This is definitely a little crazy!

Yesterday I was IM’ing with my friend, AVP pro, Albert Hannemann, and he was telling me his doubles volleyball partner just bailed on him at the last minute for the final tournament of the year in Cincinnati this weekend.

I was joking around on IM that we should play together in the tournament since he couldn’t find anyone els.

HA! Yeah, right – like he needs a 5’ 8” partly-out-of-shape partner.

Imagine my surprise when he said “Yes!”

AL-B and I have been friends from the Volleyball vacations trips he runs and I’ve given him some advice on marketing and promotion. I know my skill level and it’s not pro. But on my “BIG list” I had written “be a semi-pro beach volleyball player” however I never really thought it would really happen. (And actually this is even better since it’s a pro tourney.)

So your friends here at InternetLifestyle.com are going to be sponsoring our team. We play in the qualifiers on Thursday at 8 AM, ET. Then if by some stroke of luck we make into the main tourney we play on Fri. Pretty damn cool!

Check out the AVP site for information on this final tourney and if you’re close-by – you should come out to see the real pros (and one not-so-pro) out there. We can take them…we’ve got our game plan down…it’s AL-B vs the other 2 guys!

I’ll be posting a recap when I come home – wish me luck!

Just some comparison pics for preview – you probably can’t even tell who is the pro here, right?

I let my personal trainer, Jeff, borrow a copy of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. A few weeks later during our workout session he blurts out, “You know what — I’m carrying buckets!”

“Huh?” I replied.

Jeff reminded me in the “Rich Dad” book Kiyosaki gives the example of someone carrying buckets to supply a town with a water and another person building a water pipe line to carry the water. It took longer for the pipeline to be built but once it was done – the money would continue to come in with or without him.

What are you doing?

Sadly most people are carrying buckets. They are getting paid based on the hours they work. Everybody has been taught to think the harder you work the more money you make.

Guess what? “Working harder” is totally and entirely subjective. What constitutes working hard to one person might be lounging on your butt to another.

So what if that’s completely wrong? What if it’s really the smarter the work, the more money you make? You’ve heard that expression before – but stick with me and I’ll explain what I think it really means…

As I was sitting here writing out this – we had a chimney repairman and a landscaper come out to the house. Out of my window I could see both of them doing their jobs. Let me tell you these guys work DAMN hard.  

Both of them get up very early in the morning and put in a full day’s work. The chimney repairman is dangerously perched at least 50 feet above the ground for most of the day. And our neighborhood landscaper is breaking his back carrying heavy bags of mulch all day in the blazing sun.

The point is these guys put in an honest day’s labor for honest day’s wage every day. They aren’t sleeping on the job or goofing off. They’re working their butts off – but that’s not enough!

Do you know the big secret neither one of these fellows (or most other people) ever figure out?

It’s so simple once you understand and it can have a profound effect on your wealth. Here it is…

Your income cannot be limited by the amount of hours you can put in. That’s it.

Each one of us are given 24 hours and it doesn’t matter if you are a chimney repairman, landscaper, CEO, homeless bum, or Internet mogul. We all have the same 24 hours to work with. Most people simply work -get paid, work – get paid, work – get paid. You put in 8 hours on the job – you get paid for 8 hours. You put in 40 hours a week – you get 40 hours in salary. That’s the way we’ve been taught to do it – and the sad truth is you’ll never get ahead doing what everyone else does. (Re-read that because that’s really a lesson in itself).

Personally – I believe in using leverage…

I prefer to work once and get paid over and over and over again. And there are lots of ways you can create recurring revenue for yourself. It could be via royalties from an invention, a song, or a book. It could be from network marketing. It could be from real estate. It could be dividends from investments. Or it could be from a multitude of other ways aside from the typical 9-to-5 grind.

The majority of my income day-in and day-out is a direct result of work I did 1, 2, 3…even 7+ years ago or more. I like that!

For instance, if you create an information product to sell (like a report, ebook, software, video, etc) you only have to do the work once of creating it and once to write the sales letter.

Then if you set up some automatic promotion avenues like an affiliate program or autoresponder messages – you can continue to get paid for that product indefinitely. One of biggest income streams is a product I created 7 years ago and still makes me a nice six-figure income each year.

