www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtc2rIBtVvA

Here are the most important books that I’ve recommended, sent to my team, talked about or ones that had an impact on me this past year.

#1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business by Ari Weinzwieg

My favorite book for 2010 is from the co-founder of a company that INC magazine described as “The coolest small business in America”.

I met Ari at the recent INC500 conference and his message really struck a chord. Perhaps you’ve heard of Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, MI or the Zingerman’s group of companies. They’ve built a totally unique business and service culture there that thousands of people have studied their companies. (It’s weird – as soon as I started studying Zingermans random people were sending us Zingermans delicious food. Odd but yummy coincidence for sure.)

Just one of the sections I’ve found incredibly compelling in the book is Ari’s concept of Visioning for the future. It’s been proven that when people use visioning instead of simply problem solving, energy levels increased, innovative ideas flowed and people were excited about eager about their future. What’s more, visioning also gets you clear on what you do NOT want to do in your business so that you can easily turn away, seemingly, golden opportunities that come your way. I’ve sent copies of this book to our team and now before we begin a major project or hire a key team member, we work on visions first. If you missed the interview I did with Ari on visioning you can check it out -
link: http://www.surefiremarketing.com/zingermans/

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Note: I’m planning on leading my Millionaire MasterMind group to a “field trip” at Zingermans for our first meeting in April 2011. If you’d like to be considered for the group – see details here.

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#2: Brains on Fire by Phillips, Cordell, Church & Jones

I’m not sure where I stumbled onto Brains on Fire blog – but I’m glad I found it. Brains on Fire has some really awesome stuff when it comes to creating movements for your customers, advocates and zealots. They’ve done a superb job of breaking down the 10 elements that go into the mix for creating movements and tight communities.

With traditional media having less impact it may be time for marketers to stop defaulting to the yo-yo of advertising campaigns and instead really look to “ignite” a word-of-mouth movement. Some of the advice here really hits home for the conversations that are taking place around your business or brand driven from the bottom-up.

The Brains on Fire crew hands you 10 rules for how they’ve engineered self-sustaining and extremely passionate (and successful) movements like the Fiskateers and Rage against the Haze for anti-smoking in South Carolina. Those are the two you hear the most about in the book and both are worthy of case studies by themselves. Fiskateers took a 360-year old company that makes scissors and helped double their profits by tapping into advocates in key markets. If you read this book with an open mind you might just see some significant changes to make in your marketing and business.

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#3: The Business of Happiness by Ted Leonsis

I read this book early in 2010 and really enjoyed it on a lot of levels. In fact, I got so much out of it – it went out to Maverick1000 members along with my exclusive interview with Ted.

In fact, Maverick 10000 member, Kim Pingleton, told me this book was one of the most impactful for her this year.

Many of us think if we can just be successful in business, we’ll be happy. But all too often we see this isn’t the case — AT ALL. There are plenty of miserable rich people — you probably even know some.

There’s another theory though — Being Happy Leads To More Success!

In case you aren’t familiar with Ted – he is an Internet industry pioneer who helped build AOL into a global phenomenon. He is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold multiple successful businesses over three decades, culminating with the recent sale of Revolution Money to American Express for $300M+. Plus, he’s the owner of two successful sports franchises, including my favorite team, the Washington Capitals.

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Side note: Ted Leonsis will be one of the featured keynote speakers at Underground 7 on March 3-5, 2011. High caliber guests like this are just one reason the Underground is THE top learning and networking event for online marketers – and it’s SOLD-OUT each year.

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#4: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Passion, Profits and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

Keeping on the same theme of combining happiness with business – my friend and former Underground® 4 & 5 keynoter, Tony Hsieh’s outstanding book on his story building Zappos and “delivering happiness”.  I’ve learned so much from Tony especially about how critical core values are for your company. Quite frankly, I sorta thought most of that stuff was bullshit or only for big companies to create meaningless ones like Enron’s use of “integrity” as a core value.

Tony is a firm believer that a happy culture creates profits and not the other way around. Pick this one – it’s a pretty fast but extremely engaging read.

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#5: Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise by Andy Nulman

I think incorporating surprise into your business might just give you the most important (and totally overlooked) advantage for your business today.
It’s the ‘zag’ while others ‘zig’ that makes your product or service buzz-worthy, spreads positive worth-of-mouth and bonds customers like cement to you.

I stumbled onto an outrageous book called “POW! Right Between the Eyes! Profiting from the Power of Surprise” written by Andy Nulman. As soon as I read it I knew we share some common “DNA” as I’ve been talking a lot about my concept called Astonishment Architecture™ lately.

Andy has been a ‘surprise marketer’ before the term even appeared. He’s the former (and now current again) CEO of the ‘Just for Laughs’ comedy festival in Montreal (the largest comedy event of its kind) and founder of mobile entertainment company, Airborne Media, which he sold for nearly $100M.

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#6: 59 Seconds: Think a Little Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman

Though not technically a business book, I really enjoyed 59 Seconds by Prof. Wiseman, because it takes scientific, peer reviewed researched on areas like happiness, creativity, goal setting, motivation, decision-making and more. It gives you proven research on what works and what doesn’t in these areas. The concept of the book is to take one of the main concepts – show the best peer reviewed research and then provide a 59 second action you can take.

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#7 Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter

This was a book recommendation from Maverick 1000 member, Kevin Wilke, while thee for our World Cup and Safari expedition in South Africa. I really, really liked this book. Previously I’ve grasped the importance of systems but never had the desire or motivation to get them implemented. This book has changed that for me.

I have a confession here – I hate systems but I realize how important they are. In fact, there’s an interesting section on systems in Ari’s book (#1) that talks about systems freeing you up to be more creative. I like that.

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#8: Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky

I like this book because it gives a framework around taking ideas and actually implementing them. As entrepreneurs, we often don’t lack for ideas but rather clear execution. This has a great left-brain/right-brain sort of process to it that works in the real-world.

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#9: Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon

Written by one of the most popular Harvard Business School professors, Different is exactly that. It’s a good take on how to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace by being different. Most businesses talk about being ‘different’ but so many fall into the trap becoming mediocre because they look at their competitors and try to copy some of their strengths. This only leads to being average across a bunch of different aspects instead of being unique in just 1 or 2 differentiable points.

This book is a fairly easy read and not a dull, boring college textbook.  And as one reviewer on Amazon said, just skip the Harvard MBA and get this book!

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#10: Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures by Dan Roam

Financial Times, Businessweek and Amazon named Dan’s “Back of the Napkin” book their ‘book of the year’ in 2008 and this the follow-up “How To” manual for solving problems and communicating with simple pictures. I admit it – I love doodling and I really get excited about these kind of hand drawings. In fact, I’ll make a prediction that the kind of powerful Powerpoint video sales letters you’ve seen a lot of in 2010 will be eclipsed by the effectiveness of these kind of drawings (even if you cannot draw).

What’s been inspiring you? Leave a comment and let me know which ones you’ve read or which ones I should have added to the list.

I’d imagine you’ve heard of Tim Ferriss, right?

He’s the author of the #1 best-selling 4-Hour Work Week that really made a huge impression on so many people. Tim and I have known each other before the 4-hour success and the guy has always been fascinated with experiments and “life hacks”. (Oh, and random 80′s break dancing too – but that’s another story.)

Tim’s latest project, The 4-Hour Body, has been the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers and NASA scientists to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim’s been fixated on one life-changing question:

“What are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?”

Imagine if it’s possible to —

• Reach your genetic potential in 6 months?
• Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?
• Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing? (Hello? The Holidays are a perfect chance to experiment with this.)
• Reverse “permanent” injuries and much more.

In fact, there are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects. This is one of the reasons Wired magazine has called Tim “The Superman of Silicon Valley” for his manipulation of the human body.

I got Tim on the line and grilled him about these optimal tweaks. Yes, this wasn’t the typical business-oriented teleseminar I normally put on but the topic was one that I believe can have a significant impact on your life (hence — your bottom line) that it’s too important not to make happen. (Though I did slip in a bunch of questions around personal productivity and even how to create a top blog that Tim answered.)

And in case you’re wondering if this is some thinly veiled ‘pitch’— sorry to disappoint. Of course, Tim mentioned his new book The 4-Hour Body that’s already a best-seller. (There is a special deal for a lost chapter for our readers – if you pick up 3 copies of the book and send the receipt to yanik@fourhourbody.com – they’ll get it off to you.)

To listen to the exclusive interview please click the links below

Yanik and Tim, Part 1

Yanik and Tim, Part 2

Yanik and Tim, Part 3

To download the whole audio file in a high quality mp3, please right click this link and choose “save as” to save this file to your computer. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

The response to that option has been quite lively!

In case you missed it – I wanted to highlight here on the blog before I send out details and open up the program this week.

Co-create your Information product with me

I think it’s probably safe to say that I’ve been involved in just about every aspect of info marketing. Everything from $17 ebooks to Audio, Video, Teleseminars, Home Study Courses, CDroms, Resell Rights, Licensing, Software, Live Events, Coaching programs, etc.

