If you’re trying to figure out how to start an outdoor business or make your living teaching skills that revolve around your outdoor passion or expertise, this article may not be exactly what you were looking for - but it’s exactly what you need to hear!

Making a sustainable living in an outdoor related business requires two skill-sets. The first skill-set is the most obvious: You must be proficient enough in outdoor skills in order to teach them. The second skill-set is the one that’s often overlooked and ultimately why many talented outdoor instructors (and schools) fail: You must understand how to build a business.

What I hate more than anything is seeing very talented and skilled instructors not be able to turn their talents into income because they lack business acumen.

My name is Creek Stewart. I am a Wilderness Survival Instructor and Entrepreneur. In addition to owning a successful wilderness survival training business and blog (http://www.willowhavenoutdoor.com), I also help other Outdoor Enthusiasts build a business around their outdoor hobby and passion using the same proven business building system that I’ve used so they can actually make a living doing what they love (teaching survival skills). It took me a long time (12+ years) to turn my passion for wilderness survival into a career that could pay the bills and it’s my goal to shave time, effort, energy, and money off of that process for you.

WHAT I’M NOT GOING TO TEACH YOU about how to start an outdoor business

If you’re reading this article, you’ve likely searched for “how to start an outdoor business” or something similar on the internet. My goal here is not to teach you outdoor-related skills or even how to teach those skills. While I am certainly qualified to do both of those, you can learn outdoor skills from 1000s of very experienced and talented people, if you don’t already possess these skill-sets.

I’m going to assume that since you’re interested in how to start an outdoor business you are already proficient enough in at least some skills in order to teach those to someone else.

When I first started as a survival instructor over 20 years ago, I only knew what I learned in Boy Scouts. Come to find out, that was already more than many people. The lesson here is that you don’t have to know more than everyone, you just need to know more than some people.

Me teaching my first Survival Class at age 21.

Don’t feel as if you need to be proficient in every outdoor-related skill under the sun to start an outdoor lifestyle business - you don’t. You can start small with micro classes that focus on very specific skill sets and grow as your own skills become more proficient. I have a friend who makes some really decent side-cash by teaching “Beginners Guide to Tying Knots” courses on the weekends. In fact, he was able to quit his part-time job at Lowe’s Home Improvement Store and now makes his retirement money doing what he loves - working with people and teaching how to tie knots. He’s living the dream.

Rather than teach you outdoor skills, I want to teach you something that very few people even understand, let alone know how to teach. I want to teach you how to actually make money teaching the skills you already possess. I am going to teach you how to build a business around your knowledge.

Your outdoor skills aren’t enough. Your passion isn’t enough. Your work ethic isn’t enough. Who you know isn’t enough. Your experience isn’t enough.

You must understand how to build a business if you’re serious about doing this as a job instead of just an unprofitable hobby on the evenings and weekends.

This is where I come in.

Filming on set of SOS HOW TO SURVIVE on The Weather Channel.

HOW TO START AN OUTDOOR BUSINESS: THE TRAINING NO ONE’S TELLING YOU ABOUT

In order to make a living (or even part-time income) teaching outdoor skills, I’ve had to learn an entirely different skill set than the skills to stay alive in the wilderness. This skill set is how to build an audience of people who are excited to learn from me and are interested in taking my courses and buying my products.

Without this marketing skill set, you could be the most knowledgeable outdoor skills instructor in the world, and still always struggle to fill your courses or sell your other related products and services. Your “business” will always feel like a struggle.

Once I understood how to market my business, I never had a problem filling my courses.

In fact, if I’m being honest, while I am undoubtedly one of the most successful survival instructors in the world, I am also very likely less talented in survival skills than many other instructors. I have countless friends in the survival training industry who are more knowledgeable, more skilled, and more experienced than I am.

So… how am I able to fill my wilderness survival courses (online and offline) and sell my products (physical and digital) to an engaged and eager audience?