Frankly, I couldn’t turn off my recurring revenue streams right now if I tried. That’s because much of what I’ve created has fed on itself. One product refers people to another. Our affiliate network (over 45,000) refer people to our sites. Some of our sites cross-promote our other sites, etc. etc.

When you keep working on activities that have recurring value you’ll create a momentum that’s tough to stop. But the truth is — it IS hard work in the beginning. Or at least what most people perceive as ‘hard work’. But it’s like a rocket taking off in which it burns most of its fuel on lift off.

You need to put in the hours and effort upfront and then you can ease off the throttle. But if you don’t put in the extra effort upfront you’ll never achieve lift off and get that momentum you need.

The more you think about doing the work once and being paid multiple times the more creative your mind will become. Ask yourself the right questions and you’ll get the right answers.

My thinking is squarely on how can I get the most leverage nd ongoing income from any activity? For instance, if I do a teleconference series (like web copy secrets) then I will sell the LIVE calls for “x” amount and then have the calls recorded to turn it into a product I can keep selling for “y” amount. Then going even further, I could take
excerpts from that product and use them as articles or free ebooks to be passed along to get additional business. Do you see how it works? Try to get paid over and over again for activities done once. Make that your mantra.

In fact, even this post, if I’m lucky, will become a recurring income producing activity. I wrote this material once and the publicity from it will hopefully get a few more people to my websites and into my marketing funnel.

Now of course, I’m not saying that every activity I do each day is highly leveraged because I still do some “dumb stuff” but I’m working on outsourcing as much as I can and focusing just on income producing activities (just like you should).

Before tackling a project or putting in your hours – ask yourself how you can create a recurring revenue stream for yourself with this activity. 

Have you ever noticed that if you’re in the market for a particular type of car or you’ve just bought one – you SEE them everywhere? An exception is a rare exotic – but I have been seeing more Astons lately.

Putting something on your own ‘radar’ helps our brains start seeking & searching for the answers you want. (Same thing with asking the right questions.) Right now I’m in mass gathering mode for the Maverick Business Adventures project and I’ve been adding stuff to my file folder.

Check out this article from Fortune:

The first one is about how to access high-level VCs and big-time entrepreneurs (like Sergey Brin & Larry Page, founders of Google). It’s about Kiteboarding (or Kitesurfing) and how these players hang out taking part in this extreme sport.

Hello?….Brain…are you listening?

So this one definitely went into my file. I mean it makes total sense about building more meaningful relationships in settings like these. Case in point – on my Baja racing trip I took in 06, I had the chance to hang out & build a relationship with the CEO of NASDAQ-listed company. We talked about our different adventures and he gave me tips for Running with the Bulls. And during the Players Run road rally I made friends with all sorts of cool entrepreneurs.

If I look at most of the best joint venture deals I’ve done the relationships have nearly all developed outside a seminar room or office. (Okay, truth be told – they were mostly at the bar!)

And another article I dug up that I saved was about Jake Burton, founder of Burton Snowboards. (I admit it, I used to have a Burton snowboard T-shirt in middle school even though I’m a skiier – so I guess I was a poser.)

I really like this section of Fortune called “How I work” and inside the article it talks about how Burton really personifies being a Maverick entreprenuer. I really also loved how he gathered up his family and traveled the world for 10 months. Very cool! That’s inspiring.

On my mindmap I have people like Burton & the founder of Clif Bars, Gary Erickson because these are the kind of Maverick entrepreneurs I’d love to bring onto the trips to share and be a part of it. Plus, some of my friends like Frank McKinney, Cindy Cashman and Tim Ferriss, who are into adventures and incredible experts in their own right. Hopefully, the lure of a unique group of business mavericks and a charitable contribution to their favorite charites would make it worthwhile for these guys to come along. We’ll see.

Speaking of the charity contribution, that’s something I’ve been doing for a long time (Secret #9) and I want to keep it going with this business. We’ll contribute 5% of our monthy GROSS sales to charities chosen by our members.

Once you start keying in on what you want – I think you’ll start ‘seeing’ it everywhere. Plus, like we talked about in (Secret #6) the fact that a decision is made will start the wheels turning to help uncover resources and introductions coming your way. Hopefully this VERY public decision will get it moving faster. (I’m open to help here from you guys – let me know!)
 