And with my some increased availability I’m looking for no more than 10 people (maybe less) to actually co-create, and possibly even co-author, information products with me depending on the subject matter.

Who could this be for?

• Subject matter experts, trainers, consultants or coaches.
• Authors looking to escape the “book store” trap.
• Information marketers or content publishers who want a breakthrough in the size, scope and impact of their business.
• Business owners who are achieving exceptional results in their industry, marketplace or business and would like to sell or license their methods, systems, techniques to others.
• Someone extremely serious (with the resources) to get their idea out there with my help.

I have to warn you – this will not be a cheap program but a lopsided amount of your investment will be via a profit-share side – so that I’m working with you to make it a winner.

I’ll be there guiding you through each major aspect from product creation, operations, launch and profit maximization. (Note: I will not be doing it all for you, but I will be there at your side for every critical aspect. Plus, there are built-in aspects of connections, relationships, introductions and the possibility of promotions direct from me to get you started with a bang!)

How to get details:

If you are interested in details – please send a blank email to:
workwithyanik@aweber.com and then confirm you want details.

I’ll be most likely releasing particulars this week and opening the door for applications.

Over the last few years we’ve invented and customized different business “games” to develop business strategies, ideas and interactions among members.

I was really excited when I found the book “Gamestorming” written by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo. I’ve never seen a compilation of the coolest, most creative ways to get teams and individuals engaged and playing. It’s a cool little playbook and they also want to create a community of other Gamestormers beyond just the book. In fact, I just recently posted on the Gamestorming blog adding the wiki one of the games we use at Maverick called “Air Time Mastermind”. Check it out and leave a comment!

It’s about 2 very successful shows running in Vegas.

Both of them were blockbusters and entertaining sold-out audiences each and every night. Both were family-friendly and both had sterling reputations. And both even had specialized theaters built for them, named after their shows…

But that’s where the similarities end.

You see, one show got shuttered after a tragic accident on stage and the revenue drops to pretty much zilch. The other show is flourishing worldwide and is now a multi-million dollar company.

So which shows am I talking about?

Well, the first one is Siegfried and Roy. They created this amazing long running show of magic and illusion featuring their famous white tigers.  They had a lifetime gig doing their show at The Mirage in Las Vegas, until that fateful day in October of 2003, when Roy was mauled by one of his tigers.  They had made no other contingencies. Now the show closed down and their business was gone…POOF!

And that second show?

It’s the Blue Man Group. Maybe you’ve heard of them, remember the Intel ads that featured them or know them from the television show “Arrested Development”. It’s a group of 3 guys painted electric blue from head to toe, who splash paint, make sounds and splat stuff out of their mouths. It might sound a bit juvenile but audiences love them! And from a business or entrepreneurial case-study point – there are a lot of things to learn here.

The little light bulb moment came for them when Jillete Penn (part of the duo Penn & Teller) saw their show in NYC during the first month. He told them, “Oh, my God! You guys can do what Teller and I can never do! You can clone yourselves!”

They didn’t get it at first because they thought they had to be the talent.

But finally the idea dawned on them that they really could leverage what they were doing by painting other actors (who were trained by them) blue and doing another show. They started in Boston and things didn’t go smoothly because they didn’t have a system to duplicate the show. They literally had to lock themselves up in their apartment with their creative director for 3 days to write and tape record themselves going over every part of the show. The recordings were transcribed creating an operations manual and a way to systematize their performance.

Currently, their live stage shows can be seen in New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando, Berlin, and Tokyo plus frequent tours.

When they first started they were using almost $1000 worth of Jell-O per show – their producers decided to lose that part of the show. Luckily, two of the three were working for a catering company who picked up the cost and made the Jell-O for them each week. After being featured in the Intel ads (which were shown during the Grammy Awards, the NBA playoffs and the World Series) they went from 10 shows a week at 50% capacity to 14 shows a week at 100% capacity.

But get this – right now the original 3 members of Blue Man group do not even perform – they’re busy growing their brand. They’ve ventured into all sorts of other venues including film, music, TV, education and even children’s toys. The toy development is a license to create toys based on their musical instruments. Smart! They’ve even opened their own school – the “Blue School” – for kids. Here’s an article about it from Time Magazine.

Frankly, the biggest lesson here is leverage…

Siegfried and Roy never figured out a way to get paid beyond their performance. (Yes, they got paid lavishly but they had golden handcuffs because they could never stop performing day-in and day-out.) But Blue Man group leveraged themselves by duplicating their performances and now by starting to license their creations. That means they have revenue coming in from lots of “open doors”.

Now I certainly don’t know if you’ll create the next blockbuster show in Vegas – but I’ll make you a bet you can still leverage yourself in a slightly different way without painting yourself blue.

If you’ve got any sort of info product, content, software, I.P. or even a business idea – you’ll love this! (Even if you don’t there’s a killer opportunity to stick yourself in the ‘middle’.)

You see, I’m pulling back the curtain on this weird way I’ve “Rented” my existing content to create brand NEW profit streams that require virtually zero work after they’re set-up one-time. (I’ve quietly been doing this for 3+ years now and banking 6-figures a year from it!)

http://www.UndergroundOnlineSeminar.com/licensing/

I truly believe this is going to change the way you think about your business because there are tons of ways of doing it beyond what I’ve done. In fact, I’ve personally sought these experts out because I’m going to step up what I’m doing in this area.

It’s a serious way to exponentially leverage what you’re doing already in your business and let others profit from it and keep paying you month after month.

And if you watch the presentation ’til the end there’s a special bonus linked to my upcoming Underground Online Seminar 6.

Even if you don’t think this applies to you – you can still be the ‘middle man’ or broker and bring 2 parties together. There is a significant untapped opportunity here. In fact, I would seriously pay for someone to be a broker for our content because it’s all found money!

Everybody has heard the expression, “It’s not what you know – but who you know – that counts.”

That’s partially true and I’d have to say the ability to create high-level connections has been a big factor in my success over the last 10 years but I’ve never really shared exactly how I think about this.

First off, I really don’t like the word “Networking” to describe a connection. That conjures up the image of somebody walking into a ‘mixer’ and slinging their business cards around like some 2-for-1 Red Lobster coupon. Or going to events that have “speed networking” aspects where you glad-hand 3 dozen people and ask them “What-do-you-do? How-can-I-help-you?”

All of this strikes me as being somewhat cheesy!

So what do you do?

Be genuine: I’ve watched some of my friends, like Joe Polish, who I think are incredible at their connections and it comes from a real genuineness. I see Joe tell really silly jokes and just be himself. That’s really refreshing. Personally, I’ve been known to buy a couple dozen shots and start handing them out at the bar during an event. It totally fits my personality plus it gets people to say ‘Hello’ to me who I wouldn’t normally meet.

When I talk to people I’ve just met I look for any connections we have outside of work. In fact, I purposefully do not ask, “What do you do?” unless they ask me first. Of course, I’m interested but I’d rather find out something unusual about them.

Make Intros: The other thing I consciously think about is who in my existing network can I intro them to or foster a connection with. This is a trait some of the best connectors I know do – they are extremely generous with introductions where it makes sense.

Be distinctive: My friend and business coach, Cameron Herold, former COO of 1-800-Got-Junk, told me about how his team would wear blue logoed vests at seminars and events. People would stop them and ask what 1-800-Got-Junk did or what it was and it was a really good way to stand out. With our metal business cards for Maverick Business Adventures – they stand out and get people showing them around to others around them at a meeting.

Get Diverse: Some of my favorite connections have come out of charities I support or hobbies or different interests. There’s a different connection formed with a common interest first, and business second. What’s more, if you have a shared intense experience you’ll have a much deeper connection. I think that’s one of the reasons Maverick members have done so many deals together and are so eager to help each other. It’s a deeper bond than simply meeting a person at a seminar or event.

Become prolific and prominent: This probably isn’t that big of a secret but it’s worth mentioning. If you can get on stage, write a book, become an expert, etc. – you’ll have people seeking you out.

Follow-up: I admit I don’t do this as well as I could but I shoot quick texts, emails or clippings over to people when I know it’s something they’re interested in.

Get up close and personal: Probably every high-level connection I’ve had has been a result of meeting someone in person. The original intro could have started online or via email – but it was only when you sit down with someone that there’s been a deeper bond. Some of the best ‘in-the-flesh’ connections have come at seminars & events. (ahem…Underground) Events and seminars are one level of intimacy but I’ve found that having shared experiences really accelerates the level of friendship. That’s why so many deals get done while off-road racing in Baja or paddling a class V river with Maverick Business Adventures.

Another high-level practice I’ve used to make connections and push my business forward is by harnessing the power of Mastermind groups…

MasterMind Groups

“If you can grasp this principle and apply it you may have, for your efforts, whatever you want on this earth!”

Those are the words of Napoleon Hill, who first coined the term “MasterMind” in his widely-regarded “Think & Grow Rich” and “Law of Success” works.

