to be close friends with the Georgia Tech head coach that just made the first Under Armour order of any sports team. After a weekly lunch visit, Kevin Plank received a call asking if he could make the shirts long-sleeved as well. Kevin, without an advertising budget, nor a well-recognized brand… made his first sale to a professional sports team.

This was really all it took for Under Armour to shine. Before he knew it, Plank was receiving orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise from professional sports teams and apparel shops all over the world.

It didn’t take long for the Under Armour idea to be emulated though. Bigger companies such as Nike, Adidas, and Reebok started developing entire product lines that they called “dry fit” clothing. It seems that although Under Armour may be the under dog in this fight… that it never really turned into much of a fight. By the time the “big 3″ released their products, Under Armour already had established a firm grasp on the industry by signing contracts to provide athletic apparel to all major pro sports, and most college sporting programs as well.

How’s that for an under dog story?

- Bryan Clark

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Adnan, the owner of Blogtrepreneur.com, informed me a month ago that he had decided to give up blogging and he would be selling his flagship blog, Blogtrepreneur.com.

Adnan has decided to first offer the blog to his readers to see if he can “keep it in the family” and sell it to someone who already reads and knows his blog. If he doesn’t get the price he wants there, he’ll move it to the traditional option of a Sitepoint sale.

You can read about the Blogtrepreneur.com Sale here.

Blogtrepreneur.com is a great blog and nearing 1000 daily RSS readers. Getting 1000 RSS readers is VERY hard, especially in the hyper competitive online marketing and blogging industry, so if you were considering starting a blog on these topics and you want a very good head start, this blog sale represents a great opportunity.

Adnan wants low five figures for the blog. Considering it takes most bloggers at least a year minimum to build a blog to the point Adnan has (or really I should say - most bloggers never build their blog to this point), this is an option for an investor who wants to fast track their entry into the upper levels of the blogosphere and hopefully, continue to grow the site even further.

Adnan states that the site made over $600 in October of this year, so with a low five figures price he is asking more than the average that sites go, but given the sale price of recent blogs bloggingfingers.com ($6000) and Onemansgoal.com ($8500), it’s not that unrealistic.

To be honest I think the site is under monetized as well - I think you could raise the income to $1000 a month within a month or two after buying it and of course I’d be adding an email newsletter opt-in form to start building a list to further monetize the site.

I wish Adnan the best of luck with the sale and if you are interested in buying go check out his sale post.

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Web 2.0 Wealth System is a series of training videos by Alex Sysoef designed to teach people how to create profitable blogs, with the claim that if you follow the step-by-step instructions you will begin earning money within seven days.

Product: Web 2.0 Wealth System
Creator: Alex Sysoef
Website: www.web20wealth.com
Purpose: This product is intended to help you increase or start generating blog income using a simple system that takes minimal time to implement.
Price: $67.00*
Reviewed by: Bryan Clark

* Until December 1st 2007 Alex has offered a $20 discount to readers of Yaro’s blog, so you can get his product for $47.

Alex created this product with the intentions of making sure that anyone who bought it wouldn’t be a member of the “one and done” blogging group. Statistics show that most bloggers blog consistently for approximately one to three months before giving up. Why do they give up? They are overwhelmed!

I’ll tell you, as a newer blogger myself (that’s me, Bryan Clark, not Yaro), there are many ways to get overwhelmed when it comes to trying to decipher all of the blogger “code” that comes with the territory. Simple things to experienced bloggers can be a headache to the newbies. Terms like RSS, SEO, PPC, Affiliate, CPC, and more, can all seem like a foreign language to a new blogger.

Alex Sysoef stepped up and has offered a product designed to help people new to blogging get over the beginner curve quickly. His product is the best I’ve tested so far when it comes to guiding beginner to intermediate bloggers down the path of Internet income.

Who Is It For?

This product is easy to follow, and you can use it regardless of your skill level. Alex has a pretty heavy accent, so you’ll need to listen closely, but it’s not too difficult to understand.

Web 2.0 Wealth System was created for the beginner, but I would recommend it for the intermediate blogger too - you will stumble across a few gold nugget ideas that you didn’t know before, even if you are familiar with blogging. Advanced bloggers will probably find much of the training redundant, so if you are familiar with how to set up a WordPress blog, install critical plug-ins and the best monetization methods, you probably don’t need this product.

I was pleasantly surprised by some of the tips Alex talks about in the videos, in particular the monetization suggestions, as he offered a few ideas I had never heard of before. For example, the section where he covers using AssociatedContent.com was particularly refreshing. Not many other blog trainers talk about this service as a way to make money from a blog and it’s interesting how Alex leverages the site within his system to generate multiple sources of income from the single stream of content.

Why Would You Need This Product?

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I just finished listening to a great call between Rich Schefren and Chet Holmes. Chet was an inspiration for how Rich launched his Internet business using education marketing techniques, giving away some fantastic free reports in the lead up to the Strategic Profits launch. I then in turn replicated Rich’s formula when I released the Blog Profits Blueprint in anticipation of the Blog Mastermind launch.

I thought Rich had come up with the education marketing process himself, or at least intuitively decided to go with that format. It turns out Rich was calling on the training he received after studying some of the materials Chet provided in his home study packages that Rich purchased many years ago when he was running an hypnosis business.

Education marketing is by far my favorite form of marketing, since it doesn’t feel like a hard sell. You help people, then ask for money if they want even more help. Genuine credibility and value is established before any selling is done, as opposed to some methods where you go in blind with no prior relationship asking for people to buy something from you.

If you want to hear more about this concept and Chet’s Four Ways to Double Your Sales, go have a listen to the podcast on Rich’s blog, it’s free.

Would You Benefit From Dedicated Sales Staff?

In the call Chet talks about a system he uses with his business where he rewards his sales people with 100% of the profit on first product sales. So if a sales person makes a $3,000 info product sale, the profit goes straight to that sales person. I don’t know the exact particulars, but I assume Chet pays out the profits on the first product after the cost of fulfillment is taken out, then goes on to sell more product to the same customer, which is how the business realizes an income from the system.

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