THE SURVIVAL CEO 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT

I struggled for over 12 years trying to figure out how to start an outdoor business and actually make money. It wasn’t until I figured out a repeatable and sustainable online marketing system for attracting my perfect customer that I was able to make traction. I now call this system The Survival CEO Blueprint and it can be used by anyone in virtually any industry to build an online business around their outdoor hobby, passion, or area of expertise.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT PROCESS

Before I walk you through a real-life example within my own survival training business, I filmed the video below to help you understand this process from a bird’s eye view. After this, I’ll walk you through a specific example as well.

MY 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT IN ACTION (a real-life example)

The best way for me to explain the system that I’ve used to start an outdoor business (and make a living from it) is to show you a real-life working example of my 5-PILLAR Blueprint in action.

Below is a real-life money-generating example of a simple 5-PILLAR Blueprint System (that I can teach you how to implement) that’s up and running in my business. In the “online marketing world”, this is what’s called a FUNNEL. I like to call it a CUSTOMER JOURNEY. In short, I am attracting my perfect customer using strategic online content and take them by the hand on a journey to the sale. Every step is deliberate and intentional. Remember, businesses are run on systems and nothing is left to chance.

The 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT below is built around one of my personal survival passions - teaching people HOW TO START A FIRE WITH THE BOW DRILL and it is an incredible example of how to leverage existing online technology to build a long-term sustainable business around teaching survival skills.

My goal is to help you build a business AROUND WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO. Your outdoor passion is at the center of my 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT SYSTEM.

PILLAR # 1: THE PLATFORM

My system all starts with a BLOG. I call this the PLATFORM. This is the place where I create and post valuable content for my target audience. I DO NOT use Facebook or Instagram for this. I’ve never been able to make much money from those social media platforms. The end goal of my 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT System is to attract my ideal customer to my platform so that I can gather their email address. I make nearly all of my income by emailing offers for my products and services to my customers.

In order to attract your ideal customer and gather their email, you need a place to call “home” on the internet. I believe the best place to build your online home on a solid foundation is a BLOG. A blog is simply a website where you can post valuable content, such as articles that you write or videos that you create. Your BLOG becomes the destination for all of your online efforts.

Over the years, I’ve used 2 blog hosting platforms. The first is WORDPRESS.ORG. On their website, WORDPRESS advertises that over 30% of the websites on the whole of the internet use their platform. That speaks volumes and makes it the most popular blog platform on the market. My original blog over at http://www.willowhavenoutdoor.com is a WORDPRESS based blog.

However, I also have several blogs/websites using the blog platform over at http://www.squarespace.com. My website over at http://www.creekstewart.com uses this platform. I more frequently recommend SquareSpace because it is very user friendly and doesn’t require you to be “tech-savy” in order to get a very professional looking web-site up and running within a short period of time. It uses template-based themes and is offered according to a monthly subscription plan. It has a blog, ecommerce, and more built into one polished, easy-to-use platform.

WordPress is more robust and has more flexibility, but SquareSpace is easy to use and less of a hassle to maintain.

PILLAR # 2: CONTENT

Once you’ve decided on a PLATFORM, your next step is to create CONTENT for it. This is where most well-intentioned online entrepreneurs and blog owners go way wrong.

Most blog owners and content creators make the mistake of creating content that THEY LIKE or that MAKES THEM HAPPY. They create content on a whim, with no strategy, methodology, or systematic approach behind it. If you want to learn how to become a survival instructor (or build a business around any other outdoor passion), you must create content that PEOPLE ARE ALREADY SEARCHING FOR.

ALL of your content needs to be created with one of the following criteria in mind:

Your content must SOLVE A PROBLEM that people within your market are looking for
Your content must ANSWER A QUESTION that people within your market are searching for
Your content must TEACH SOMETHING that people in your market want to learn

WHY must your content meet these criteria? Because I’m teaching you how to a SYSTEM. And, in this system, we only create content that we can monetize. CONTENT is the top end of our 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT Funnel and it is what draws in our perfect audience.