In case you don’t know the story, Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to interview 500 other successful men and women looking for the secret to success. One of the key concepts he discovered was the power of a MasterMind group. Every titan of industry from Henry Ford to Thomas Edison to William Wrigley, Jr. all tapped into this, either “by accident or design” as Hill says.

I’ve been part of multiple MasterMind groups and have run several for the last 4 years. I’ll share the different ways they’ve worked and also how to set-up your own.

Personally, I can count at least $2M+ in revenue that came from ideas generated from my own private MasterMind groups that I never would have figured out on my own. What’s more, my first dream car (Mercedes SL55) was bought and paid for just from one single idea conceived at a MasterMind meeting. Another idea has turned into a $45,000.00+ monthly revenue stream with no end in sight.

And yet another idea (really more of a a tiny tweak) was directly responsible for $290,000.00 in sales during 2 weekends. Those are just a few of the ideas that come to mind immediately – I’m sure if pressed I could recount even more big ideas that came as a direct impact of being part of a MasterMind.

On top of the breakthrough ideas – there are many more reasons a MasterMind can help you reach new levels in your business…

1. Speed – Imagine the speed that comes from tapping into the collective brain trust of experience and results here. For instance, if you had 12 people in the group testing 1 new thing in their business each month, that’s 12 x 12 = 144 new breakthroughs. It would take you 144 months on your own to be able to get the same information.
2. Competitiveness – There’s a certain friendly “competitive spirit” among the MasterMind group because nobody wants to show up to a meeting without something to “brag on” or with successes to share. It’s this competitiveness that drives results even further that the group benefits from.
3. Increased Productivity – A MasterMind group empowers you to become more than you are now. At the meetings you are surrounded by other successful entrepreneurs who spark new ideas and fresh energy!
4. Accountability – Each MasterMind member gets even more accomplished because they feel accountable to the group for their actions and progress.
5. Group feeling – When a MasterMind group has been properly selected, each person is cooperating and cheerleading for your best results, efforts and “best-self” to step forward. Quite frankly, it’s pretty lonely being a top performing entrepreneur, so having a group of successful peers who understand you is incredibly important.
6. New resources and contacts – It’s not unusual to walk away from meetings with a notebook full of new contacts and resources. A MasterMind group lets you tap into shared contacts and unique expertise from other like-minded members.
7. New perspectives – Each member brings with them a new perspective, model or frame of reference to an issue or idea. It’s exactly these kind of fresh insights that lead to big breakthroughs instead of looking at a situation through the same filter.

I’ve been part of informal and formal Mastermind groups, and typically it works much better when there is some formality to it because that usually increases commitment. If you’re interested in starting your own group you must make sure there are serious commitments and consequences for missing meetings. I’ve been part of groups that meet 1x/month or 1x/quarter and I’ve found that for extremely busy and successful individuals the 3 or 4 times/year in person is ideal.

When I was getting started some of my friends and I started a local group that met 1x/month and that was too much. We then moved to about every other month and that worked better. Then as we got more successful we moved to a quarterly structure and then we slowly dissolved the group.

It’s not to say that monthly can’t work, but normally at the highest level people’s schedules are so hectic that it becomes extremely tough to make happen. Peer-to-peer groups like YPO and EO work have forums (essentially MasterMind groups) which meet once per month. (Silly side note: I guess entrepreneurs don’t grow up because the forum groups have names like Zero Guilt, Suspects Gone Wild, etc.)

These forum groups run monthly since every member does not get a chance to present in depth what they are doing and get advice each meeting. It’s a round-robin. I prefer having each member get advice and give value each meeting.

I’ve also been part of two different Internet MasterMind groups that don’t have a set meeting schedule and simply run via a list-serv. For asking quick questions, getting resources or trading junior high jokes this is a simple format that has benefits. One is still active and I think it has to do with the fact that we were all friends first before we created it.

Now being part of so many different groups – and seeing which ones worked and which ones didn’t – I’ll give you a few pointers:

1) Confidentiality within the group is imperative.

2) Trust among the group (this grows as the group shares more time together).

3) True peer-to-peer with a qualification process (i.e. start-ups and multiple 7-figure business owners don’t typically have the same issues.)

4) Openness and focus on giving – not just taking value.

5) Commitment to the group.

The 2 MasterMind groups I run have a simple (but powerful) format. Each member gets approximately 50 minutes to present something that is working well in their business that other members can use for their own businesses. Then the second half of their presentation time they present a problem or opportunity for the group to help with.

[Note: MasterMind members consist of business owners with a 7-figure business or within ‘striking distance’ of 7-figures. If you’d like to be considered for a spot for 2010/2011 you can download a confidential application here.]

I’m also working on new pilot program for 2010 to combine the deep connections that happen with unique, shared experiences on Maverick trips and the natural evolution of deeper trust between the same group of people over time. It’s going to be called “Maverick Mastermind”. These groups are true Masterminds of elite entrepreneurs ($1M+ businesses) that get together 3 times a year, live, for adventures and business sessions. Essentially a long weekend within a 2 hours drive of their host city. Part of the time will be participating in cool activities like racing, air combat, etc. to create the intense shared experience plus get you out of the office. And the other part of the weekend retreat will be spent getting specific business feedback & brainstorming for each member. The pilot program will take place in the Mid-Atlantic and on the West Coast in early 2010. What’s more, there will also be a chance for the Maverick Mastermind members to have a local young entrepreneurship mentoring opportunity in their community. Contact our office if you’re interested.

Mentors & Thought Provokers

I always believe it’s the people you meet, books you read and experiences you have that influence your life.

As I mentioned in part 1, I learned from Earl Nightingale early on about books/resources/educational material as a “mentorship”. Personally, I still get through a least one book a week for that type of education. But I’ve also been lucky enough to meet & interview many people I look to for their philosophies around life, business and achievement. Here are the ‘Cliff Notes’ versions of what I’ve taken away from just a few.

My dad, Joseph Zilberbaum – probably my first business hero.

He came to the U.S. with $256 in his pocket for me, my mom and grandmother and built up a small, multiple 7-figure medical equipment company. I learned the immigrant work ethic of starting with nothing and creating. I got marketing/sales experience on the ground that would have taken me 10-15 years somewhere else since I got to succeed or fail based on what I created or produced. I certainly got my entrepreneurial spirit from my father. In fact, one day I’m need to write a post (or book) about the “immigrant success secret” – why American born children are less likely to become millionaires than immigrants.

My mom, Aleksandra Silverbaum – passion, fun and cheerful attitude. My mom passed away 2 days before my very first Underground Online Seminar in 2003. She had battled breast and ovarian cancer for 11 years but she didn’t let the cancer define who she was. She was always up for a party or a good time in between treatments. When my mom got remarried I made a deal with her. I told her I’d pay for her first-class trip to Vegas if she got married off by Elvis. True to form – she said YES without batting an eye. No doubt, I get a lot of my fun side from my Mom. And the other lasting effect she had on me was the unconditional encouragement for any idea or venture even though she didn’t understand half of them. Unfortunately my mom passed away when Missy was 5 months pregnant and never saw Zak, but his middle name, Aleksandr, is a tribute to her.

[Note: If you caught it my parents had different last names because as Russian immigrants my mom thought the translation was incorrect when we came over. Zilberbaum actually means “Silver Tree” and I legally shortened my family’s name to Silver for simplicity awhile back.]

Earl Nightingale – Helped me to be ok with the fact that I was ‘different’ than many of my friends. Not in an elitist way – but simply something inside of me that said I didn’t want to settle for an ordinary life. And his message of “Extraordinary people do the things ordinary people will not do.” really struck a chord. I really wish I had a chance to meet Earl in person but his message lives on through his recordings.

Dan Kennedy
– Dan has certainly been a huge influence in my life. He’s the first person that opened my eyes to the fact you could take information and sell it. Certainly, meeting Dan was one of those big, pivotal turning points in my life. Not only did Dan provide the inspiration, but also the nuts & bolts – a combination rarely found. It’s exciting to see how things come full circle because I’ve spoken at many Dan Kennedy events, I helped them get their affiliate program up & running for Glazer/Kennedy and even had Dan attend the Underground® the first year.

John Harricharan – my friend John is somebody who makes sure I nourish the spiritual side of my being. I remember meeting John in Boulder, CO, at Jonathan Mizel’s seminar back in 2001. I came rollerblading through the lobby and John was having breakfast with my buddy, Rob Olic. John immediately had the feeling that we were going to be friends and I’d have a tremendous impact on the world.  Might sound odd but I’ve come to discover John is a very gifted intuitive reader. Since then I’ve relied on John for his insights and advice. In fact, John’s “Power Pause” book holds a little 3-minute exercise that I still use to this day since discovering it back in ’01. It’s profoundly simple but yet incredibly powerful getting you on track to what you want and opening yourself up to getting it. Frankly – I’m not one of those spiritual ‘walk on hot coals’ type of guys – but his stuff really has had a profound effect on my life

Now in the last few years with Maverick Business Adventures® – it’s been exciting to be able to bring in all sorts of business icons and spend time with them. Here are just a few that shaped my thinking:

Dean Graziosi, Joe Polish and Yanik Silver
came together to help raise over $450,000
for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite

Sir Richard Branson – Certainly my biggest business hero from the way he runs multiple companies to his own sense of adventure. It’s been incredible to spend significant time with Richard on his private island, Necker Island.