Just a quick note to let you know of a some good stuff we just added to the blog for you. I’ve conducted numerous interviews with super successful entrepreneurs and I figured it’d be a great addition here. So look on the right-hand side for interviews I’ve added under the “Top-Gun Entreprenuer Category”. 

Right now I’ve got these up:

• Eben Pagan ($20M information publishing empire) 
• Cameron Johnson (started 12 successful businesses with the first one at age 9)
• Frank McKinney (builds and sells 8-figure and even 9-figure houses on spec)

Just look on the right-hand menu from the home page of our blog

And more to come when I go through my archives…

I really need your help picking my logo…

My contest on Sitepoint is about to end and I wanted to pick the winner. Here are the 4 I like the most (I guess 3 since 1 is a variation of another but still). Let me know what you think and which one represents the “brand” the best…

Logo 1 - 

Logo 2 - 

Logo 3 - 

Logo 4 -  

Let me know what you think by taking this quick poll – thanks

http://www.oneminutepoll.com/OneMinutePoll/OneMinuteSurvey.aspx?SID=-2147482074

In a previous post I talked about how to differentiate yourself and one of those ways was “To Be First in the Market” (or thought of as first).

Here’s an interesting example from a SUPER competitive marketplace…Water!

Bottled water has become as $9.2 billion market and personally I’m a huge fan of FIJI water. In fact, I have one on my desk right now. Okay aside from the landfill/environmental issues – let’s talk about the marketing of water…

I like my plain H2O but sometimes I like a little flavor to my water. I might throw a lime in there or something – but when I want a little more of a kick there’s really nothing I feel good about drinking. All the flavored and enhanced water have sugar or some crappy chemicals like Splenda. No thanks. I try to limit that as much as possible.

That’s why I was excited when I saw this water at my local Balducci’s food market called “O Water”. (BTW – Balducci’s is a high-end foodie market here and I’ve never gotten out without spending at least $100.)

Anyway this water uses all natural ingredients and no added sugar. There are just 3 ingredients – purified/distilled water, natural flavor and potassium sorbate. It’s damn good but distribution is semi-limited right now. You can check O Beverages site if there’s a spot close to you that sells it. (Or it looks like there is a link to buy directly online.)

So what’s the marketing lesson?

In a super competitive landscape you have to differentiate yourself…and this company (started by one of the founders of Nantucket Nectars & former president of FIJI water) does just that. That’s the all-natural aspect to me with 0 calories and 0 added sugars does it. I’m hooked and I’ll be buying more!

I think grocery stores are some of my favorite places to view marketing lessons at work since the landscape is so competitive and most decisions are made in split-seconds.

Here are 2 good ones with the BIG differentiation ideas using “DONE for you”:

1. Uncrustables are a pretty silly idea but they work. Create a pre-made PB&J sandwich, remove the crust and seal it together so the bread is a little pouch. Then put in your freezer and stick in your kids lunch bag to thaw for lunch.  (Yes, we buy these a lot! Missy absolutely loves uncrustables herself. I’m the one who loves 5-star meals at fancy restaurants with great wine, while she could go for a grilled cheese sandwich any day of the week.)

2. 100 Calorie Packs are from Nabisco and now have grown to a bunch of different varieties. Anything from Ritz crackers to Oreo cookies – but they only have exactly 100 calories per pouch. That’s the big idea – you don’t have to count calories because we’ve done it for you. You know that with each snack pack you can’t eat 18 portions because they’ve put less than 100 calories in there for you.

Personally, when critiquing or looking my own projects I’m always very concered with the “BIG” idea and how to convey it quickly to prospects. And with Maverick Business Adventures I’m hoping to capture the “first” position for this unique aspect of combining business & adventure for entrepreneurs (not corporations).

Here’s the next update for Maverick Business Adventures.

My friend Jeff Walker called me and said I was crazy to release my mindmap into the wild

I really appreciate the comments and feedback so far from readers on the blog.

Looks like a lot of people like the yearly membership. I had two of my friends, Rob Olic & Chris Zavadowski, come over last night and we brainstormed some other details for the project. Amazing what luring them over for a steak dinner will do.

