I’ve been overwhelmed with the quality of applicants for the Underground® 5 Scholarship Challenge for young entrepreneurs aged 13-21. Applicants came from around the world and just 6 points separated the top 10 and only 11 points separated top 20 so it was really, really close. Each of the winners will be my special guest during Underground® 5 and get the ultimate young entrepreneurs experience there including a special VIP lunch with speakers and Maverick Business Adventures® members. In fact, I just got confirmation this morning that Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, will be attending this luncheon also.

Here is a quick blurb on each of the winners (if you are coming to Underground® 5 please say ‘hi’ to them):

Albert Steven, 21
A native of Indonesia, Albert Steven always had the desire from his early childhood to “do something more”. While his mother consistently reminded him that he must make his own way, she also encouraged him to take the ‘safer’ path. Albert finally relented and enrolled in college. With nothing in the bank aside from his tuition money, he decided to take a huge risk and invest part of it to launch his business. His risk paid off as now his company has grown to 17 outsourced employees and grosses in the low to mid five figures per month. Albert is still continuing his studies as he runs his business part time.

Tyler Lamphere, 20
Tyler Lamphere believes he bleeds entrepreneurship. Both his father and grandfather were entrepreneurial from their teen years. Tyler has found a lot of inspiration from his father who built a successful construction company in his early 20′s. While Tyler dabbles in all kinds of internet marketing related businesses but his claim to fame is knowing the ins and outs of domain flipping. He states that in some cases he has been able to earn profits that exceed 3,000% of a tiny investment after just a week of ownership and for all who attend Underground 5 Online Seminar he will share his tricks of the trade.

Marshall Haas, 19
Marshall Haas loves fast things especially motorcycles. So it is no surprise that after reading Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week he would immediately start implementing a few of the strategies he learned to get his work done faster so that he could enjoy his motorcycle just a little more. Marshall thought of an idea of creating a company that actually integrated outsourcing into the business model. Today his company, inVision Projects, provides architectural renderings for architectural firms, home builders, developers and designers. His company outsources all of the work overseas, resulting in tremendous savings in both time and money for all parties involved in the transation.

Chris Allen, 21
A few years ago Chris Allen went backpacking alone across the USA and met a range of varied and wonderful people. He returned home inspired and motivated but his parents quickly brought him back to the real world as they proceeded to kick him out on the streets with nothing to his name. Doing what he had to do, Chris worked odd jobs to pay the bills and enrolled in college. Then one day he was approached by a former client. That conversation led to the creation of Networkology which provides live online speed networking for businesses worldwide. The software is unique and Chris has written more than 100,000 lines of code to make his dream a reality while he continues to pursue his college studies in BioTechnology.

Patricio Quezada, 17
Patricio Quezada stated that he has changed his business idea 4 times since he formally became an entrepreneur. He said that it wasn’t because they didn’t work but because he had to align his values within himself to successfully enjoy what he is doing. His belief is that this is the key to entrepreneurial success. Patricio’s company provides bilingual technology training to the Hispanic community. He got inspired to start this business because his Spanish speaking neighbors often sought him out for help. When he realized there was little technology support available for the Hispanic community he decided to come out with a line of workshops and programs that were bilingual. He is currently writing a bilingual computer training handbook that will be released in March 2009.

Asantewa Disroe, 14
Asantewa said that her greatest challenge was that older people tend to think that because she is young she does not know what she wants in life. Instead of giving her advice which she listens to and REALLY want they tend to try to tell her what to do. So in an effort to help herself and others she started a fun friendly teen networking site for girls that provides an open platform where they can discuss issues like malicious gossiping, teen pregnancy, sexual predators and family issues. Asantewa also has a line of branded clothing and accessories and hopes that the Underground 5 Online Seminar will help her think of ideas to expand her line of teen empowerment programs.