Every time I’m with Richard I marvel at how ‘in the moment’ he is. He seems very relaxed and always spends serious one-on-one time with the person he’s speaking to. I also love the way he says “YES” to projects and adventures. While on Necker the second time around, Tellman Knudson, asked him to marry off Jodie and him. The impromptu weeding was set-up with Richard being Tellman’s best man. Or I’ve seen Richard say yes to new business projects pitched his way over a rum punch.

What’s more, I’ve really picked up how Richard’s fingerprints are prominent on so many of his businesses. That culture of being “cheeky” is found throughout. In fact, I had the chance to read a branding manual for Virgin group and that’s exactly what they talk about in there.

Another point I saw in action was his social consciousness. Founding Virgin Unite and using the power of entrepreneurship and innovative thinking to solve societal problems has been inspiring. In fact, the last time we were on Necker I wrote down this quote he said that stuck with me, “If you are going to make a difference you have to work hard at making a difference.”

His latest book, “Business Stripped Bare”, is really worth picking up because it has some real business insights and isn’t quite so fluffy like his other ones.

John Paul DeJoria and Yanik in 80′s gear and pink hair to support breast cancer

John Paul DeJoria – J.P., who holds the rank of #261 on Forbes list of World’s Richest with an estimated $2.5B net worth, came on our “Totally Rad Maverick 80′s Road Rally” and told his story from homeless to billionaire.

One of the things I wrote down that really stood out for me was when he talked about how having no money makes you creative. I firmly believe that.  J.P. talked about how he had a pending deadline to pay his printer for the shampoo bottles they just screened – so he went knocking on doors. And guess what? Even after J.P. was a billionaire and started the Patron tequila company with a friend, he still started small. He didn’t invest millions into the project – they bought 1,000 cases to test it out.

I asked J.P. the question of, “What’s the difference between billionaire thinking and millionaire thinking?” His reply was 3 zeroes. At first, I thought that was a trite response but after reflecting on it – probably not. It’s just like for me today getting to a million is no big deal…I think if you give it a big deal (the billion or million) then it holds dominion over you. But if you reduce it down to just a few more zeros – it’s not that big a deal.

What I really loved about J.P. was this incredible energy about him. It’s almost hard to explain, but the guy truly seemed to so content and happy. Of course, you might think that’s easy as a billionaire – but I don’t think that’s the reason.

Tony Hsieh, keynoting Underground® 5

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com – Having Tony keynote our Underground® seminar for the past two years and spending time with him socially – he’s impressed me. (btw – don’t play the 5 questions game with Tony over vodka shots!) I used to believe values were complete B.S. for companies until I spent time listening to Tony. One thing he kept stressing to our audience and in private conversations was to create the core values! Over and over and over again. To Tony, it’s never too soon or too early in a company’s creation to do it. That’s part of how our Maverick DNA was born.

Frank McKinney – Frank is hailed as “the Daredevil Developer and Real Estate Rock Czar”. He’s the somewhat crazy guy who builds 8…even 9-figure oceanfront homes on spec (meaning – no buyer before he starts). I’ve been inspired by Frank’s take on life and his philanthropic attitude. (Definitely grab his book “Make it Big”!)

Frank is definitely not someone that blends into the background with his wild rock star clothing, theatrical house openings and long blonde hair. We were walking back from an event together and I asked him a question about personality and “flair” as he calls it in his book. He said he’s naturally shy but will turn up his authentic personality just a bit to stand out. I found that reassuring. It’s not about becoming someone you’re not, but being a little bit bigger version of yourself to create bigger things.

Moreover, Frank is a real inspiration to me with the work he does with his Caring House Project Foundation, building homes for the desperately poor and homeless in Haiti. He likens himself to a modern day Robin Hood by selling to the ultra rich and then providing much of the profits to his work in Haiti.

Jesse James – Jesse has been with us on 2 Maverick Baja adventures and I have really enjoyed getting to know this motorcycle mogul. From first blush you might write Jesse off with his multiple tattoos and hard-nosed attitude…but the guy is quite business savvy. You might have seen him recently on Celebrity Apprentice – and he really surprised a lot of people.

From Jesse I took away the aspect of saying ‘No’ to opportunities not authentic to your brand. With his popularity came lots and lots of requests to endorse products or license his name or image, and 90% of the time he would decline. Jesse was careful to not simply grow his personal brand for the sake of growing, but made it mean something. Though on the flip side of the coin when the right opportunities come up he’s been very astute to work licensing deals with the right partners. Many people thought it was a mistake to work with Wal-Mart to sell the West Coast Choppers line of t-shirts but from his modest background it was the right move.

Cameron Herold – Cameron has come into my life recently but has already had a really big impact. Cameron helped grow 1-800-Got Junk from a couple million to $100M before leaving as COO. He’s been the impetus for the Painted Picture I created for the Maverick group of companies. And he’s really been someone that has really held me accountable to make sure I’m creating what I say I want to. I big believer in the fact there are no accidents and the way I met Cameron was a funny story because we both appeared in a Canadian newspaper article about entrepreneurship on the same day. And also during that same week 2 people independently mentioned my name to him.

There are probably at least several dozen more people I could mention here. My business buddies are some of the smartest and most giving people around, and I always take something away from simply watching their marketing or during late-night talks in hotel suites. Or the Maverick Business Adventures members who have impressed me with their business savvy, zest for life and giving spirit on each and every trip!

Okay that’s a wrap for Part 3 – please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Also, since this is quite long I’ll bundle everything up into a neat little PDF with a bow when I’m finished. (Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or provide your email address in the upper right-hand corner to be notified when each new section is up on the blog.)

Look for Part 4 where we’ll move into the “Have More Fun” aspect in life and business. I’m a big believer in having a lot of fun in how you work and how you play. First, I’ll show you some of the ways of creating incredible bonds with your customers and increasing your revenue at the same time.

Then, I’m going to do my best to coax out the inner kid you in to come forward.

*****

** Update**

You can now download this series of blog posts (and the other posts they refer to) here. http://www.surefiremarketing.com/decade/

Maverick Rule #1 says:

It’s got to be a BIG idea that you, your team and your customers can “get” in seconds.

Creating The BIG Idea

Before we get started with the how – let’s talk about the why. Why do we even need to worry about creating some kind of hook, angle or big idea for our product or service? Easy answer is because there is so much frickin competition! There’s just too much noise in the marketplace (in just about every marketplace) that you need some way of sticking out.

If you don’t have a big idea you simply fade into the background like every other ‘me-too’ product or service. Actually it’s not always even about having a proprietary product/service. This is really more about positioning and the immediate reaction a prospect has to your deal the moment they hear it.

That’s on the key elements of the BIG idea – gut reaction. If you want a real interesting insight into this get the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. You’ll see exactly how much our attitudes and perceptions are based on what he calls “thin slicing”. With our world’s being busier than ever – people usually don’t have all the time in the world to explore absolutely everything about a product or service. We’ve got to use shortcuts for our decision-making. And the clearer and more poignant you can make a distinction for your product or service the better you’ll do in the crowded marketplace.

Let me cover some real-world examples and then you’ll have a little better notion of how to create the same kind of hooks and angles for yourself. I’ll start with a couple products from the consumer world and see if you can pick up on it…

“Uncrustables”

“100 Calorie Packs”

“8 Minute Abs”

“Time Shares”

“101 Nights of Grrreat Sex”

“The Real World”

“Club Med”

“24”

All of these consumer products broke out and created serious financial windfalls for companies involved.

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.  (Side note: 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 we’ve put less than 100 calories in there for you.
3. 8 Minute Abs – the name says it all. That’s all you need to hear to know exactly what you get and how long it’ll take. It’s specific and very powerful – enough that on the strength of this concept hundreds of thousands of copies were sold
   
4. Time Shares – it’d be almost impossible for someone today not to know what a time share is – but in the late 60’s and early 70’s this was a breakthrough concept. You could simply purchase a week of a hotel/condo instead of buying the whole thing. The concept first debuted in Europe and quickly spread to the US in Florida and Hawaii.
5. 101 Nights of Grrreat Sex – I absolutely loved this concept when I saw in bookstores. It was so different. This is a paperback (mass market, bookstore) book by Laura Corn that has 50 sealed activities for men and 50 for women. You just rip out a page and away you go. You don’t have to think too much because it’s all there for you. The other point that I absolutely love about this book is the curiosity factor. You simply cannot “browse” the book like you typically would in a bookstore. All the pages are sealed and you only get little tantalizing hints like “Sucking the Mango”, etc. Laura is a fabulous marketer and constant promoter – she smartly has charged a premium price on her of $29.95 (way more than most paperbacks).
6. The Real World is probably the first reality TV show and was a major breakthrough because there were no actors and no script. MTV concocted a recipe to whip up mega drama from a bunch of strangers all living together. Hey, I watched it. I still remember season #1 in NY. This concept is so strong that they are still going years and years later. Of course, reality TV has gone haywire in the past few years and really exploded. TV viewers will watch just about any kind of reality show if Flavor Flav is any indication.
7. Club Med started the all-inclusive concept for vacations in the 50’s. This was a BIG idea since previously you had to pay for meals, drinks, activities, etc. all separate.
8. 24 is the TV show that I haven’t seen copied yet. It’s got a unique format of every episode occurring in an hour of real time. And the entire season occurs over exactly 24 hours. Missy and I were totally hooked on it until about Season 5 or 6. If you watch this show – you know what I mean when I say we can’t believe some of the twists and ridiculous turns the writers put in there – but we go along for the ride.