Rob came up with the idea of having an exclusive gathering each year of everyone who attended the trip. Probably some sort of Maverick Millionaires Summit with big keynote speakers like Richard Branson if I can get him. (Hey, I helped pay for his rocket ship)

I wonder how much the right price for membership would be if we include this big event? And that also includes x number of DVDs/Audios from the “What’s working” section and guest lectures. Then Chris came up with the idea of giving people back the membership fee based on the number of trips they go on a year. I like that so that essentially makes the membership free. I like that a lot – plus it helps incentives people to get on more trips and have more FUN!

I’ve had over 232 people take my survey and from the results there was interest in not just having more “extreme” trips like I’m into but having more typical adventure excursions. I’d like to come up with a list of 10 trips and then whittle it down to 2-3 and have those be our first trips in the beginning of ’08. Looks like some good interest in Whitewater rafting, bicycling and the Offroad Baja trip (which from personal experience I can is absolutely awesome!)

1. I’ve had my virtual assistants start researching even more of the competitive landscaping. Here’s what I asked them for:

a) Competitors – is there anyone else doing this for individual entrepreneurs?

b) “Side” competitors – people who put on corporate trips (incentive,team building,etc) combined with adventures.
For these I’d like sample pricing, what they get, etc.

c) What are the most popular adventure travel trips. You might need to call a few outfitters.

d) Articles/info on entrepreneurs combining fun pursuits with business

I wanted to get up to 3 hours of research and then we’ll re-evaluate direction and/or continuing. I’d like this info in the next few days please.

What I’m looking for is a “marketplace gap” to figure our where I can make the most differentiation points.

2. I also put up a “first notice” coming soon page  at www.surefiremarketing.com/maverick until my site propagates. Be sure to sign up there if you’d like to know when we open up for the first trip. Now after the survey is taken – people get taken to this page to start generating a list.

3. I also started tapping into some of the people I know. For instance, I emailed Tim Warren for consulting since he specializes in working with adventure travel outfitters. And it looks like we’ll be speaking this week. I had met Tim 2 years back when I first started researching this project and he was doing smart things (marketing-wise) to help outfitters. We had corresponding and he actually attended the Underground seminar.

I was looking through one of my journals and here were the words I wrote about no project in particular –

• Entrepreneurship
• Masterminding
• Brainstorming
• Adventures
• Fun
• Luxury
• Unique experiences
• Partying

That might be the guiding factors for this project (and not necessarily in that order)

More to come…

Something else before I forget – let me be the reminder that you should back up everything! Yesterday, my son, Zak, decided my cell phone looked thirsty and dunked it into my cup of tea. Ugh! I had over 200 numbers in there and never backed it up. I had bought some software/adaptor a few months ago to back it up to my computer but, of course, never got around to it.

So I had to send out the sheepish email to people asking for their contact info again. Who knows? Maybe my phone will dry out and I’ll actually be able to get the data off of it.

Trust me, I know it’s annoying back-up data, files, etc – but once you lose it you’ll be kicking yourself. For my computer I use Mozy.com because it’s so simple and does the back-up automatically without me thinking about it. Somebody mentioned there is that option for Verizon cell phones – I wish I had it now!
 

Want to see a brand new start-up built from the ground up? Keep reading and I’ll be exposing it all…

After posting and mentioning my idea for “Maverick Business Adventures” I got really excited by it again. I went back and looked at my idea journal and I’ve been kicking this around since 2005! (Ugh!)

So now I’m going to REALLY do something about it…

I’m going to publicly (right here) state that I’m going to start-up this business by January 2008 or sooner. You’ll get  a front-row seat for the successes, failures and everything else that happens along the way. But in order for me to spill the beans about my business plan, confidential mindmaps and other stuff I’d normally keep close to the vest – I have a proposition for you.

If you’ll help by chiming in with your opinions and take an active role in “jointly” creating this project – I’ll share it all with you.

Deal?

Okay cool…

The first thing I typically do when I get a project idea is whip out a piece of paper and start creating a Mind Map. I just start brainstorming what’s in the project, how it’ll happen, who will do it, the pieces of it, etc.

Here’s what I have on my first one:

If you open it up, you can see I have a couple questions up in the air about how to charge for possible memberships, staffing issues, dealing with the adventure outfitters, hiring/bringing in “marquee” speakers, bringing in recurring revenue (which is important) and so on. But this is just the first incarnation. (Comments are definitely welcome – what do you think I should add, take-away, etc?)