Danielle Renae Herb, 15
After experiencing an unexpected family tragedy when she was 14 years old Danielle Herb states that she completely understands what it means to live life as there will be no tomorrow. This rally cry is the motivation behind her company which teaches character self-esteem and overcoming fear to children and adults through natural horsemanship and equine assisted learning. Danielle also owns a private school with her mom called “The School Without Walls” where she teaches 5 days a week and does case studies on students who are profiled as ADD/ADHD. She is working on developing a host of programs for them using her natural horsemanship programs. Aside from running her business and teaching, she also cares for and feeds her 9 horses daily.

David Leggett, 20
David Leggett made an extremely powerful statement when he answered the legacy question. He said that he doesn’t want the world to remember him because he is not that important. What he is doing is important and what he is doing is trying to save children who are stuck in terrible situations. David runs a company were he is an independent publisher who sells ad space. His sites see up to 2 million page views per day. And in less than 6 months one of his sites has become one of the largest Photoshop sites online.

Avais Charania, 18
Avais understands what it means to take risks with money being that he started trading stocks when he was just 13 years old. He has dabbled in a few online ventures from eBay to online liquidation of wholesale products but his current business is a network of websites which allows users to convert videos to mp3 format. Avais has a couple of sites that are getting about 50,000 daily visitors and generating some nice little pocket cash while he is pursuing his studies at Penn State.

Radu A., 16 (Pending)
Radu is in the process of getting his company off the ground although he is currently generating 4 figures a month from what he calls ‘personal experiments’. He has learned to earn profits from buying and selling websites and affiliate marketing but he realizes there is so much more to learn. He seeks friendship and inspiration from all across the globe as he comes from a country where barely 5% of the population is connected to the Internet.

I’m incredibly excited to see what happens with this first “batch” of young entrepreneurs exposed to some of the world’s top online marketers. Hopefully one of these winners will be the next Internet Titan and look back on this as a pivotal breakthrough.

Will This Be Your Breakthrough Too?

Quite frankly, that’s the case of many attendees when the come ready to apply what they hear. In fact, I just got a note back from an attendee from 2 years ago who is now doing over $2.8M in his first full year jump-started by information and people he met at Underground®. (As of right now I cannot disclose too much more about the product but it’s in the beauty industry and nothing to do with making money on the Internet.) If are considering coming to the Underground® 5 – the final deadline is February 10, 2009. Hope to see you there.

BTW – I just got back from Baja a few days ago with the Maverick Business Adventures® group and will have some updates (pics/videos) for you shortly.

I’m really excited about this…

For the first time ever I’m introducing a scholarship opportunity for young entrepreneurs to attend Underground Online Seminar® 5.

You see, one of my real passions is helping young people and “turning” on the lights for them to see a different direction in their life.

A few years ago this “kid”, Nathan Morris, from North Carolina emails my office about his situation. He told me he’d read one of our introductory programs and was starting to make about $1000/month online from his college dorm room. He wanted to know if I would meet him for coffee.

Typically I don’t do that without charging a very significant consulting fee but this time I made an exception. Nathan drove up 12 hours for that cup of coffee but he walked away with a game plan to earn 6-figures from his tiny list of 2000-some people. Wait until you hear the niche he sells to — it’s so crazy and it could only work online. Nathan sells to enthusiasts who want to take the engine out a Honda Accord and move it to their Honda Civic to make it go faster! The best part about Nathan’s story is his Mom accusing him of dealing drugs because he started making so much money selling information products after our meeting.

*
Here’s part of what he told me later on:

“I met up with Yanik in Bethesda at a Starbucks after driving 12 hours to meet up with him to turn right back around and drive 12 hours back.  Anyhow, during that hour or two that I spent with Yanik at the coffee shop… he opened my eyes to so many new product ideas and marketing strategies that I honestly—almost two years later STILL haven’t been able to fully take advantage of! I am now making a full time income…and I literally have dumbfounded all of my college buddies since I only work for about 1 hour a day at night before bed. Even more incredible… in my main business, I have taken my income and successfully doubled it each year—and I’m on track to 10x it this year… putting me at over $100,000 a year from a VERY small niche, with a list of only just over 2000 people.” (Note: this was several years ago and Nathan is on to bigger and better things online.)

