First off, if you kidnapped a child, I'd call the FBI and tell them I need a million dollars to get my kid back. Nicholas Cage or Mel Gibson might need to be called too.

Crowdfunding is the only way I can imagine collecting enough income to have an extra $1,000,000 within 30 days. That likely to mean that I need to raise 1.5 million. According to Kickstarter, only 86 campaigns have created more than 1 million, and we're not sure how long they took. They can last up to 60 days. However, in reality I would probably have to make it a 2 or 3 week campaign in order to be able to get all funds out in time via Indigogo.

However, we can see (at https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats ) that 36 of them are in the games category. So I might try to find a heart throbbing cause, and tie that into a way to create a game out of it. It would take more than the few minutes I'm spending on this post. The good part is that a game or other perks could be delivered well after the 30 days.

Day 1: Design a Kickstarter/Indigogo for a killer idea or cause. It's best to come up with something that is high profit. So create perks that are more about participation than about cost to reward. A cause, documentary about a cause, or something to that effect. T-Shirts, and other items could be created as low cost perks. A launch "event" with tickets at a venue that is either donated or rented out could be an added bonus for the big ticket perks.

Day 2: Create a list of all media and influencers you can imagine within the niche, and broaden if appropriate. Likewise, create a list of major donor opportunities. Especially those with a track record of giving towards related campaigns.

Day 3: Launch KickStarter. This includes writing copy, creating videos, and putting in all the perks.

Day 4: Go after each and every one with personal emails, phone calls, tweets, facebook posts, linkedin update and even retargeted (content) ads.

Day 5: Go after major donor opportunities, likewise. Look for people with a track record of contributing for similar causes.

Day 6: Prepare Media appearances. Go after everything I can touch. Guest posts on blogs, podcast interviews, tv and radio interviews, etc. Give people a personal connection. Update the campaign with youtube videos, followup stories, related issues, etc. It's likely to be a really long day. But that's okay because I want to see my kid again.

Day 7: Do I have any traction? Press on. Is it a flop? Then re-evaluate and either tweak it or create an entirely new idea because I only have 1 to 3 weeks left. ;-)

Day 30: Call Jason Statham.

Gordon,

I like your example of offering a digital product to theworldreserve's buyers. Great idea.

But your comment that you probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than making $1M got me thinking... is that true?

What a learned from google:

Odds of winning $1M from NY Lottery: 1 in 3.8 Million

Odds that your US household has > $1M in net worth (excluding primary residence): 1 in 20

Odds that your $1M+ in net worth was self-made and not inherited: 1 in 2

So basically, everyone's got a 1 in 40 chance of making a million bucks. And those numbers only get better if you're smart, motivated, read NevBlog, etc.

Easiest way would be one long gamble on huge odds, but it's the least likely.

Assuming no funds to start with, I would start a recruiting firm that works with companies that have an employee referral bonus. I would network like crazy in a tech or engineering field. Assuming a $5000/person referral bonus, I would need to find 200 people to fill new jobs. That means I would need to meet about 7 people per day, which isn't impossible with social media and niche industry events. It would be incredibly hard, but not impossible.

I've seen it being done, but not exactly from scratch. A writer wrote a book about a niche and that niche went kind of mainstream.

What he did with next: a video product that detailed how he entered and dominated the skill set of the niche. He really hyped up the launch and sold 1000 copies for $1000 in a VERY short time.

(If I remember well, those were the numbers. Could've been 5000 for $200 or some combination like that, but it was relatively exclusive, considering the size of the "niche". I remember thinking something like "Wow, he just made 1 million dollars in a couple of hours")

Of course, it took way longer than a couple of hours to learn all of the stuff. But the product itself was a video of him in a private seminar for 5 guys - which he had already hyped before to his community. So he just used his previous effort to create a new product. This new hype-ing (aka creating a 'hungry crowd') and selling were really fast.

10 internet gurus that have 100k subscribers, a 2% conversion, a $100 product, and a 50% commission.

If you're feeling extra lazy, you shoot the gurus doing whatever they do and make that you're product rather than writing something from scratch. Maybe do a seminar at a high price, shoot it, and resell the video at a lower price. Preselling the seminar would give you the 20-30k needed to pay for flights and video guy.

I think found the point of this exercise...why the hell haven't I done this?

I would target unhappy lawyers. I would design a digital course to help them change careers.