HOW DO YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT PEOPLE ARE SEARCHING FOR?

The answer is simple. You do research. One of the easiest ways is to let GOOGLE tell you. For example, when I first started in monetizing my knowledge around HOW TO MAKE A FIRE WITH THE BOW DRILL, I just simply typed BOW DRILL in Google and looked at what search phrases it suggested. These phrases are always based on REAL SEARCH DATA. Take a look at the example below:

This allowed me to identify a few questions that fit my content criteria listed above. Some of the noteworthy ones are:

how to make a bow drill
best bow drill wood
how to start a fire with a bow drill

Then, I used a few online tools to see which of those phrases had the HIGHEST MONTHLY SEARCH VOLUME with the LOWEST COMPETITION. [I can teach you how to do this if you decide to dig a little deeper with me later.] I ultimately deiced on the search phrase BEST BOW DRILL WOOD. It had very low competition which meant that if I created a really great piece of content about it, then I could quickly rank well in Google and other search engines - FOR FREE.

SO THAT’S WHAT I DID

If you’re serious about learning how to start an outdoor business, THIS IS THE STUFF that no one will tell you. And this kind of knowledge is what will determine if you ever turn a profit.

As you can see by the screen capture below, I wrote an article on my blog titled BEST BOW DRILL WOOD.

For anyone needing help in identifying what types of wood are best for the bow drill, I solve this problem and answer this question for them once and for all. By the end of reading this article, they will have ZERO questions about what woods are best for bow drill.

This is the best article on the internet about what wood is the best for bow drill.

When creating content, your goal should always be to make it the best. For example, in your search for how to become a survival instructor, my goal in this article is to give you some of the best advice that I possibly can based on my personal experiences.

In addition to solving your {potential} customer’s problem, your content must also be Search Engine Optimized (SEO). This means that it must be written to please Google’s search algorithms as well. Writing good content that doesn’t rank well in Google doesn’t work for us. It must be seen by our target market when they search for it. THIS IS CRUCIAL TO YOUR SUCCESS in our new online economy.

Ranking well in Google is a critical component to building a sustainable, repeatable, and scalable system that can power your passion-based business for years to come.

There are a lot of little factors that go into writing SEO friendly content. This is beyond the scope of this article, but just know that I’d love to teach you the process I use if you want to dive a little deeper with me in my 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT TRAINING.

PILLAR # 3: TRAFFIC

Traffic is just a fancy term for people who view your content online. Obviously, the more traffic you get to your articles, the more you can grow your email list, and the more customers you’ll get.

While GOOGLE is definitely my #1 traffic source, it can take a few weeks or even months to rank well. No worries - you can utilize your blog content to generate traffic in a number of very effective other ways.

PINTEREST

Oddly enough, PINTEREST is my #2 traffic source for my Wilderness Survival Business. I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming, did you? In recent years, I’ve put a lot of time and effort into understanding how to use PINTEREST to generate FREE traffic.

PINTEREST is a search engine, just like Google, except the search results are all images. You wouldn’t believe how much traffic I get from PINTEREST. Take a look at my blog analytics screenshot below from the past 7 days just to give you an idea.

Just like Google, my goal with PINTEREST is to get people to click AWAY from PINTEREST onto my blog in order for me to gather their email. I do this using very strategically designed and titled pins. Below is a great example.

Notice how the PIN is titled after my key word phrase of BEST BOW DRILL WOOD. Also notice how I have that phrase as a headline in my actual graphic, along with a bow drill related photo. But more importantly, is the part of the graphic toward the bottom. This is what’s called my LEAD MAGNET. This is the BAIT that entices the viewer to click on the image and visit my blog. In this case, the LEAD MAGNET is a set of 6 Downloadable Identification Guides for the Top 6 Bow Drill Woods. We will discuss the importance of a LEAD MAGNET in the next heading (PILLAR #4).