*

Anyway this was several years ago and unfortunately I really didn’t do very much hands-on help or teaching for young entrepreneurs since then. I’ve always been interested in it but I just didn’t make it priority…until now.

Part of the unique aspect of my new Maverick Business Adventures® group is ‘giving forward’ via education to teach young and aspiring entrepreneurs in communities we take part in adventures. (Actually next week in Baja we’ll be working with a group of Business students from a local University in Ensenada, Baja Mexico.)

So I got to thinking…why not do this with the Underground® too?

The kind of turbo boost a young entrepreneur could get here would be incredible since it has quickly become THE networking and learning event in the online community. (That’s not what I say but tons of others high-profile attendees who never miss it.) I’m hopeful this kind of exposure would help one of our young entrepreneur winners become the next Google, Facebook or Twitter. Who knows? You never know what can happen and this is the best time in history to do it. It’s truly the golden age for creating online businesses from a bedroom, dorm room or living room and I hope this is the spark they look back on as a pivotal point.

These 10 super star young entrepreneurs selected will win the ultimate VIP experience at Underground® 5. Here’s what they get:

•    Free admission to the Underground Online Seminar® 5 to be held at a top-secret location in Washington, DC on February 20-22, 2009. ($2,995 value)

•    Face-to-face networking opportunities at the event with 300+ leading entrepreneurs and top Internet business owners including Ryan Allis, who has built multiple million dollar companies from scratch (one while in his teens), Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com; and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, the #1 online footwear retailer that broke $1 billion dollars in sales in 2008 & many more!

•    Private VIP Lunch with myself, multiple speakers from the Underground® and members of the exclusive Maverick Business Adventures® group. (Maverick Business Adventures® is a distinct group of 7-figure business owners committed to ‘giving forward’ to young entrepreneurs.)

•    Closed-door learning session during lunch.

•    Exclusive Maverick Young Entrepreneurs Swag Prize Bag (Special resources and goodies from top online experts -  $1000s in value.)

More details here –
http://www.UndergroundOnlineSeminar.com/challenge

If you are aged 13-21 and have the entrepreneurial spirit – I welcome your submission. Or if you know someone who should apply, please forward them this link. Thanks very much! – Y.S.

It’s the final day of the Elite MasterMind group meeting down here at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL. I’m up at 7:33 AM writing this post partially because of the reason I stated in the post. Let me explain and back up a little bit…

I’ve had both the Millionaire MasterMind group and then the Elite MasterMind group down here for their final meetings.  And sandwiched in between was a day of Power Boating. We took these 1400hp offshore rockets out on the water and got to drive. Pretty cool. Here are a few quick videos that pretty much sum it up (including Perry Belcher on water safety)

(Note: there may be a few spots remaining for the MasterMind group and more details are here)

Okay back to the point at hand…

We are t-minus 37 minutes away from an 8 AM must-hit deadline yesterday’s Elite MasterMind group threw done at 3 members, Justin Tupper, Paul Evans and Chuck Batson.

What started out as bit of a joke has become a pretty powerful catalyst to create action. I was listening to Justin Tupper present on his new golf info product created by a top PGA instructor along with his son his one of the best professional golfers in the world (taught by his Dad). Justin was showing everyone his 98% completed site and I blurted out a very subtle, “Get this son-of-a-bitch out!”

He nodded his head but I didn’t stop there.

I told him he had an 8 AM deadline to change the headline to what we decided on, change the pricing and get it out there to Beta test. (Side note: If you’re a golfer this looks like an amazing golf instructional program to help your game and give you bragging rights over your buddies.) Justin came back with an excuse about the programming on this shopping cart not quite done and little bit of backpedaling.

Must-Hit Deadline

I told him if he really and truly set the 8 AM deadline he’d figure it out. We’ve had forms that got sent to us which contained customer info and we processed them manually. There is a way around everything is you got your back against the wall. And that’s just one of the things a must-hit deadlines forces you to do – it shatters your excuses. You get creative and get things done!