Next, I decided to create a survey to find out from my list if this is something they might be interested in. I’m going to be mailing some of the list this week to get results. But do me a favor and take this quick 7-question survey while you’re checking it out.

For some reason a project seems to get more exciting to me when I have a cool logo or design attached to it. Now this is an optional step and if you were on a shoestring budget I might not even recommend it. Check out the contest I have running here for a logo.

You can see some of my comments and the 3 I’m most partial to so far are these – let me know what you think.

 Logo Option #1

 Logo Option #2

 Logo Option #3

(Side note: Sitepoint contests are an awesome resource if you want pretty much anything from a website to a logo designed. You put out a contest and artists will compete for the prize. The coolest part is you see completed work not hope for something that will fit.)

Another aspect I’ve been playing with is a tagline (now this is totally optional for a direct response company) but I thought it might be cool here.

Here are a couple I’ve thought of…

“The New MBA” (Actually my friend and fellow adventure-lover Cindy Cashman came up with this one)

“The Fun MBA!”

“More fun! More profits!”

“Crazy Fun! Crazy Profits!”

I’m sure you can do better. Let me know if you got one.

My goal is have the first trip going in the first part of 2008 and you’ll see how it develops since I’ve made this commitment pretty public.

And I’ll be giving away Internet Lifestyle caps for the most useful post and for the best tagline help. And if you are want to help out in some way and join the “Maverick Business Adventures” TEAM I’d love to hear from you.

Nearly everyone I talk to wants to know the big “secret” to success online. They want the next Internet marketing tactic, strategy or quick fix. But that’s usually not the critical factor…

I’ve found tremendous success by putting a ‘spin’ on successful models. In fact, I find it better to work with 2 or 3 successful models and pull them together. If your product/service is simply a “me-too” there is no point in being in the marketplace. You have to bring some point of differentiation to the table. (And it definitely cannot be just price.)

When I created Instant Sales Letters ®  in 2000 – there were all kinds of other sales letter templates books (real ones) out there and there were copywriting courses but there was nothing that really let you ‘cut and paste’ to create the letter easily. I’m a firm believer in giving people the “fish” anytime I can. What I mean is people would rather be handed the fish than taught how to fish. The closer you can get to the ‘magic pill’ the better your sales will be if the offer is believable.
 
Another example is my own Apprentice program (Yes, well before Trump!). There were a whole lot of mentor or protégé programs floating around but once again I decided if I was going to do something – I’d do it differently. I wanted to keep the numbers small and personal (instead of just making a mass telecoaching program like some other people who promise individual attention). I really wanted to have a big impact on the Apprentices I accepted and get people to take action or to new levels if they were already successful. (In fact, I won a $100 gentleman’s bet with Dan Kennedy because I got the majority of my group to make a profit.)

The big twist was I’d give Apprentices one of my ideas out of my idea journal, they’d be allowed to promote (if appropriate) to my list and my affiliate list. And we’d jointly share in the profits with them keeping 88% and me getting 12% of the gross sales. This program was so good it was overbooked almost right away.

And the final example from my own business is my “Underground™ Online Seminar”.

Don’t you think there are more than enough Internet seminars going on all over the place? Some good. Some not so good. It’s real tough to create a stir in the Internet space unless you have something different. Which is exactly why I didn’t want to do another ‘same-ole’ Internet seminar.

My big hook (which was true) is I bring in “Underground” and unknown speakers who were really making it in the real world online. It wasn’t the same usual suspects you’d see at other events. I took it all the way with making the promotions ‘spy’ themed to stand out. Sure, some people emailed us and said it was silly. But a lot more people got into it because it was different.

And most important it really worked!

The first three Underground™ Online Seminars were extremely successful and completely sold-out weeks before the event took place.

You need to stand out

So your job is to stand out and give people a reason (hopefully) a big one to buy from you. One logical way of doing this is something I taught my Apprentices. It’s to make a spreadsheet of what every competitor is offering and how they are positioned in the marketplace. Look for their offers, their headline, their pricing, their guarantee, their USP, etc and then decide where you can leverage a differentiation point.

This gives you a more precise way of looking for “gaps” in your competitors marketing. And the bigger the gap or the more you really show people how your offer is different than the better you’ll do.