Okay I’m sure many of you picked up on some of these BIG ideas but I want to make sure nothing is glossed over because this is critical and means the difference between a “base hit” or a “home run” product.

There are 5 major things I think about and keep in mind when coming up with a BIG idea or hook for something I’m doing:

#1: Give Them the FISH!

I can’t over emphasis this idea and I can’t remember how long I’ve been telling this to students. People are downright lazy – cater to it! Everyone knows the saying about if you give the man a fish you feed him for a day but if you teach him to fish you feed him for life. Let me give it to straight here – that’s complete and total B.S.!

People want the fish handed to them on their plate, grilled perfectly and with some seasonal vegetables on the side. Look at Home Depot – the world’s largest “do it yourself” company in the world. Why did they suddenly start buying up companies left and right and provide the service for consumers? And why does their CEO think the “done for you” services will eclipse their current sales? Hmmmm….

I’ve had big success with giving people the “fish” including the first online product that you’re probably sick of hearing by now - Instant Sales Letters. The whole hook behind Instant sales letters is in the headline on the site – “In Only 2 ½ Minutes You Can Quickly and Easily Create A Sales Letter Guaranteed To Sell Your Product Or Service…Without Writing! Looking To Increase Your Business? Just Fill In A Few Blanks And PRESTO… You’ve Just Created A Powerful, Money-Making Sales Letter!”

That hook has been responsible for me generating $1M+ with a little $40 – $50 product.

Another big success story using the “FISH” concept has got to the Public Domain Goldmine package created with my partner, Michael Holland. After the success of my Public Domain Riches product where I covered how to find and profit from public domain works – I realized many people didn’t want to go through the trouble of finding the public domain works and analyzing markets themselves. Here’s the big idea:

I’m going to hand you 35 different public domain works on a silver platter with nearly EVERYTHING done for you and ready to start making you money. We’re talking all the market research, competitive analysis, keyword analysis, locating back-end affiliate revenue sources, finding potential joint venture partners, clearing the copyrights, etc. – All for a TINY fraction of the time and money you would have to spend if you did it all yourself

That hook was enough to make sure all the volumes released so far have instantly sold out. Giving people exactly what they want handed to them in a done-for-them concept is so powerful.

As I look back, I’ve been doing this since I started selling information in ‘98. In fact, one of the very first successful products was a pre-done newsletter for cosmetic surgeons to send to their patients already written for them. Here’s how very simple and straightforward the letter selling this product started:

“How To Write A Patient Newsletter…Without Writing”

Dear Doctor,

Are you too busy to write your own patient newsletter?

You know you need a newsletter, but if you’re like most doctors, you just can’t find the time to ever get one out. Coming up with interesting articles and compelling stories is hard, hard work, and unless you have lots of extra time on your hands, it’s easy to keep putting off publishing a newsletter until “someday”.

But of course, we all know “someday” usually never comes…

Oh sure, there are a couple companies that will do it all for – but they’ll charge you an arm and a leg. And since they don’t really know the first thing about compelling offers and killer copy it probably won’t get too many patients to actually call you (which is the whole point of putting out a newsletter).

Well, all that can change starting now…

Announcing The Pre-Done, Ready-To-Go, Camera-Ready, Just Plug-In Your Name and Phone Number, Patient Newsletters

I’d possibly put “101 Nights of Grrreat Sex” in this since each torn out page gives you exact specific instructions but they don’t give you all the props, etc.

Okay on to the second way to develop BIG ideas and hooks…

#2: Make Your Promise Specific

Specifics are so important but usually completely overlooked because it’s much easier to make a generic promise. However, a specific promise or a specific target market makes your marketing that much more powerful.

One of my best selling products (since 2001) has been “33 Days to Online Profits” that I co-wrote with Jim Edwards. I firmly believe that “brand” has been kept alive because of the very specific claim or hook. Originally when Jim and I first began discussing the idea behind this ebook it was going to 30 Days to Online Profits – but we decided on “33” because it was specific (and credible). The other unique aspect of this product is that each day you are given a homework assignment so it’s a step-by-step, day-by-day course for 33 days.

I have no doubt in my mind if the title was “30 Days to Online Profits” it wouldn’t be as successful.

Here’s another example from an actual critique I gave to a student when they submitted an idea that they wanted to create an info product for Stay-at-home-moms….

Here’s what I told them in the critique: “Stay at home moms are a great category – you need to get specific on it the moneymaking info. How about something like “233 Ways Stay at Home Moms Can Make an Extra $200 Every Month” Now that’s different, specific and has a nice hook to it.”

You can see from my comments how much more powerful this would make the concept. Specifics also apply to things like “1001” compiled resources. However, I don’t like “typical” numbers so I’d use very specific numbers like “233” or “33” as I mentioned.

Looking at the first group of examples I’d obviously put “8-minute abs”, “100 calorie packs” and probably “101 Nights of Grrreat Sex” into the specifics category. Side Note: Notice “101 Nights” is in both categories and I firmly believe you can create bigger and better hooks by having not just one of these factors in your BIG idea. Stack them on top of one another!

Another good example of specifics selling the big idea is the success of “5 Hour Energy”.  I found this a few years back when I needed an energy boost before my Hockey finals. I went to 7-11 and was sitting there trying to decide which energy supplement/drink/powder/doohickey I should buy. I saw this little bottle called “5 Hour Energy”. I read a tiny bit on the back of the bottle and grabbed it. Yeah it tasted like crap but it worked. Not only did it give me more energy (we won the championship) but it worked from their marketing standpoint.

A point-of-purchase product like that really depends on you being able to make a split second decision whether or not you’ll get it. (Fact is, many decisions are made like this from a quick emotional, gut level but we don’t want to admit it to ourselves.) So using #2 – a specific promise of “5 hours of energy” they were able to get my business. Now just recently I saw them advertising their site – www.5hourenergy.com on TV which to me means the product has become pretty successful in a marketplace filled with competitors (like Red Bull, etc).

#3: Go the Opposite Direction

I love this. However, I don’t suggest being different just for the sake of being different – however – there is a lot to be said for ‘zigging’ when others ‘zag’.

My biggest example of this is the “Underground” concept I developed

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. Of course, the easy way (and trust me there is nothing easy about putting on seminars) would have been to just gather up all my buddies and have a seminar – but that would be too similar to other established events.

My big hook (which was true) is every year I bring in a lot of 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. It really worked! Each year the event has SOLD-OUT weeks before the event took place (just as a comparison most other events will get the bulk of their registrants 2-3 weeks before the seminar and most will take registrants up until the event.)

[Shameless plug: This year’s Underground® 6 event has an incredible line-up of speakers and we’re just about to announce 2 really big keynote additions. The very best bonuses including the VIP networking dinner and lowest ticket prices expire on January 20, 2010. Click here for details!

For a broader example of going the opposite direction, think about when VW Beetle first came to the U.S. with their “Think Small” campaign in 1960.

It was the era of big cars and automakers were trying to outdo themselves by building bigger and bigger cars for the American public. But the VW Beetle quickly became a blockbuster because it went in the opposite direction and even highlighted the fact it was small. This campaign was so powerful that AdAge magazine named it the #1 in it’s Top 100 Advertising Campaigns list.

#4: Move to a New Application

Many times you can create a great hook by simply taking one successful hook from one industry or place and moving it somewhere else.

A great example of this is the successful Time Shares concept I already mentioned to you and moving it to other industries. The time share concept has been successfully applied to private jets (think NetJets), exotic cars, luxury second homes, yachts, etc.

Or on a smaller level, one of my friends and former Underground® II speaker is a great example of this. John Alanis’ site is www.WomenApproachYou.com and the whole hook behind his info products is to get women to approach you instead of you having to chase them.

Great concept – however it’s not even close to original!

Both John and I would credit Dan Kennedy with being a tremendous influence in our business. And one of Dan’s most successful products is “Magnetic Marketing” – with the big idea of not chasing business but having it come to you.

See any similarities?

#5: Being First

Sometimes the most important thing you can to is simply be the first. From our example list “Time Shares”, “Club Med” and “Real World” qualify since they were the very first in their category.