Group Pressure
Now the other big aspect of what happened was a public commitment to the group. In this case it was the MasterMind group who he was accountable to.  There’s a big difference on commitment levels ranging from low to high based on how public something is. For instance a deadline inside your head usually won’t work at all (we think it does). A deadline written down for your own eyes only may or may not work. But a public deadline made to either an individuals or group that will have positive pressure on you – that’s almost a sure-lock to get it done!

And there’s one more component I gleefully added…

The embarrassing punishment

I told Justin that if he didn’t have his site ready by 8 AM and taking orders I got to go into the Hard Rock store and pick-up any outfit I wanted to make him wear. I was eyeing some really short hot pants and a skimpy girls tank top for him.  This is where it gets good. There’s something about a truly embarrassing punishment that now takes the deadline, group pressure and really mixes it to a whole new level. The MasterMind group got a big laugh out of imagining Justin down at the Black Jack tables wearing his little girlie outfit!

Everyone enjoyed doling out the deadline and punishment so much so that we gave it to two of the next MasterMind presenters too that had been procrastinating on a few things. Chuck Batson on his Raw Food Diets site and Paul Evans from Nichelogy on his 2009 ‘Raw Results’ training. I’m really proud of Chuck acting on the group’s suggestion for a much better hook for his raw food diet site right away -- the hook he had sitting under his nose was the story of how his Mom lost 36 lbs on the diet. We told him to make that the squeeze page and I’m happy to report it’s up this AM. (If you’re interested in losing weight and feeling more energetic you might want to try it. I’m thinking about it. Don’t worry you don’t have to eat veggies 24/7 -- it can be as simple as one meal to make a difference.)

Based on the feedback and advice we gave both them they also had to get things out there by 8 AM or else face the wrath of the group and the enjoyment of wearing a cute ensemble from the Hard Rock.

Does this stuff work?

It’s 7:57 AM as I wrap up this post and the meeting starts at 9:30 AM so I’ll know my answer soon – but if I had to place a bet – I’d bet they all did it! Last night leaving the tables Justin’s site was not working right – but I got an email from Justin sent me an email at 4:54 AM this morning with the finished link to his site for a “Twitter” release.

Speaking of deadlines the stuff works on me too because I wanted to get this post out before my meeting started. I could have slept a few more hours (would have helped after playing Black Jack until 2 AM last night) but I had my own deadline. (And no, there was no outfit involved for not getting this blog post done)

Actually I’ve got one more deadline-related item and that’s a marketing tip it’s somewhat transparent.

A simple, but very often overlooked, tip t is set a deadline for your offers and you’ll be surprised at the response. Easy formula to remember is no deadline and no offer = no sale. So taking my own advice (and letting in behind the curtain a bit) there is a looming must-hit deadline for you…and that’s January 15, 2009.

That’s the Early-Bird deadline for the Underground® Online Seminar 5 going on next month, Feb 20-22, 2009 in Washington, DC.

This is huge because you’ll save a full $1000.00 before the price increase but more importantly the biggest bonus of all will vanish if you miss this deadline. When you sign up before the early-bird deadline you’ll receive a special red VIP ticket and confidential password. You must have both in order to gain admittance into a private, closed-door dinner and Casino Royal night I’m holding on the first night of the Underground® 5 seminar.

It’s THE ideal time and place to cut JV deals, build relationships, and do high-level networking most people never have access to.

As you might remember this event is not bringing in the same usual “suspects”. I’ve managed to uncover a secretive group of real-people making real money online *NOT* selling “how to make money online” info. And because of the unique concept – it sells out every year!

But you don’t have to believe me it’s so good -- listen to why some of my MasterMind members (who are 6 & 7 figure earners) continue attending each year:

And I also posted some videos from 2 of the featured “Rogue Agent” speakers giving you a little taste of what’s in store for you in DC.

Trust me -- you need to be here at the Underground!

Okay there you have it -- I think there are some real gems in here to get whatever you’ve been procrastinating on DONE! Stop analyzing and just set a deadline, get some positive pressure and maybe, just maybe, buy yourself a skimpy outfit from the Hard Rock!