It’s too easy to be another ‘me-too’. Why would a customer buy from you? Frankly, there aren’t too many niches where nobody is selling anything in there and you can be the only one. In most cases you’re going to find competitors (and that’s a good thing because it proves the marketplace spends money).

5 ways to be different and unique…

1. Be first in the marketplace. Easier said than done today but still very possible if you niche. Obviously you can’t be the first site to sell flowers online but if you are BestTropicals.com, you were the first to sell Hawaiian flowers exclusively. You can cut up the marketplace and become the first at something.

2. Take existing success models/products and combine together. This is one of my favorites because you’re profiting from multiple successful and proven sources.

3. Take an existing successful product/service and add a twist to it. My apprentice program is a good example of that.

4. Give it a new name. I’ve done this many times with products I’ve licensed that have seen better days. For instance the content is still good but the product has “been around the block” too many times nad lost its value. Therefore a new name gives it a fresh, new marketshare.

5. Change the location. If you see a successful business model in one place it can typically be transferred to another location, format, etc. Good example of this is Steve Pankhurst who developed www.friendsreunited.co.uk. He saw a site in the US doing very well able to track down friends, etc. (probably Classmates.com) and he couldn’t believe they hadn’t expanded it to the UK or beyond. Since it’s launch in 1999, Friends Reunited has become one of the most popular websites on the net, attracting over 10 million members.

Every good idea is not done already

And finally the big idea is not think every great idea or website has already been created or done. That’s the attitude of losers! Today, you’ve got even more opportunity because the Internet is an established commerce model and more and more people are getting comfortable making purchases online. It truly is the best time in the world to start or grow your online business and start living the Internet Lifestyle!
 

Here’s something that has really intrigued me…

I’ve named it a Lifestyle business because it takes into account your passion and lifestyle first and money second.
 
Everybody’s has heard the advice “Do what you love and the money will follow”. Well I’m not 100% sure that’s the case. I’ve yet to find someone who will pay me to eat sushi or pizza and play video games. That wouldn’t work because there is no value derived from watching me eat and play video games. Now with that said, you can do what you love AND provide value to others who love the same thing to profit from it. Otherwise there is no exchange of money.

Let me start with an example from one of my previous vacations and then you’ll get a better idea…

For two years now I’ve gone away to Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean to go play beach volleyball for an entire week. In fact, 50 other people from all over the world came to join me. Actually one of my highlights from my trip  was to play doubles with an AVP Pro, Adam Jewel, against Olympic gold medal winner, Eric Fonoimoana. We won!

It’s something called “Volleyball Vacations” put on by an AVP pro Albert Hannemann. AL-B’s been doing this for the last 8 years. He gets a couple buddies to come down for the week, play volleyball and party (sometimes not necessarily in that order).   While the rest of us pay for the privilege.

AL-B partnered up with a travel agency to handle all the nitty gritty details and he just gets paid a certain percentage on every package sold. I don’t know the exact economics but I do know its some nice extra money for doing something you love and getting paid to vacation. A lifestyle business usually centers around something you love and would do regardless.

Here’s another ‘experience’ one…

Have you heard of the Baja 1000?

It’s an all-out endurance race of a thousand-mile (mostly) off-road race through Mexico, from one end of the Baja Peninsula to the other. A guy named Todd Clement started an adventure outfit called Wide Open Baja after winning the grueling Baja 1000 in 1997. He recruited some other winners and seasoned guides to open a Baja racing adventure experience. My late friend, Corey Rudl first told me about them and convinced me to go. I’m glad he did. It was pretty crazy. You get to drive these incredible Baja race cars on some of the same trails as the famous Baja 500 and Baja 1000 races.

This is trip is not for meek of heart or wallet. I believe it cost about $7000 (not including airfare) for 2 people for our 4-day trip. I’ve spoken to the guys at Wide Open because I’m always curious about business models and they run 2-3 trips a week from each location (they have 2 main ones of Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas for 4-day trips.)  And each trip is usually sold-out months and months in advance. We had 10 cars in our group – sometimes there are more. But 10 cars x $7000 = $70,000/trip. Now of course, that’s not all profit and the cars are very expensive, there’s maintenance, food, employees, etc. But it can add up to some good money – once again for doing something you love.

