Throwing Rocks At The Red Ocean

I was able to watch Steve Larsen teach at one of our FHAT (Funnel Hack A Thon) events and it was crazy watching him on stage, I was super impressed!! This was after Steve left ClickFunnels and started his journey as an entrepreneur. For those of you who don't know who Steve is, he is a prominent member of the ClickFunnels community and someone who made 100k in the first three weeks after he launched his first webinar... So he knows his stuff. But it was cool hearing him take the principles and stuff that we talk about in Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets and weaving it together and taking his own spin on it. And one thing he said that was just really, really cool and it’s not different than we talk about in the Expert Secrets book, but it was just a different lens and I wanted to share it with you!!

In my book Expert Secrets, I talk about how there are three different markets: health, wealth, and relationships. And every time we share that people are like, “No there are other things. What about razors? And he actually brought that up as a thing, why do people buy razors? What’s the reason? The reason people are shaving is because they want to look good to get a girl or something. So it’s in the relationship market. And it works for everything so it will fit somewhere in those three markets.

Those are the core markets and if you think about back in the day, whoever was first in the core market had a lot of success. An example is a guy that taught health and he was the weight loss guy and everyone gave him money because he was amazing. Then someone else was like, “Wait a minute, I know how to lose weight too, maybe I should jump into health.” And then he jumped in and this blue ocean of a market became this red, bloody ocean with tons of people. So then the evolution of markets started happening. So we have health, wealth and relationships and they evolve into submarkets.

So let’s say inside of wealth, it’s not just teaching you how to become wealthy, there are different submarkets that can teach you to be wealthy. There’s real estate that you can use to become wealthy. There is internet marketing to become wealthy, there are stocks, all these submarkets are within the wealth market.

Initially, whoever broke out into a submarket (blue ocean) that's where all the money started happening. But then some other guy is like, “Well I know stocks too, maybe I should jump in and teach this stuff. Maybe I should create software that does this” or whatever. So those blue oceans start to become bloody and red again, and it gets harder and harder with more competition.

So that’s the market that most people are in today. You can come in and jump in the red ocean, but the problem is you’re competing for people’s attention for the same kind of thing and it’s difficult.

So the next phase of that is coming down to the third level: the niches. You need to develop or create your own niche. Also, I purposely don’t say don’t find your own niche, because if you’re finding your niche it means you’re jumping into a red ocean. But you’re developing or you’re creating your own niche within this ecosystem.

One thing he said that was so cool was, “You niche needs to come out of a red, bloody ocean. If you don’t know what your red ocean is that you are breaking out of, then you’re not doing it right. You didn’t pick the right thing.” So, for example, in the relationships market shaving is now this bloody thing. There are all these thousands of people selling shavers and stuff. Your goal when you're building your business is to be able to see the submarket, (the red, bloody ocean) and throw rocks at it. This is how you separate from everyone else and become this unique different thing.

So if you’re in the shaving market and you’re looking like, "man this is a bloody market. How do I create something new, create a new niche, that gives me the ability to throw rocks at the red, bloody ocean?" Steven talked about some examples. One example is the Dollar Beard Club. Their unique take is "You shave? You’re a moron, real men don’t shave." Now they can throw rocks at the red bloody ocean that they are breaking off of because they are offering a unique, different thing.

You need to identify the red ocean that you are building and are coming off of to build your new opportunity. Once you find that and throw rocks at the red ocean that is how you create that separation and creates your blue ocean.

So if you have a business right now and I was to ask you, which one of the markets are you in? Health, wealth or relationships? And from there what submarket are you in? I’m in internet marketing. I’m in stocks. I’m in real estate or whatever. Now that you figured that out, what are you doing to throw rocks at that to make separation to create your blue ocean?

I want to thank Steve for explaining it that way, again the same framework, but looking at it through someone else’s lens is fascinating and the different tips and ideas you get. It’s still the three markets, submarkets, and niche. But how you create that niche is coming back to the red ocean, identifying it, throwing rocks at it, creating the separation and BOOM that creates your actual blue ocean.

It also gives you all the things you need for your sales pitch, for you launching it, and introducing your new opportunity. So I hope that helps you see things through a different lens. For me, it was really cool to see someone else teach my principles through a different lens and it made me see it in a different light which was really cool!!

Which of the three markets are you in? What can you offer people that is different and special? Let me know in the comments!!

If you enjoyed reading this article, you can listen to the full podcast episode here!!