Q. Please tell us a little about your background.

A. Born: 1962

Was a bit of a crazy street kid during the 70's but converted to Christianity in 1980

Completed three University degrees by 1988 and was Ordained Anglican (ie. Episcopalian) Priest in 1989

Parish priest at Dulwich Hill (Sydney) since 1990 (in the same year that my first daughter was born)

Earned my first black belt (Hapkido) in 1991.  My marriage broke down same year and I took up kickboxing

1994, started Trinitys Youth Centre, as a drop-in and referral centre for local youth, focusing on kids with drug problems.

In 1996 I fought for NSW super-welterweight kickboxing title and then turned professional as a boxer to raise funds to keep the Youth Centre going.

1997 Awarded Citizen of the Year for work with young people, and in the same year launched our 'Reachout' unemployment programs, targeting unemployed males in the local area.

2000 - launched first website

2001 was awarded 6th degree black belt (Pankration)

2002 Founded 'Fighting Fathers Ministries', with the goal of offering an alternate culture to young people, based on values of courage, integrity and teamwork.

2003 Awarded the Centenary medal 2003 for 'contribution to the sport of boxing'.

2004 published the book, "Sex, the Ring & the Eucharist" and in November of same year it became 'book of the week' on ABC National Radio.

2005 - Nominated for 'Australian of the Year'

Happily married now to Ange for last 10 years, with three kids in total :-)

Q. What made you decide to start a website in the Religious field?

A. I wanted to extend the influence of our offline work -in particular to extend our model for working with at-risk young people, and I also needed to find alternate ways of funding our work, as I was getting too old to fight.

Q. What kind of research went into this niche area before building your website?

A. None initially, which is why I've spent so much time and effort since trying to get the thing on track. If I was starting out fresh now, I would do it very differently.

Q. How did you design and build your website?

A. The whole project evolved from dabbling with free web space. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  But we had a strong offline media profile, and so there was plenty of incentive to extend ourselves into this area.


Q. What software do you use to run your business?

A. The most important software I use is a series of scripts:

Add2it.com autoresponder and mailing lists scripts Ezine-Express.com Ezine publishing system Article Spider to database all my articles and sermons

I also have a thumbnailing and graphic script that I've developed myself to automate that side of the site.



Q. How does your website generate income?

A. It's a growing thing, and generating income wasn't initially the primary aim of the site, and it is still certainly not the sole aim.

Currently most income is through sales of my book and through other software we sell, and to a lesser extent, income through affiliate programs.

Q. How do you collect payments for your products or services?

A. All my products go through Clickbank or Paypal. This is definitely the way to go. I learnt that the hard way.

Q. What promotion methods do you use?

A. I've tried all of them I think, but finding a target market for what we're offering though is not easy, fundamentally I think because we're trying to push what we think people need rather than what they necessarily want, which doesn't make much sense in normal marketing.

Being linked to lots of other good sites online has probably been a key factor.

Using PPC has been also good for advertising particular products (Google Adwords in particular, but they're also relatively expensive).

Ezine ads have also been helpful in this regard, as has purchasing opt-in subscribers to my ezine, but only when it has been properly advertised, and people really know what they've signed up to. I learnt that the hard way too.

Q. Which method has proven to give you the best sales results?

A. In terms of selling products, emailing my subscribers.

Q. Which method of traffic generation has proven to be the best for you?

A. Offline publicity: when we've had a TV appearance or major radio interview.

Q. What is your biggest challenge each month?

A. Time

Q. What's the biggest mistake you've made since starting your business?

A. Listening to the rubbish that is out there about Internet Marketing.

Having no background in marketing at all, I was initially led to believe that the Internet would be a relatively easy way for us to fund our offline work.  This was wrong, but I do believe now that we'll get there.  It's just going to take a lot more hard work and hard thinking (and a little help from online friends).

Q. How has your lifestyle changed since you started your online business?

A. Less time but more friends :-)

Q. How has your SureFireWealth.com membership helped you with your online business?

A. Yes.  I like having so many good tools pooled centrally for me, and I do see potential in marketing some of the resell products eventually as part of what we do - all in good time.

Q. What would you say to someone looking to start a website in the same niche as you?

A. Hmmm.  I've never met anyone in exactly the same niche as me!

To Christians marketing online in general I'd encourage them to try and be very clear about exactly what they want to achieve online.

Are they trying to spread their message, promote their church, or sell a product.  I think there's a lot of confusion in this area, and if you try to do all three you'll probably end up doing none of them properly.

If someone else is trying to sell an unusual product online, similar to my book, I'd say they should try very hard to work out exactly who their target market is.

This is not straightforward, and I'm still not sure I've quite worked it out myself, so if it clicks with them first, they can come and fill me in! ;-)

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Thanks Father Dave!