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A Better You,  A Better Society,  A Better World    

Gaining Revenue

(June 2000)

Although the greater mission of the School for Champions is to fulfill the dream of a better society and world through positive education, revenue is still an issue. It costs money to run a website that serves many users from around the world.

Sources of revenue for the School for Champions include:

 

 

Besides covering expenses, it would also be nice to make a decent profit. After studying similar web businesses, the best route to follow is a mixed revenue model of using commissions, direct sales, advertising banners, consulting fees and sponsors to generate cash flow.

(Note that these efforts to generate revenue must be done tastefully, with our mission in mind.)

Following is the plan of action to implement this mixed revenue model.

Commissions

Commissions can be gained through alliances with universities, training companies, consultants, booksellers and merchandisers. These commissions will be achieved through referrals and sales.

Schools and training companies

If a School for Champions student is referred to a fee-based online course and takes the course, a commission will be paid to the School for Champions.

The plan is to form alliances with various universities and training companies to exchange referrals for commissions. The problem is in monitoring the referrals.

Consultants

Consultants that obtain business through referrals from the School for Champion site will pay a commission or finder's fee.

The plan is to make alliances with various consulting companies to exchange referrals for commissions. The problem is in monitoring the referrals.

Booksellers

Presently Amazon.com pays about 10% of each sale that originated from this site. Other major online booksellers, such as Barnes & Nobel and Fatbrain, offer similar commissions. They are set up to receive, process and pay their associates for the sales.

As of June 2000, this amounts to about $150 in book sales a month. That isn't much but also, book sales have not been pushed much. This can increase with increased traffic and added book listings. The plan is to list more books, as well as software, from a variety of these companies.

Merchandisers

In some cases products may be recommended. One example is instruments for science experiments. Suppliers that obtain business through referrals from the School for Champion site will pay a commission or finder's fee.

The plan is to make alliances with various suppliers to exchange referrals for commissions. The problem is in monitoring the referrals.

Direct sales

Revenue can be generated from the direct sales of site-related products, such as the School for Champion book, CD-ROM, and tapes.

The plan is to make these products available and to use a credit card service to help in receiving payment.

Advertising banners

Many sites that have sufficient traffic use banner ads to generate income. Unfortunately, this can also be irritating to the user or may draw users from the site. Very few web sites that depend on banner ads for revenue make a profit.

Needless to say, such ads could be used to generate some revenue, if they are used discretely.

The plan is to look into the possibility of such ads, but the jury is still out on their use in this site.

Consulting

Upon seeing the material in this site, corporations may want to have custom-built courses developed for their employees and customers. Consulting fees for developing those courses is a source of income. Such an effort would usually require a staff of sales personnel to get the business and training developers to make the custom products.

The plan at this time is to wait-and-see on this type of revenue.

Sponsors

Present sponsors of the site are Kurtus Technologies and Lanex, LLC. Other organizations and those who believe in our mission of improving the knowledge and character of youth and other learners may desire to give grants or donations to the cause. Such grants would usually be one-time contributions.

The plan at this time is to wait-and-see on this type of revenue.

In conclusion

Revenue can be gained from commissions on sales, direct sales of products, sales of services, advertising fees, and sponsors.

The rewards from helping others is worth more than gold.

Where can you go from here?