From the quick & dirty research I just did,

– there were about 1.2 million lawyers in the US in 2012.

– 70% are unhappy at work.

– that means my target market is about 840 000 unhappy lawyers

– 0.5% of my target market is 4200 unhappy lawyers.

– the average salary of a lawyer is $130K/year

I would find them on LinkedIn (I would need to brush up on Lewis Howes’ LinkedIn strategy) and Facebook. I'd try Bing/Yahoo ads over Google ads. Also, specialized lawyer-websites. Maybe even Reddit… I would do a webinar or two as well.

I would use the insane kopywriting skills I developed after using the NevBox to write a dozen or so blog posts/email responder messages to lure them in. I would write about Peter Thiel (Paypal founder) and Martine Rothblatt (richest female CEO in the US) who used to be lawyers but “changed CAREERS and went on to change THE WORLD”. I like the ring of that lol.

I would remind them how painful it is to wake up everyday and go to a job they hate. I would quote statistics about depression/suicide/divorce among lawyers - I would really be relying on my copy to convert these people into buyers.

As I said, my target market would be 840 000 (if I focus only on US-based lawyers. If I included Canada and the UK, I could probably double this number). If I converted 0.5% of them (4200), I would have to sell the digital product at $239 to meet my $1,000,000 goal (excluding expenses). Or I could flip that number on its head and charge $4200 to 239 customers. Assuming it took me 10 days to prepare the course/email sequence/blog posts, I'd need to make 12 sales per day for the remaining 20 days to meet my goal of $1 million.

It seems a bit pricey but I mean, this course is life-changing stuff for people who make an average of $130k/year and hate their jobs! I’d be offering them massive value!...Anyway, I'd need some major kopywriting skills to pull this off.

That’s how I’d do it! Crazy how I couldn’t come up with a way to make an extra $1000 per month, but now I suddenly made $1 000 000 to save my good-looking imaginary child! High-stakes!

Hey All,

After my comment on how I would make a million dollars in 30 days, I liked the idea I posted so much that I last night I stayed up to 4AM and whipped up the copy for this sales page here: http://bit.ly/1wqqJFx

I was talking to a programmer about building testimonial collecting software for my other business BUT now I am partnering with the programmer and we are creating a SaaS version (as per my original post) that will generate more sales on your website with testimonials

For everyone who is posting an idea on how they can make a million bucks this month. . .Take Action!

Don't just go for the win here, go for the B-I-G win and start or grow your dream business.

Thanks Neville!

Thanks Evan! If you could re-vamp someone's marketing in 30 days and make them several million extra dollars, I bet you could do this.

This would probably imply you already have an in with the higher ups. But it CAN be done!

Hmm.....668. That's just 22 a day.

I bet if you were do a BUNCH of webinars and podcasts with people with audiences during the month, you could legitimately hit that number.

I like this response Chris....NevBox worthy!

Holy crap Glenn, this was AWESOME!!!

You'd totally win a NevBox if you didn't already win one from yesterdays :)

Thanks for this, some super-valuable lessons here!

This is the first comment I read where someone came up with an idea that was good enough for them to actually go do- in the million in a month option, no less!

How to get peeps on the webinars though?

Well that's the point of this exercise Wayne. I won't go to $10,000,000 btw :)

It's to show that there ARE ideas on here that would bring in $1,000,000. And it's usually just as easy to do a big deal, as a small deal.

A brain stretcher for sure!

It makes me think back The Game launch where F.K. reached out to Neil Strauss and convinced him to split a launch to his list. Also when he took his mentor Tony Robbins and convinced him to give it a try.

Both of those brought in more than a million with 4 weeks or "Real Work".

Going by a lot of the responses others have posted, it's obvious this is a smart (and good looking) group. I believe a lot of these folks bring a lot of value and could educate a higher up about some of the opportunities they may be missing out on, and then use their marketing and copy skills to make that Million dollars.

Here's a real life example of someone who made a million dollars. . .

There was guy who reached out to an info product owner, worked out a split deal and then he brokered a deal with Groupon to sell enough product to make a million dollars. AND he didn't have to do any of the fulfillment and customer service (I've purposely left the details out, as to not break confidence here).

That's outside the box, but if you can negotiate a rev-share deal on the expertise and value you can deliver, with some work, you can surpass that goal!