I’ll leave with one more video -here’s me in the 3rd row of the Billy Joel concert at the Hard Rock Sunday night. My cousin, Sophia, works here and got us down there -- pretty cool:

There’s an old story about a boy who wants a pony really badly for his birthday. When he wakes up to find a huge pile of crap at his house. He jumps around clapping and excited! Someone asks him, “Why are you so happy? You’ve got a mess of manure here?”

And to that the boy responds, “With that much shit – there’s got to be a pony in there somewhere!”

*
Well, that’s how I felt on Thursday with the supposed release of Maverick Business Insider.

It’s a *very* long story – but the short version is really buggy code to start with and one tech problem grew into another, etc. etc. Of course, after the initial frustration of the moment was gone – I took a step backwards and remained (mostly) calm. (Maybe surprisingly calm to a lot of people more directly involved.) I realized in the grand scheme of things a launch screwing up wasn’t that big a deal. I also used some of the principles my friend, John Harricharan, teaches in his PowerPause to create what I really wanted. (Plus at the same time feel grateful for what I already had in my life.)

Anyway – what I do want to point out is the good news. It’s an interesting notion that there’s good news somewhere in the pile of bad news. I’ve always believed things happen for a reason. And if the site wasn’t so screwed on Thursday I wouldn’t have shut it down and wouldn’t have searched for a new solution. I got a recommendation from Matt Bacak for an amazing guy named Mike Cline. If you ever need some serious tech work – not minor stuff – but serious stuff contact Mike. (Don’t even know if he’s taking new clients or wants more work since he doesn’t know I’m mentioning him here.)

Anyway in 24 hours we (he) rebuilt everything and we went live at 3pm yesterday. It’s hard to describe how impressive this is – I don’t know if I even grasp it. The bottom line is things are 5x better than what I originally intended and it’s a direct result of the first screw-up. If that didn’t happen we wouldn’t have used Mike or re-built the entire system.

Now there’s more good news (and it’s actually for you!)…

Because of the snafus and since we’re opening the doors on the weekend – I’ve decided to extend all the FAST-ACTION bonuses *way* beyond what we originally intended. (Fact is, they would have got snapped up in a few minutes during the intended Thursday release but now we’re going to open the doors wide to make sure you get it!)

You’re getting a special, $15k closed-door presentation entitled “Instant Leverage Points in Your Business That Bring You Surges of Cash”. It’s a presentation I did last January to 26 top-gun entrepreneurs and business leaders, who paid about $15k in membership fees and trip fees to come together in Baja, Mexico.

Plus, I’ve bundled up this DVD, the MindMap I handed out, my newest book called “34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs”, a 2 CD-Audio program and more – the only thing you pay for is s/h.

Truly a sweet deal for you to say “maybe” to trying the new ‘Maverick Business Insider’ newsletter. Get the whole scoop and find out about the special Fast-Mover Bonuses waiting for you.

* Come Say ‘Hi’ to me! *

As you know, I don’t speak that often so this is an unusual week. Monday, I’ll be at the ETR Bootcamp in Florida and then speaking on Thursday in Chevy Chase, MD at a local networking and business group for entrepreneurs called “The Entrepreneurs Group”.

* Forbes Adventurer Interview *

Also, something cool I didn’t post it up yet was an interview I did with Jim Clash from Forbes Adventurer. Jim talks to people who ‘push their lives to the limit’ so was excited to be interviewed. We talked about me being passenger #144 on Virgin Galactic.

Jim’s got a pretty interesting list of adventures to his own credit including driving an Indy car 200mph+ around the oval (it’s a lot harder than a straight line). He has a book called “To the Limits” on adventure and business that’s a little harder to find – but it still on Amazon.

As promised, I’ll share with you how I got kicked off Necker Island.

But first to get you up to speed on my adventures – we’ll talk about Las Vegas first. That was for our last Maverick Business Adventures™ experience – what we called “Airborne Action” since everything took place in the air. It was a whirlwind of experiences from the quintessential Vegas nightlife to real work getting done to a ton of fun and celebrity guests.