For now, you just need to know that there is nothing random about this PIN. It is strategic, methodical, and well thought out. It is designed to entice viewers to click on it in order to get something over at my blog. My PINTEREST traffic means nothing unless they make it to my blog and I gather their email in order to begin a Customer Journey with them.

This is very similar to how I approach using Facebook & INSTAGRAM.

FACEBOOK & INSTAGRAM

I’ve watched many people spend years building a Facebook & Instagram following only to discover they can’t monetize Facebook & Instagram likes. Well over 80% of my business income comes from offers I make through email. I’ve found it very difficult to sell products and services over Facebook & Instagram, even though I have one Facebook account that has over 100,000 followers.

Just take a look at a recent sales promotion I ran for my wilderness survival business. I offered the same exact promotion to my email list and also posted it at the same time to my Facebook & INSTAGRAM accounts (over 60,000 followers collectively). When I track the sales, the results are staggering. Almost $5300 from people who clicked on the link in my email and only $24.99 came from Facebook ($0 from INSTAGRAM). I’ve seen this so much over the years that I no longer make offers on Facebook & Instagram. EMAIL is so much more powerful and effective. I’ll get into this more in the next pillar.

Instead of trying to sell directly on Facebook & Instagram, I instead use these social media platforms as an opportunity to share bits and pieces of the valuable content that I’ve created for my blog. I do this with the intention of enticing interested viewers to click away from social media and land on my blog so that I can gather their email and build my email list. Below is a great example of how I used content from my BEST BOW DRILL WOOD blog post on social media to drive traffic over to my blog. Just take a look at all of those SHARES! People love to share valuable content on social media - and for a strategic online marketer, these shares are FREE ADVERTISING GOLD.

As you’re trying to figure out how to start an outdoor business and build a business around your knowledge and expertise, it’s so important that you understand your most valuable business assets.

When it comes to Facebook & Instagram, you don’t own those likes or follows. In fact, those companies only deliver your messages to a small percentage of the people who follow you. Building your business on the back of Facebook & Instagram is a very risky venture that can be taken from you at any given moment. It’s like the little pig who built his house out of straw. Don’t place too much trust in the big bag wolf.

This is why the core of building a business in today’s online economy should be building your own in-house email list. For me, this is my most coveted and valuable business asset. It is responsible for nearly all of my income and sales. It alone is why I’m in business.

Let’s talk about how growing your email list is at the core of how to become a survival instructor (who has a chance of building a sustainable long-term business).

PILLAR # 4: THE EMAIL COLLECTOR

Starting an Outdoor Training Business is equal parts business system knowledge and survival skills knowledge. Without both of these skill sets, it will be a hard road for sure.

The key to building any business in our online economy is building an in-house email list of raving fans and customers who are eager to purchase your products and services as you release them. Products and services can be anything from online and in-person courses to digital or physical products.

If you’ve implemented and executed Pillars 1, 2, and 3 correctly, you will begin to get traffic to your platform. Now is the time to build your email list. This is best done with the use of what’s known in the online marketing world as a LEAD MAGNET. A LEAD MAGNET is a FREE downloadable document for which someone must enter their email in order to receive. Once they do this, they become a part of your email list.

In the example of BEST BOW DRILL WOOD, my LEAD MAGNET is a free download for 6 Identification Guides for the Top 6 Bow Drill Plants/Trees. This is something that everyone who is interested in learning about best bow drill woods would desire. Notice in the screen capture below how I have embedded my email opt-in form right in the middle of the blog post.

Everyone’s LEAD MAGNET is different. I love to use content specific lead magnets like the one mentioned above. But, I also use general lead magnets as well that might appeal to anyone who visits my blog.

Although SquareSpace has a built in email list option, I prefer to use the more robust email marketing software from http://www.activecampaign.com.

At the most basic level, email marketing services such as ActiveCampaign allow you to generate a email OPT-IN form and embed it into your blog using a very simple code. This allows your visitors to subscribe to your email list or choose to download a LEAD MAGNET. When they do this, your email list grows, and so does your ability to effectively make offers for your products and services.

