Special Course Announcement, How We Make Money, Business & Family Updates (SSOF Ep 116)

James de Lacey0:01

Because this course is going to be based off a lot of their brand new research as part of his PhD. So essentially it is brand new science with what they're doing and what they've applied to professional boxing, karate, MMA, Jiu-Jitsu, all of it. So it's going to be awesome. I'm going to cover the strength and power side, and that's going to be looking at how you can maximize transfer from the gym into the sport, how you can not be so tired, beat up from the gym before going into training.

Because I think that's probably the number one reason combat athletes don't hit the gym is because they feel like they get too sore, too stiff, etc., and they end up seeing, I guess, a detriment to their training versus actually seeing a benefit to their training.

So it's going to be a pretty sweet little course. So make sure you check that out. It'll be linked in the description as well. It'll be the first link there. That should be the final week, so make sure you pick that up. And then we'll put that together once we have all the information. We have a general outline already, but with your input we'll be able to add more to it to make it more beneficial for you.

But with that course announcement out of the way, actually it makes a good segue into the business itself. So Sweet Science of Fighting really started in 2020 during the pandemic side is when I kind of really took it seriously. A contract just ended with professional sporting team and I was just looking for other ways to expand and make money.

So the business itself makes money predominantly through three, or I guess you'd say two different avenues. One is through affiliate marketing. So if not familiar, essentially it's getting a commission for linking people to buy certain products. So I've got a few around here. Let me grab one. Like, as an example, these are Hit and Move Turtle MC gloves, their new design here. That's just an example there. I mean, I've got some pretty good equipment lying around from different brands, but that was actually a big money driver.

When I'm sure you've noticed the changes in Google recently, when Google was not so bad what they're doing now. So different companies that's like that, and people searching for the best XYZ, and then make money through those commission links. So if you are actually after any new gear, just DM me or something, or you can probably find it on the website. But I've got discount codes for all the different kind of equipment.

So Hit and Move would be probably the best boxing gear brand. So that would be gloves and mitts and now headgear. For grappling, for Jiu-Jitsu gear, X Marshal is where I, what I like to wear and what I've done co-branded gear with. So X Marshal will be the other one. So I've got a discount code for that if you want that. For more mid-range, I guess, gear, Rev Gear are also a really good option. I'm actually wearing the shirt right now. Rev Gear is a good option for mid-range gear. Again, if you want discount code for any of those, let me know.

For Muay Thai gear, Yokkao, again I've got discount codes for that too. So yeah, if there's anything you need, or if you're ever looking for gear, you can always just DM me. I can send you those or you should be able to find them on the website. So that's one way.

The other way is through the training programs / membership and then this course. So the membership is, I think most of you probably familiar with it now based on from the podcast and stuff, but essentially that's $37 a month or $370 a year. And that's a training app that has all the training programs. I recently updated quite a bunch, and it has all the training programs from Dominate the Mats, Dominate the Cage, and Dominate the Ring. And those would be grappling, MMA, and striking. I kind of put those into three different categories, and the programs slightly differ based on those.

And then within that as well, I've also got 365 Striking, 365 Grappling, 365 MMA. That's essentially a whole year's training for each of those as well. So the Dominate programs were kind of more one-off bespoke training programs. They kind of hit you with a bit of, I guess you could say, intensity and some slightly more advanced training in there because it was sold as a standalone program initially. So it's kind of like come in and get you ready pretty quickly.

Whereas the 365 program is kind of like a slow build, and it's not based on when you have an upcoming fight or tournament, because it's impossible for me to plan through, I guess, more of a generic program because it's built for anyone who comes in to take. But it does provide you some sound training principles to follow and run instead of trying to guess what to do.

So that's those programs in there, and that also includes a Discord community. Discord community has actually been really good. We had some good questions and discourse in there. So myself, Andrew Usher is in there too, he answers questions in there and chats. And if you have any questions about the training, so we've got a couple of guys, semi-professional MMA guys who have fights coming up and maybe need a little more tweaking around the training program, and they just DM me there and I help them out with that.

Had Nohi Pan's gold medalist come through the training program. And yeah, we've had a bunch of different, I guess you could say, fighters and athletes come through the program. And if you're in the community and you have the app, then if you do have an upcoming, I guess you could say, fight or tournament, then you just hear me or post in there and we can help make changes to the program so it's more beneficial or more individualized to you.

And that's all part of the same price, that $37 a month. So it's almost like having, I guess, almost like a personalized coach in there as part of the training, but the training app you can follow as well. So there's a bunch of stuff in there.

And I'll be continuing to update those programs as they get around to it and continuing those out. And now obviously we have this course. Now there are old courses that are in the training app, outdated, and I'm going to be removing those with this new course coming out. So I wouldn't even bother honestly watching those. Those will be removed and updated with this new course.

This new course will not be part of the membership just because it's a big undertaking to do this, and it's based off a lot of blood, sweat and tears through Andrew's work and then also through my career and learnings as well. So we're going to sell that separately.