After the first day’s work sessions we hung out for dinner & drinks with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize foundation and Rick Searfoss, former NASA astronaut. Rick gave us a little glimpse into what we’d be experiencing the next day during our Zero-Gravity flight.

It didn’t quite turn out that way and I’ll tell you about that in a second. But first, the next morning was jumpstarted by a guest presentation by Peter Diamandis on innovation. Peter’s X-Prize Foundation was the $10M prize established for a ship that could go into space successfully 2 times in 2 weeks. Burt Rutan’s SpaceShip One did that in 2004 and then Virgin licensed their technology. No doubt, Peter is truly a visionary and largely responsible as the driving force for the private space industry coming into play today. (As you guys know already, I’m #144 on Virgin Galactic and that’s a direct result of the X Prize.)

The X-Prize has now grown to have prizes in all sorts of competitions from the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics to the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and beyond.

He even gave us insights into how he’s getting an entire new sport started with his Rocket Racing League. (Look it up – it’s very cool!) Most of the comments Maverick members had were around thinking bigger and Peter gave us permission to do so.

After Peter’s session we all headed out to the Zero-G training facilities to meet Tony Hawk. (Yep, the skateboarding and sports business icon.) Tony shared with us his secrets to success and how he’s built a $500M brand around skateboarding starting from scratch. We also auctioned off 4 autographed decks to support his Tony Hawk Foundation and raised over $10,000.00 in 5 minutes from members, Tim Storm, Mike Filsaime, Jason Abernathy and Buck Rizvi.

After that we all boarded up the bus to head over to our airplane for Zero-G. We literally pulled up to the plane and I heard some of the Zero-G staff cell phones going off. Not good. They pulled me aside to tell me there was a part on the emergency slide that was broken and we weren’t allowed to take off. They weren’t even sure if the part would be here tomorrow or if we could get up in the air the next day. Yikes!

Dejected we got out of our flight suits and made a quick detour to private cabanas at MGM’s newest pool-side party ‘Wet Republic’. (Now as a side note – this is a great marketing example of increasing the transaction value from customers. Vegas was already known for its nightlife and now they are adding consumption during the day with it’s ‘daylife’. It started with “Rehab” at the Hard Rock’s pool on Sunday but now a whole lot of other resorts have got into it from Venetian’s TAO Beach to Mandalay to this newest one, Wet Republic. It’s a total dance club party atmosphere just with a whole lot more sunshine instead of dim lights.

Customers are stepping up for bottle service and private cabanas during the day which translates into new revenues from a previously down time. It’s just like the popular Orange Juice campaign trying to increase consumption by saying Orange Juice wasn’t just for breakfast anymore. Good marketing lesson to consider how you can increase the consumption of your customers.)

Okay back to our plight…

The Zero-G crew worked tirelessly to find us that part and were able to reschedule for the next afternoon. So we headed to dinner that night and then to our private poker party. You can see me at the final table doing my best impression of Phil Laak, poker’s ‘unabomber’.

Trust me, I don’t play poker but I actually did pretty well and got 6th place. Sitting to my left was Kascper Postawski looking amused at my antics. Kacper was the guy who knocked me out with a total bluff and won on the River. I guess I shouldn’t feel that bad since he ended up winning the tourney and later told us he used to play cards semi-professionally.

The next morning we hit Air Combat where each person got to take the controls of their plane and become a jetfighter for a day. Here’s Maverick Member and Elite MasterMind member, Craig Ballantyne on the wing of his plane.

I was up against Mike Geary and he ended up taking me 3-2 because I hit the hard deck and self destructed. Flying was very cool since these planes had such maneuverability and you could pull about 4Gs if you were really pushing it hard. I guess I can feel a little better about being knocked out of the tournament because Kacper ended up hurling inside the plane from the G-forces. Not that I thought that was funny or anything.