I’m often asked the question, “How valuable should my Lead Magnet be?”

If your email list is your most valuable asset and your lead magnet is responsible for building your email list, then the answer is that your LEAD MAGNET should be awesome. VALUE, though, doesn’t mean it has to be expensive to create. Some of my most effective lead magnets have been simple 1-page checklists.

For example, I have a blog post about HOW TO BUILD A BUG OUT BAG. My lead magnet for that blog post is a BUG OUT BAG CHECKLIST - a simple checklist for everything that should be in your Bug Out Bag. It’s an awesome resource to anyone trying to build a bug out bag and almost everyone downloads it. This is a simple, but very valuable lead magnet.

In general, your lead magnet should be:

delivered instantly
easy to consume
designed to help your audience take the next steps on their journey
FREE
valuable (not necessarily expensive)

UP UNTIL THIS POINT, we’ve only talked about you giving stuff away, right?

Now, is where we start to talk about converting our audience into paying customers. This is truly the magic of the 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT.

PILLAR # 5: THE CUSTOMER ON-RAMP

In the world of email marketing, there is something called an AUTOMATION. This is a series of emails that you create in advance that is AUTOMATICALLY delivered when certain criteria are met. Below is an example of one of my email automations inside of my ActiveCampaign dashboard.

For our 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT model, an AUTOMATION serves 3 main purposes:

It automatically and instantly delivers our customer their LEAD MAGNETS
It then automatically takes the customer on the journey to the sale
It allows us to spend more time doing what we love instead of staring at a computer sending emails all day long ;)

Automations are fairly new in the world of online marketing. They certainly didn’t exist when I was trying to figure out how to become a survival instructor. Now, they are the backbone of my business and allow me to spend more time in the woods.

Let’s take my BEST BOW DRILL WOOD FOR EXAMPLE. Below is what happens when someone chooses to enter their email and download the 6 TOP IDENTIFICATION GUIDES:

IMMEDIATELY: the automation delivers the customer a download link via email to download the PDF guides
1-day later: the automation automatically sends them a link to an video I filmed teaching about the perfect bow drill technique
another day later: the automation automatically sends them an email offer to join my online bow drill course for $14.95 (see below)
another day later: the automation automatically sends them an email offer to purchase one of my pre-made bow drill kits for $24.95 (see below)
then the automation ends and they are added to my general email list where I email regular offers for other products and services within my business

THE CUSTOMER ON-RAMP

The Customer On-Ramp is a critical part of this model. As online (an offline) business owners, strategically guiding our viewers to a sale is very important. Otherwise, we’re leaving it all to chance. And, in an age when we are all distracted a billion times a day by text messages, emails, instagram, facebook, etc, there are too many things to get in the way of us and our customer’s attention spans. Guiding them on a sales journey through a strategic series of steps is a wonderful way to help navigate this problem.

A BIRDS EYE VIEW

So if you’re on the hunt for how to start an outdoor business or build a business around any other passion, hobby, or expertise, below is an aerial view of the 5-PILLAR BLUEPRINT FUNNEL that simplifies everything we’ve discussed.

You can also download a more detailed printable copy of this FUNNEL GRAPHIC to keep on your desk as you begin to start or grow your business with purpose (yes, this is a Lead Magnet, of course).

NEXT STEPS FOR YOU

Starting a successful business that revolves around teaching your outdoor skills doesn’t just require outdoor skill expertise. It also requires business marketing expertise. Yours outdoor skills can only carry you so far. I hope what I’ve shared here has provided some insight into that truth.

If you’re interested in honing the business side of your skill set, I’d love to train with you and teach you everything I’ve learned.

Your first step is to pick up a copy of my book below. If you’ve found this article insightful, my book will blow your mind!

Thanks for your time.

Remember, it’s not IF but WHEN.

PS: If you’ve found this article because of a search for “how to start an outdoor business” then you can see how effective this process I’ve been talking about can be.