But that's in a nutshell, I guess, how the business makes money. YouTube right now makes me sweet [expletive] all. That's from ad revenue, that is. I mean, from selling the membership and stuff like that, I'm sure there's stuff that comes through that, just can't really track it that well.

So that is slowly, YouTube's hopefully slowly going to get monetized soon. But if there's anything, any topics you want me to cover on the YouTube, let me know about that too and I will cover them because I'm always looking for topics to cover there. There's obviously I've been pushing a lot on Instagram recently as well, so if you enjoy maybe shorter form content, stuff under a minute, then check out the Instagram. It's growing quite nicely, I'm on there too now.

I guess the other reason no podcast this week, my little daughter, she was quite sick the other day. I was out vomiting all night the other night too, so I was down and out for a couple of days as well, which is a bit of a pain. But we got our second baby on the way, due end of September, so what's that now? August? Yeah, two months. So second baby on the way in two months, so we're trying to get ready for that at the same time.

So [expletive] is crazy. I'm sure those of you with kids who wonder. But yeah, that's in a nutshell, that's the business. It's those two things, and then it's just me creating content for you guys. And I enjoy the content creation, I really do, and I enjoy trying to help anyone who's listening just to simplify and understand the training process for combat sports.

And I guess with how a lot of training content is presented now, you can get lost, and especially if you don't have the background. I understand people finding, seeing things like, oh, that looks really cool and that must work because this person speaks with a lot of authority, they've got a lot of followers. And if you don't have a background and stuff, I don't blame people for getting caught in that trap. So I'm trying to provide some better information that's more scientifically and practically sound, stuff that I've done and used a lot of my career, stuff I'm learning, still learning and finding out.

I mean, again, I'm never completely right, no one's ever completely right about anything. Just kind of take what anyone is saying with a grain of salt, also do your own research. But kind of you'll start to connect dots together as you start to learn things as well, so just bear that in mind. But I'll continue connecting dots as well and sharing them with you there. And I think yeah, I think that's everything for this very short little rant and podcast.

So again, make sure you check out that course. It is over 60% off until probably Sunday, and then we're going to get that thing up and running for the people who bought the pre-sale. And then we're going to launch it, and that's going to be an awesome course.

We're actually thinking potentially about doing some kind of in-person like conference or summit. So it'll be like, I don't know, like a strength conditioning of combat sports like symposium kind of thing. So if any of you have been to conferences in your industries that you work in, we're thinking about being something similar, like a day or two, conference room, speakers, talking through various combat sports strength conditioning.

I guess it'd be more geared towards coaches than it would be for athletes. But who knows, maybe there's a way that we can gear it towards, maybe there's a way we could have some kind of, I don't know, like almost like, you know how like all the jiu-jitsu practitioners sell tickets to seminars?

Maybe it could be something similar to that, but it's like having the strength conditioning side, but also having that side where we have someone come and teach a one or two hour seminar on XYZ, like for grappling and someone else for MMA, someone else for striking or something. I think that'd be really cool. I mean, if you haven't checked out the Sweet Science of Fighting BJJ instructional YouTube channel, I mean that's going quite well so far. I mean, that's something we could always do live as well. So lots of interesting things to check out there.

So yeah, that's just something to think about in the future. But hopefully this was not just some boring bit of me rambling and everything. Please let me know in the comments, email me, DM me, whatever, if this podcast was at least somewhat insightful, if you even care about hearing how the business makes money, any updates, if you want any more updates on that, if you want me to cover any more information, anything in particular, let me know and I'll have some more podcasts coming out.

This one coming up this week, it's going to be a banger because we got Mark Bennett, who I met in Romania when we played them when he was working for Russia. And he just won the Super Rugby Pacific championships with the Blues for anyone who's in the Southern Hemisphere and knows rugby. So that's going to be an epic one because he's hardcore. I say he's hardcore, if you watch my machines versus free weights video, he's hardcore on that mechanical approach.

Like it doesn't matter about, I guess, how something may transfer, all that matters is the muscles are able to produce more force and produce force faster, and then that should transfer enough. So it'll be a really interesting chat to kind of go down that road, especially since we had pretty much the complete opposite when we had Sam Poulton on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. So I love getting these different viewpoints and different philosophies, so that'll be awesome.

Hopefully should bring on Mitch Phelan. Need to actually follow up with him to bring him on around that boxing research video I did around the isometric punches and elastic band punches for post activation potentiation enhancement for boxing. So that'll be an interesting one as well. So there will be two inter, and I've got plenty more to bring back on as well. Oh, should be bringing Gary Hart from Great Britain Boxing is going to come back on after the Olympics, so that's going to be killer as well because we're going to run through his entire, the entire Olympic prep and then the Olympics itself.

I'm going to bring Casper de Vitt back on, who's with the Dutch Olympic judo team, so it'll be an interesting insight into what they did and how they went during the Olympics. So post Olympics, I'm going to bring on a bunch of different coaches there too, which will be really interesting to see how they're going.

But hopefully you enjoyed this, and I'll catch you in the next podcast and video.