Straight from AirCombat we gathered back at Zero-G for Zero Gravity flight. This time we took off without a hitch. Here’s a cool shot of me with my Voodoo PC laptop. (Maybe this will one of my new PR shots.)

Here’s Eben Pagan without his trademark pink shirt – having a good time in Zero-G. (There’s something about this activity that really turns people into little kids again!)

Speaking of little kids – there were 3 of us, Chris Zavadowski, Mike Filsaime and myself, who had already done the Zero-G flight. You’ve probably seen astronauts do the tricks in zero-gravity with water as they float around and gulp it down. Well Zero-G provides you with little water bottles to try that yourself. As you might have guessed it got out of control pretty quickly.

Chris took his entire bottle and simply flung it on me. It was one long stream of water suspended in mid-air until we returned to normal gravity. Of course, I had to get revenge and told our in-air coach, Loretta, I needed several bottles of water. It turned into an all-out water fight with us sitting in huge puddles. Loretta told us she’d never seen the plane this wet except for one other time. And that was for a 7-UP commercial where they planned on getting that wet.

Here’s Chris before he decided to turn into a 6-year old.

And here’s after (a bit drenched):

Then here’s us being scolded by Loretta:

To put on a full Vegas experience, I bought everyone Elvis wigs and sunglasses so here are a few of the members rocking their new look (we had nearly everyone ready with their wigs and glasses until our Zero-G flight got canceled the first day so these are the hard-core flying elvises):

We had a pretty jam-packed schedule since we had to move Zero-G to the afternoon and we headed out to a surprise Scotch tasting dinner with Steve Beal, one of only 7 ‘Masters of Scotch’ in the world.

Mavericks were treated to a full flight of Scotch starting from Johnny Walker Black to one of their rarest, Johnny Walker Blue label. I’ve never had an entire dinner consisting of Scotch so it was a real eye-opening experience. And then to cap off the dinner – every member was given a personally engraved bottle of Johnny Walker Blue in a silk-lined presentation box.

But we weren’t done after dinner since it was Vegas after all…I gathered up a group of about a dozen of us and headed to TAO in the Venetian for our private VIP table. It turned into a real crazy night with me getting home about 6 AM and just in time for 15 minutes of sleep before getting onto the helicopters into the Grand Canyon.

In all the times I’ve been to Vegas – I’ve never made it out into the Grand Canyon so this was very cool. We took Maverick Helicopters (no relation yet) and they are the only helicopter company authorized to fly deeper and further into the Grand Canyon than any other company. And just like in one of the best scenes from “Apocalypse Now” – there was a song track of “The Ride Of The Valkyries playing in the helicopter. (Just no attack formation.)

I took the red-eye home and flew on Virgin America for the first time. They rocked! First Class was pretty cheap – something like $500 and really a lot nicer than our domestic airlines. They just do smart things like actually asking customers what they don’t like about air travel. VA has plugs in the seats so you can plus in your electrical crap like laptops the whole trip. I mean this isn’t rocket science but it makes a big difference. They also will bring out your food whenever you want – not when it’s convenient for them. The whole atmosphere is cool like any Virgin Atlantic, which I’ve flown before. And the reason I bring Virgin up (aside from the marketing lesson of actually listening to customers) is because it leads into my next trip…Necker Island.

Okay now the part about Necker for those of you waiting…

After returning home for about 36 hours I was off to the British Virgin Islands. One of the big things I wanted to try on Necker was kiteboarding. It takes about 3-4 lessons before you can get out of the water. I skipped a few meetings to make sure I could get some good time in to learn.

I can see why people would get hooked on it. Charlie, my instructor, told me he taught Larry Page, from Google had to kiteboard on Necker. And now he’s big time into it. Unfortunately, my big kiteboarding expedition was slightly a bust. By the time I moved into the water for my lesson on getting up – the wind pretty much died down. And then for the next 2 days we didn’t have enough wind to go out. Oh well, now I have a big reason to return.

