Zara Shirwan

Lucky martial arts instructor and Nick-James.com member Gary Gowan replied to the members' questionnaire late last year and was thrilled to win a day's one to one business consultation with Nick James in January 2008. 

34 years old Yorkshire based Gary Gowan has been training in various martial arts for more than twenty years, and teaching for more than sixteen. As a private martial arts instructor, Gary has taught police, prison guards and military personnel, amassing some high quality testimonials from former clients along the way.

Currently earning a modest wage through teaching martial arts and running several eBay stores on behalf of a business, Gary has led specialist defense training seminars in Croydon, Edinburgh, and Newcastle.  He joined Nick-James.com just over a year ago, with the intention of starting up his own business creating and marketing specialist DVDs and teaching materials in the martial arts and fitness sectors. With a realistic projected combined income of £50,000 a year from martial arts teaching and internet/ product generated profit; Gary's ambition is to work on his own business full time.

When he met Nick, Gary had put aside a £3-5,000 budget for start up costs and was aiming to put in three hours a day into getting his ideas off the ground.

Driving down from Hull to Reading the night before the consultation, Gary was full of anticipation. Gary said, "The five hour drive flew by as my head was racing with business ideas. I knew that I have some great skills to offer but had no idea how to market them -- so was looking forward to catching up with Nick and learning all about internet marketing. My skills are in training and teaching martial arts, but my problem has always been how to create a marketing plan."
 

Gary met up with Nick at the Millennium Madejski Hotel at 11am the following morning and they soon got down to business.

Gary continued, "It was the first time I had met Nick in person and he was great -- down to earth, easy to get on with and with no airs and graces. Time passed in a flash and before we knew it, it was 4pm. Nick took me through all the options available for turning my skills into income revenues, from eBooks through to DVDs, from ClickBank to membership websites, Nick cleared everything up for me. By the end of the session I had a full marketing system sketched out, from the original idea through to taking the product to market."

"Since my meeting with Nick I've already started implementing my business plan and have nearly finished two eBooks. Things are moving fast and I'm absolutely committed to making this business work. I'd been thinking about taking products to market for more than two years and, inside a month of meeting Nick, I already have two products ready."

"Nick not only gave me a clear direction for my marketing plan, he also gave me loads of new business ideas and inspiration -- he really did me proud. I'm very excited about all the opportunities that have been opened up to me, my family are all behind me and my students all think it's a great idea. I already have a team of marines waiting for one of my products -- so thank you Nick!"

"Knowing what I know now, if time allowed I'd see Nick every month as my business mentor because he is just so helpful. But in the meantime, there's always Nick-James.com which really has everything you need."/ ends

****March 2008 update****

Gary has finished two eBooks and is currently in the process of filming promotional martial arts DVDs. He has written his first sales letter based on information from Nick-James.com and is building his own website. Watch this space for developments.