Racing is good one because lots of guys (and some gals) are very passionate about the sport. Of course, there are tons of racing schools around the country that cater to this and once again it isn’t cheap. There’s even a racing school that lets you drive F-1 race cars (basically jets on wheels) in Europe.

Here’s another racing example that is pretty obscure: www.vintagerallies.com/levelTwo.html This guy organizes road rallies for people into vintage-sports cars. Limited to 50 cars per event and many of these rallies are sold out at $4995.00/pop. Do the math! Now when I went back to the site I noticed they’ve donated all the proceeds to charity. They state it’s over $750,000 – but there’s no reason you couldn’t keep all the money if you did something similar or in a different niche.

If you notice there’s something else that really drives these lifestyle businesses is passion. The more passionate the niche the great likelihood they’ll spend money for an experience. Plus, there’s also a social aspect around it. i.e. beach volleyball nuts get to hang out and party with other beach volleyball nuts.

Now that I’ve shown some “experience” lifestyle businesses let me give you another point of view and highlight some information product examples that I’ve discovered. Many of you should be familiar with information products ranging from ebooks to newslettes to DVDs, etc. It’s one of my favorite businesses and if you want some help there see our Instant Internet Profits course.

The first example is Robert Parker at www.eRobertParker.com

If you’re familiar with wine you’d immediately know who Robert Parker is. His 100 point rating scale for wines can either make or break a wine. I’m going back a bit – but this example is powerful. According to his bio, Robert fell in love with wine during a trip to France in 1967. Then in 1975 he thought about creating an “independent consumers” guide to wine. And finally in 1978 he plan became his wine newsletter called “The Wine Advocate”. He started off with 600 charter subscribers in August of that year. Now today – his subscription base has exploded to over 40,000 subscribers at $60/year. (hmmm…adds up to $2.4M to me.)

But that’s not all – his wine empire has spawned some spin-offs. i.e. his membership website at $99 (renewing annually), “Parker in your Palm” which is a listing of certain wine ratings that can be downloaded into your Palm Pilot, books, back-issues, wine events, etc. The wine niche is great – I’ve found all sorts of speciality newsletter publishers here. Some who focus on only on type of grape like Pinot Noir. Or even just one region like Burgundy (also Pinot Noir) from France.

Another interesting niche that I’ve witnessed lifestyle businesses work in a big and small way is travel. I have a customer in the UK who told me about his Caribbean Travel newsletter in which he reviewed accommodations, resorts, islands, etc in the Caribbean for his subscribers. It was a nice publication that also financed all his vacations.
Now, incidentally, is another big bonus with a lifestyle business is a tax write off. Of course, I’m not a CPA so check with your Accountant. But if these expenses of staying at luxury Caribbean resorts are within the scope of your “normal and ordinary” business – I cannot imagine how it wouldn’t be a write off. Plus, this gentleman told me he later sold his newsletter to another company for six-figures. Now a much bigger example in the travel newsletter business is “Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report”.

I love the USP on this publication. Andrew Harper is a pseudonym and here’s what it says on the site:

To assure you wholly independent observations, noted travel authority Andrew Harper travels incognito – booking into hotels and paying his own way as would any typical guest. Hotels don’t know his real name, nor what he looks like because he refuses to introduce himself during inspections. It’s also important to remember that Hideaway Report accepts no advertising and is therefore totally free of pressure from advertisers! In short, Andrew Harper’s monthly recommendations are unbiased, objective and totally reliable.

Plus, on top of that there is a believable scarcity to it because they say they limit circulation worldwide (I believe it’s 20,000 subscribers) to keep these private hideaways truly private. Hey, I believed it so I signed up – plus I wanted to study their business model. For one thing – it’s been published for over 25 years so that gives you a small idea of how successful this has been. And if you ever get a copy of the newsletter (I believe there is a free sample on the site) it looks like something a guy would print in his basement. There are no real pictures – just drawings. And the whole thing only has one color. It’s very, very smart!

My bet is there are lots of little niches out there where people would pay you for experiences. Sometimes there are even combinations like a wine tour with a bicycle tour. Or for instance golf with travel www.adventures-in-golf.com, etc. 

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing something in the adventure travel business and maybe combining it with my passion for Entrepreneurship and business. The tentative name is “Maverick Business Adventures” – the NEW MBA .

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’d like to go on a trip like that or post about other lifestyle businesses you’ve seen.