If you are moving into a crowded marketplace you can actually “slice” off a piece of that market to be first. For instance, Dan Kennedy talks about his foray into helping dentists and chiropractors with their practice marketing. He would say his company was “the single biggest provider of practice building information for the dental & chiropractic profession”. And that’s because nobody else was serving both.

Or how about this one?

Hedonism (owned by SuperClubs) took the concept behind all-inclusive resorts from ClubMed and geared only towards singles or adventurous singles. But that wasn’t the end because another smart company niched the all-inclusive concept again but only for romantic couples with “Sandals” resorts.

If you start thinking about these points for creating the BIG idea or a hook – you’ll action begin to notice ideas everywhere. Plus, you’ll also see how successful products/services are in many ways take-offs on other successful concepts/ideas that came before them.

Or how about this mega moneymaking example – if you have kids you surely have heard of the Wiggles, right?

Zak likes their songs and surprisingly (or maybe not) I now know all the words to the songs on his Wiggles CD. The Wiggles have become a huge hit by following BIG idea method #4 and #5. So huge that according to Business Review Weekly magazine, The Wiggles were Australia’s highest grossing entertainers for the year 2005, earning more than AC/DC and Nicole Kidman combined.

2 of the Wiggles started off in a regular rock bank called “The Cockroaches” and had some modest success. It was only after deciding to move to a new application (#4) and being first (#5) did they have their massive success.

For moving to a new application they took their same popular rock sound and moved to kids music. Most kids music pretty much stunk but the Wiggles aren’t bad. Now moving to a new application they didn’t need to compete against tens of thousands of other hopeful musical acts trying to go big and mainstream. They went for kids and cornered the market. According to Wikipedia one of their hit songs came from reworking a few of the old Cockroaches tunes into children’s songs. For example, “Do the Monkey” was originally a Cockroaches song with different lyrics. Another Cockroaches song, “Get Ready To Wiggle”, inspired the new band’s name.

Then the other portion of the BIG idea used her was (#5) Being First. Now, they were not literally the first children’s entertainers but they took this combination of CDs, live performance, videos, and characters to develop a sticking point in the heads of little rug rats everywhere.

The more you can incorporate a BIG idea or hook into your product – the easier it’ll be to write a kick-ass sales promotion for it. It almost writes itself. The times when I’ve struggled writing copy is because I didn’t have enough of a big idea behind it.

Maverick Rule #3: You must charge a premium price so you have a large margin to provide an extraordinary value & experience.

About 2 years ago I conducted a $10,000/person workshop on “How to Sell Super High-Priced Information Products and Services” and I’ll share a few insights here…

If you boil down my biggest profit windfalls in my business (and the most astute marketers I observe) it has come down to selling premium products and services at premium prices. That’s how my business has leapfrogged from 6-figures to 7-figures and now multiple 7-figures a year!

Personally, I’ve sold everything from $5,000 workshops to $14,500.00 “Apprentice Programs” to $20,000 MasterMind groups and even a $40,000+/yr program for cosmetic surgeons.

First, let’s say you want to make an extra $1M this year – then you’d have to sell 20000 copies of your ‘doohickey’ at $50. Or it could be 2000 copies at $500. Or better still 200 copies at $5000. It’s a lot easier dealing with 200 customers than 20,000. Think of all the customer service and infrastructure, etc.

Once again before we get into the “HOW” let’s discuss the “WHY”…

Reason #1: More Profits

Okay no surprise here. When you sell for higher prices you make more profits. Very few companies have been able to sustain a “low price” position in the marketplace. Sears couldn’t. K-Mart couldn’t. And now it remains to be seen what Wal-Mart does with that position. (Actually if you study Wal-Mart you’ll notice they are bringing in some significantly high-priced, high-margin products.)

Reason #2: Better Customers

Price qualifies your customers more than you might realize. The ones that pay $7 for an ebook are going to be the ones that whine and complain the most! They’ll tax and strain your customer support team. But in comparison the customers who spend significant amounts of money are surprisingly easier to deal with and less demanding.

Think about the last time you gave free advice to someone – what happened? That’s right. Nothing. But if you had made them pay you for consulting – they would have taken it to heart.

Reason #3: Psychology of Price Works In Your Favor

This is a big one! We’ve always been taught “You get what you pay for”. It’s not uncommon for a prospective customer to discount a product or offering because it’s “too cheap”. If the price is not in line with what it should be you’d think there is something wrong.

Reason #4: Can Deliver More Value

Ultimately the value you provide will dictate the profits you receive from your customers. Increase the value and your revenues go up. By high-profit products with high-margins you have lots more wiggle room to deliver sensational value. You can really “WOW” your customers and buyers. Not only can you throw in high-value extras but you can afford to deliver truly unique unadvertised bonuses and follow-ups.

Reason #5: Some Buyers Will NOT Buy Low-Priced Items

It sounds crazy but some customers are only premium buyers. If you gave them a discount it would actually decrease the response. Plus, some customers are only comfortable buying in the high-end range. I was shocked when I discovered with my first high-priced offering. My Apprentice program was $14,500 and at the time this was head and shoulders above any other marketer.

I thought my best prospects for this program would be customers who had already bought from me and were happy. Surprisingly about half of the people in this program had *NEVER* bought anything from me before. Their comfort level was for a premium offer.

Reason #6: You Will OWN The Marketplace

I think this is the biggest reason of all…

This means you can afford to pay more to acquire a customer. This is huge! If I’m in the same marketplace and I’m competing against someone who only has $100.00 product at the end of their funnel and I have a $10,000.00 offering – there’s going to be almost no contest.  I can spend more on Pay-per-click, more on advertising, more on affiliate pay-outs, more on offline follow-up, more on testing unusual advertising places, etc..

And I can make bad results work for me. If I’m direct mailing for a high-priced product I only need a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the response for a low-priced product to make me money.

Fact is, the business owner who can spend the most to acquire a customer will WIN.

Period. End of story.

Most people are undercharging for what they provide. My rule of thumb and one of my values I look at it every morning in my planners says “I get rich by enriching others 10x – 100x what they pay me in return”.

That’s a big deal for me. If you pay me $1000 for a product – I want to make sure it delivers $10,000 in value for my customers. I suggest you consider something similar. If your product isn’t good enough for you to raise your price on it – make it better!

And that’s the first step at the “HOW” to double or triple our prices…start brainstorming the value you provide.

Step #1 – Brainstorming Additional Value

Either find a trusted advisor, work with your team (if you have one) or just grab a blank yellow legal pad and start coming up with answers. It doesn’t matter how crazy they are. Just write them all down. In fact, the rules of brainstorming should be used:

• Rule #1 – No criticism allowed (turn off your left brain)
• Rule #2 – The wilder the better…everything’s possible
• Rule #3 – Quantity
• Rule #4 – Jump off and “Plus” others ideas

You want to start with a blank slate and just “blue sky” questions like these:

• “How can I provide 10x-100x the value to my customers?”
• “What can I do that will absolutely amaze them?”
• “How can I get my customers the end-result they want on a silver platter?”
• “How can I ‘do it for them’?”

Step #2 – Your thinking

Next, setting higher prices begins inside your head. People are usually too slow to raise prices and it’s more about confidence & self-image than the actual value delivered. Get Maxwell Maltz’s book “Psycho Cybernetics” and consider your self-image. We all have self images in every single area of our life and if you are not charging a premium it’s usually more to do with what’s in-between your ears than the actual marketplace. Which brings me to my next point, never allow your competition to set your prices. Just because someone else charges $x dollars – that does not mean you have to charge similar prices. There will be always a very profitable spot for businesses at the premium scale who deliver what’s perceived as exceptional products and value.

Step #3 – Targeting the right marketplace

Another mistake I see a lot is going after markets who cannot afford to pay premium prices. There’s no reason you cannot have another division of your business go after customers who have already shown they will pay premium prices for products/services. For example, I have a giclee of a painting by Thomas Arvid in our dining room at home. I believe we paid about $2500-$3000 for this work. Now in case you are unfamiliar with the term a giclee is really just a fancy print. This one being on canvas. I can most certainly assure you there is a high margin in this piece.

Why would I and many others pay such a premium for it? Well, the artist’s originals go for $25,000 or more now (if you can even get them) and he chose a subject that buyers would pay a premium for – namely high end wines. Also, it’s a limited edition piece (something we’ll discuss in greater detail shortly.) Arvid only specializes in hyper realistic wines paintings. They are absolutely beautiful and the first time I saw his work in Carmel, CA I was blown away. (You can see for yourself at www.ThomasArvid.com) Arvid paints high-end wines like Opus One, Silver Oak, Caymus, etc.

And the people who are passionate about these high-end wines will pay a premium for wonderful art. He stumbled onto this by accident when he started painting and found that a red wine painting was snapped up immediately. Very astutely Arvid learned more about wine and which ones to paint so that customers would open up their wallets.

And the final aspects of creating a high-priced offer are the psychological ones…

We’ve talked about the psychology of scarcity previously in this post. Human beings have been hard-wired to want what is going away. Many more people are motivated by the thought of potential loss than potential gain. You see this used all the time in marketing and it works *IF* there is truth behind or we perceive there to be truth behind it. Here’s one example from a company I buy a lot of wine from that really illustrates this point (combined with ‘reason why’):

If you have trouble reading the text in the email – here’s the main part (underlining is my own):

WINE ALERT: As you probably read in the news, our friends at Silver Oak experienced a terrible fire at their winery earlier this year. At that time, there were rumors that they had lost most of their past and current vintages. Hence, the winery ceased new sales of their prized Silver Oak 2001 Alexander Valley Cabernet – - Robert Parker’s highest rated Silver Oak since renowned 1997 vintage – - to the great disappointment of thirsty collectors across America who have made this wine the #1 selling Collector Cabernet. However, today the big news is our friends at Silver Oak just found 15 more cases of this wine + several BIG bottles including an extremely rare 6L quadruple magnum (details below) safely tucked away in their private cellar and have made an exclusive offer to Porthos Insiders on a “first come, first sell” basis. These are the last cases and only big bottles of this prized vintage that will ever be available for sale so don’t miss this insiders-only offer!

Some of you know I bought the 6L quadruple magnum (that’s equivalent to 8 regular bottles). I really like Silver Oak anyway so I wouldn’t have bought this just because it was so scarce (or at least I tell myself that). I’m planning on popping this bad boy for some big celebration.

With this information the only thing stopping you from raising your price is yourself. But if you want to just try it out – you can always start small by offering a “Deluxe” or “Gold” version of your existing product/service and see what happens. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by adding some of these elements to your marketing how you can easily double or triple your prices and still provide an incredible value.

Okay that wraps up part 2 – part 3 will cover creating your own MasterMind group and authentic connections, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

* * * *

** Update**

You can now download this series of blog posts (and the other posts they refer to) here. http://www.surefiremarketing.com/decade/

Here’s a glimpse at part of my list…

Personal Accomplishments:

• 2 incredible kids (Zak & Zoe)
• Freedom to work at home to see the kids grow up, take them to school any day or go on their field trips or special events without worrying about it.
• Married to an encouraging, supportive and flexible wife. (Thanks Missy!)
• Millionaire before the age of 31
• “Officially” a pro beach volleyball player

Impact:

• Helped raise over $500,000.00 for Virgin Unite to start a Young Entrepreneurship program in the U.S.
• Directly donated another $500,000.00+ to charities including Caring House Foundation, Tony Hawk Foundation, Village Enterprise Fund, etc.
• Helped thousands of people get their own Internet business and improve their lives and financial situation.

Adventure:

• #144 to go into Space with Virgin Galactic
• Ran with the Bulls in Spain
• Baja racing 3x
• PlayersRun Road Rally dressed as Elvis
• HALO Skydive
• Scuba diving between tectonic plates in Iceland
• Celebrity hockey game with NHL Pros and Gordie Howe
• Rafting the Gauley River
• Bungee 440 feet in New Zealand
• Drove a Lambo 200mph+ (in a green speedo)

Business Accomplishments:

• “Real” book ‘Moonlighting on the Internet’ published by Entrepreneur Press in 3^rd printing
• Sold out the Underground® Seminar weeks early (for the last 5 years)
• Have over 5 different products that have eclipsed $1,000,000 in gross sales.
• Run two sold-out, high-level MasterMind groups
• Spent time with and interviewed Sir Richard Branson, Jesse James, Tony Hawk, John Paul DeJoria, Frank McKinney, Chip Conley, Carl Banks, etc.
• Appeared or featured in INC, Business 2.0, Fox Business News, Portfolio.com, TIME, Entrepreneur, Outside’s GO magazine, American Way, TechCrunch,  USA Today, Denver Business Journal, Boston Globe, Millionaire Blue Prints, Forbes.com, LA Times, Financial Times, Portfolio.com, etc.
• Set the biggest goal of my life of getting 1,000,000 young entrepreneurs (aged 13-23) to start their own businesses by 2020.

Your Own List

Side note: I would strongly suggest you compile your own “Best of the decade” list of how far you’ve come. I’ve also been a big fan of using the power of gratitude but I heard this another way from Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach. He has a theory of people being disappointed because they cannot reach their “ideal”.

Dan gives the example of the horizon. We all know it’s silly to think we can ever reach the horizon because it keeps moving as we move closer to it. Same with an “ideal”. We feel despondent and maybe even depressed in our greatest victories if we attempt to measure them up to our ultimate ideals. But the people who are happiest are the ones of take stock of where they are today (Point B) than when they started (Point A). And we can all look back and gain that confidence and awe of how far we’ve come.

Okay fair warning, this is going to be quite a long post but I promise it’ll be filled with some serious insights for you. (In fact, I think there will be so many prominent and buried lessons here that I’m willing to put up a little bit of a prize for the best ‘lesson detectives’ – more details at the end of the post.)

To set the stage, Jan 1, 2000 when this decade started, I was in a 1-bedroom apartment and was engaged to Missy. I didn’t have a website and I barely had an email address.

That same month was when I got an idea at 3 o’clock in the morning and woke Missy up to tell her about InstantSalesLetters.com. (She wasn’t happy!) And then I did what most people probably wouldn’t: I hopped out of bed, registered the domain and got to work on it. By February 2000, with about $1,500 invested, I made my first $29.95 sale. It was one of the most amazing feelings in the world to take an idea and have it turn into cash. And the sales kept coming – about $1,800 the first month…then $3,400…then approx. $7,800.00 and roughly $9,400.00 the fourth month out of the gate. I was on track to hit six-figures with my very first site – and that’s when things really started exploding.

As people started hearing about my success, I was invited to speak at my first Online marketing conference and I started helping others take their interests, passions, hobbies, etc. and create online oil wells.

The unusual way to ‘stumble’ onto success…

There’s a profound theory I heard from R. Buckminster Fuller that says your true success is found perpendicular along the path to your original perceived goal.  Instant Sales Letters is a perfect example because my original end goal was to sell it for $500k to Stamps.com or someone like that. But on my way to building up that site – I had so many people ask me how I started making money so quickly that I began teaching. And that teaching became part of my “accidental” success path for the last 8 years, opening up one door after another. I would never have got on that track unless I was moving towards the original goal.  And it’s the same thing today – the next chapter in my life is with my Maverick Business Adventures® and Maverick Business Insider companies – which wouldn’t have been formed without the contacts, connections and success delivered from my Internet business.

Starting with the Fundamentals

It’s easy to look back and see my somewhat meteoric rise with Instant Sales Letters and laud it as being an “overnight success”. Not exactly true. Before this decade started I had been preparing and studying direct response fundamentals, inner success laws and psychology.

One of my biggest mentors is Earl Nightingale. He passed away several years ago but you can and need to get everything he recorded at Nightingale.com.  He has a program called “Lead The Field” and “The Strangest Secret”. I learned from Earl Nightingale that if you want to be an expert, you spend an hour a day reading or studying on whatever subject that you’re interested in for 3 years. Or if you want to world-class expert you ready or study for 1-hour a day for 5 years.

So I said, “Well, what would happen if I read for two or three hours a day?”

I just started learning as much as I possibly could around these subjects.  Let’s cover a few here since I really believe the fundamentals never change.

When I first really started this blog I created a series of posts around the 9 ‘inner secrets’ to success. Those are worth re-visiting:

Inner Success Secret #1: Cheerful Expectancy

Inner Success Secret #2: Set your Plan

Inner Success Secret #3: Do One Proactive Thing a Day

Inner Success Secret #4: Deliver Exceptional Value

Inner Success Secret #5: Build on Your Successes

Inner Success Secret #6: Decision

Inner Success Secret #7: Continual Learning

Inner Success Secret #8: Gratitude

Inner Success Secret #9: Giving

Direct response

I would have to say figuring out and learning about direct response has been one of the biggest paradigm shifts for me. Since we’re heading down memory lane, I have to take the story back well beyond this decade to the bi-centennial.

My family is from Russia and immigrated to the U.S. in 1976. My Dad came over with $256 in his pocket for me, my Mom and my Grandmother. Just a year and half later, my Dad started his own company repairing (and then later selling) medical equipment.

I grew up working in the business starting with telemarketing latex gloves at age 14, and then even selling medical equipment to docs in person at age 16 when I got my license. At the time, I thought this totally sucked! My friends were living at the beach having a great time and I was spending my summers pedaling X-ray film and EKG machines. You can definitely look back and see significant turning points in your life, and one of my mine came when a doctor client of mine, Dr. Nathan Wei, gave me a Jay Abraham tape that turned on “the lights” about direct response marketing. I was about 18 or 19 at the time and I basically devoured it.

I loved the fact that I didn’t have to deal with rejection anymore in person and the incredible leverage of ‘knocking’ on tends of thousands of doors and only speaking to interested people. It was endlessly fascinating to me to realize you could write something in an ad or letter (now a website) and have people open up their wallets or raise their hands.

From Jay Abraham I learned to think broadly about how to leverage businesses. From there I found Ted Nicholas. Ted Nicholas is a true gentleman in the direct response world and I found his teachings just as he was transitioning out of his newsletter. I ended up buying all the back issues and previous products. (Actually I remember about 1 or 2 years later writing a note to Ted about our shared immigrant background and how much his teachings had meant to me – Ted responded back to me personally from Switzerland.)

At the same time I was studying Ted, I got a direct mail piece from some guy named “Dan Kennedy”. Dan truly changed my life. He is probably one of 3 people I credit with helping me achieve financial independence at such a young age. I went on to pay a small fortune for his manuals, books, audios, seminars and personal guidance.

I continued learning from direct marketing and copywriting masters who came before me; people like Gary Halbert, John Caples, David Ogilvy, Bob Stone and Joe Sugarman. (BTW – Joe is our business icon guest for the next Maverick Baja adventure.) From there I might find a random reference to someone in a manual or book and immediately look them up, which lead to more influences and original sources. I loved digging through the past to the beginning of mail order since those guys had to truly persuade people without the benefit of instant ordering via phone, fax, online, etc. Their customers had to slog to the post office to place their order. Greats like Claude Hopkins, John E. Kennedy and Maxwell Sackheim. And then I went back even further to find obscure (and extremely rare texts) like “Printed Salesmanship” by Robert Ruxton.

Obviously there is a long history of direct response, but if you boil it all down it comes to:

• An offer (ideally with a deadline)
• A way to respond/call to action (fax, phone, online, etc)
• Measurement of response

A basic example is one I told to a dentist friend of mine. I explained to him a little bit about direct response marketing while playing volleyball together in Turks & Caicos. I told him to mail his patients with an offer; in his case it was raw materials for crowns. The cost had gone up significantly and he would have to raise his price. Because he valued his patients he would give them a window to get any crowns or dental work done at the old price until X date. They had to bring the letter in to get the special. That’s it, pretty basic. And that worked spectacularly, creating his best month ever.

With the web – nearly everything can be measured and quick test results achieved. That’s part of what makes this one of the most incredible times to be around. I definitely believe a true direct response fundamental is a key to understanding the Web. I got my chops by writing ads for my dad’s business, attempting to sell medical equipment that we only previously sold face-to-face and toes-to-toes. My dad would look at the ads I created and say, “Who’s going to read all that?” I had to persuade him to let me try it and see what happened. Quite frankly, it was a revolution in the way we could sell because we had now expanded our reach nation-wide and I only spoke to doctors who were extremely interested in a product (for a demo) or who actually whipped out their credit cards to buy. Here’s one of my original ads:

Understanding Marketing Psychology

And then the next fundamental I stress deals with psychology. I was a marketing major and got my B.S. from the University of Maryland (a top 25 business school when I graduated), but I always say I didn’t learn much in college except partying. All my real marketing insights and knowledge came from self-study and trying things myself. In fact, if I had to do it all over again I probably would be a psychology major. To me, it’s fascinating what motivates people to take action or buy.

One of my first exposures to how powerful this could be was a book written by a professor at Arizona State University, Dr. Robert Cialdini. His book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” is definitely a top 10 book for me. I’ve read this book at least 9 times and continue to find amazing insights each time I do. Joe Sugarman also has a great book on psychology called “Triggers” where he has a slightly different take.

I uploaded a special presentation for you on the 11 Hidden Psychological Hot Buttons to Create Maximum Sales for you. (Please use this material and information ethically!)

The final thing I’ll mention about fundamentals came after meeting one of my entrepreneurial heroes, Sir Richard Branson. I was so inspired that on the plane ride home I started jotting down a list of “rules” and got to 34. I called it “34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs” and it received a ton of excitement. And then it became been the catalyst for a lot of things, including a print book by the same title.

“Maverick Entrepreneurial Philosophy” of Make More, Have More Fun and Give More!

I realized this blog post was going to be a really, really long post so I’m breaking this up into several days – plus a lot of people suggested I put into a PDF. So good news – at the end of this series, I’ll bundle it all up into a neat little PDF with a bow. (Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or provide your email address in the upper right-hand corner to be notified when each new section is up on the blog.)

* Update: We just completed the PDF of all 5 parts. Download it here *

Part 2 will start where a lot of people believe they need the most help in these interconnecting circles… Make More

I love reading all sorts of different sites, magazines, etc. And sometimes ideas just pop out at me and I can’t do anything with all of them so here’s one I saw the other day that I think has great potential…

Inside Game Informer magazine they had a feature piece about how the company behind Rock Band, Harmonix, is now going to release something called “Rock Band Network“.  And what this will do is give individual bands, publishers and artists the tools needed to create Rock Band tracks and sell them through Xbox live. Now you don’t need to be a Green Day to get your music out to the legions of fans who are looking for more tracks to play.

If you read the article I scanned for you (below) it gives a good account of why this was created thanks to a backlog of bands wanted to get into the game (read: demand). And they wanted to get into the game because they were seeing massive upswings in music sales once they hit in there.

The other interesting thing you’ll read about in the article is the amount of work required to make your band’s track into the game is “not trivial”. That’s good news as I’ll explain in a sec.

So here’s the idea…drum roll please…

“Done for Them Service for Bands, Musicians and Artists”

Now let’s give our new fledgling business a cool name – I dunno – how about “Rock Starmakers 2.0″? I’m sure you can do better but we’ll go with it for now.

If you are into RockBand and into music – this might be the perfect idea for you. I really think this would crush it since we already talked about the demand and the fact it’s pretty difficult for a novice to do this on their own. Now this does have some downfalls – namely there isn’t that much leverage in it since you are trading time for money – but I’ll fix that in a second.

Basic offer – $xxx for getting your track into Xbox Live and playable on Rockband.

If you want to jazz up the deal and give yourself a little more leverage I’d add a success bonus. Rockband Network is set to pay out 30% of every dollar they receive – so why couldn’t your agreement also state that you get X% of every payout. Just like a music publisher or record label. I’d suggest you collect the money and provide a monthly deposit to your artists (but that’s up to you and I’m not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV.)

If I were making a bet, any band or artist that had a few bucks and realized the millions of people who play Rock Band would be all over this deal. And the element of scarcity you add is that you work with bands/artists on a first-reserved, first created studio slot based on payment. I bet for zero bucks and just some time connecting with bands on MySpace you could have a dozen customers lined up immediately! Make sure you take into account all the fees required to get the track approved and your time before you set a price.

Let’s go back to your time involved. Initially you’ll probably want to do this yourself unless you have extra funds immediately. If that’s the case, outsource the work now or as soon as you can. Free yourself up to do the marketing.

Joint Venture and Partners:

Next, you’ll want to start thinking about where you can find indie bands and artists who’d lust after being in the game. I already mentioned MySpace and that’s probably the first stop. But soon after, I’d start looking for and approaching joint venture partners once you have some case studies and success stories. Think of all the places bands and artists gather or find one central entity that has some affinity with them…or better still someone who has more to gain than you. The perfect partner would be a site like CDBaby.com.

Think about it. Getting your music in a hot game significantly increases downloads and purchases, so CDBaby.com has something to gain by promoting you to their base. What’s more, if you work out a fair affiliate relationship they might be even happier. I know there are dozens and dozens of sites that have a relationship with artists and it’s up to you to make it ‘brain dead’ simple for them to partner with you. Or think about working with musician stores in your area. I bet they’d be all over promoting this.

What’s more, now we start considering other services to sell to our customers. Maybe you start with a $xxx promotion package that gets the word out once their song hits Rock Band. Maybe there’s MySpace mgmt, Twitter mgmt, Facebook – all their Web 2.0 social media tools. And there’s all sorts of other back-end services that will start popping up that you can deliver or you can partner with someone else to deliver. Or maybe you also put your bands and artists on a continuity program so that they get X amount of songs per month submitted automatically. I mean – the ideas are truly endless.

But I’m not done yet making this into a really nice empire. Let’s say by this point our “Rock Starmaker 2.0″ business is going along at a nice clip – now it’s time to leverage again. You could license your concept, systems, marketing plans like a “business in a box” to people around the world or perhaps even start selling franchises.

All of this from a tiny little article and about 10 minutes of my time thinking about it. Still think there are no good ideas out there? Phooey…

I truly hope somebody (or multiple people) run with this. Please keep me posted.

If you’ve been a reader here for awhile you know our 2020 goal is have 1,000,000 young entrepreneurs start their own businesses – and I’m thinking part of that will be an online area that includes an “idea bank” like this.

Please drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Look, even if you don’t “swipe” this idea – I hope you paid attention to the thinking of it. With every new advance in technology there’s a place for a “done for them” service. And if there’s a way to leverage it like the ‘certification’ or ‘licensing’ model all the better. Plus, I hope you noticed how I surveyed the marketplace landscape for partners and joint ventures. All of this adds to the power of starting something quickly and seeing what happens.

Also, I’ve got a lot of fun stories and pictures to add from our Maverick Totally Rad 80′s Road Rally last week that you’ll see here soon.

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