The place is absolutely gorgeous and I can understand why Branson lives there year-round now. The story of how he bought the place for £180,000 is a great lesson in negotiation and tenacity. It’s in his “Losing My Virginity” book and worth checking out. Plus, once he bought it – he had to develop it within 5 years or else ownership went back to the government. So this become a reason for him to work hard on Virgin Records to make more money. And as the Rolling Stones or Janet Jackson had a hit – he’d build a new piece of the island.

Here are a few pictures showing some of the different looks to the island (click to enlarge):

Here’s some video from the island showing how we got served sushi in the pool. That was awesome! You literally jumped into the pool to have sushi with this huge boat of fish floating around. Very cool!

I was excited that Richard hung out with us for many lunches and dinners. In fact, one day at lunch he told me to get a 4-hand massage at the spa and I wasn’t disappointed. The 4-hand massage is a massage with both the masseuses at the same time.

Getting Kicked Off Necker…

One of the stand-out moments of the trip had to be getting a letter handed to me at dinner my final night by the staff. I asked, “Is this my bill?”

“No,” she replied, “You get those in the morning”. Hmmmm….

Here’s the note I got:

I thought it was a joke. The night before we had found the guest room roster and room list and called Joe Polish, Dean and a bunch of other people at 1 or 2 AM to tell them to come back to the bar and drink. Then we sorta ‘updated’ their food preferences inside the kitchen but otherwise we didn’t do anything *that* crazy.

Joe grabbed the letter and then gave to Branson. Richard said, “Well…the manager is a bit serious sometimes but I’ll see what I can do to sort it out. Don’t you worry. Just enjoy your dinner.”

And just for that moment I gulped and thought it might be true until Richard blurted out it was a joke 30 seconds later. Here’s a photo we took depicted me being kicked off the island.

I don’t think I can quite express how awesome the entire experience was. On my final day we had a chance to brainstorm with the head of Virgin Unite about how to get more entrepreneurs involved in their charitable efforts. I have a call with them this week so I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about this. Plus, I’m looking into how we can get involved with the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in Africa. It’s really exciting stuff but I’m glad to be home for a few weeks to chill out with the family.

As some of you know I was just in Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson’s private island. I came as a guest of my friends, Joe Polish and Dean Graziosi.

They had developed a relationship with Richard and set up for us to hold a brainstorming session with Virgin’s charity foundation – VirginUnite. Branson has always been one of my business heroes from the way he lives his life to the fullest to his business success. I’ve been fortunate to have the chance to meet many of my mentors/heroes and most of them left me feeling uninspired. With Branson – it’s the opposite. I’m even more impressed and inspired.

I met Richard for a few moments at SpaceShip Two’s unveiling but this was exponentially different. Being with him and about a dozen other guests created a cool, intimate environment for real conversation and interaction. Here’s a quick pic of us at the first night’s dinner BBQ on the beach:

And here’s my view every morning on Necker:

I’ll be sharing some more pictures, videos, observations and insights shortly. (A little teaser – I’ll tell you about how I got kicked off Necker Island in the next post.)

Getting back to it, I was flying on the way home from Necker and I was so inspired with our time there that I started creating my rules for successful entrepreneurial endeavors. I thought it would be top 10 list but I kept writing and writing in my journal and it came to 34 tenets that I’m calling…

34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs

1. It’s got to be a BIG idea that you, your team and your customers can “get” in seconds.
2. Strive to create 10x – 100x in value for any price you charge. Your rewards are always proportionate to the value you provide.
3. You must charge a premium price so you have a large margin to provide an extraordinary value & experience.
4. Provide a ‘Reason Why’ customers should do business with you and pay you a premium.
5. Get paid before you deliver your product or service. And when possible figure out how to create recurring revenue from transactions.
6. You get to make the rules for your business. Don’t let industry norms dictate how you’ll work or who you’ll work with.
7. Create your business around your life instead of settling for your life around your business.
8. Consistently and constantly force yourself to focus on the ‘critically few’ proactive activities that produce exponential results. Don’t get caught up in minutia & bullshit.
9. Seek to minimize start-up risk but have maximum upside potential.
10. Get your idea out there as fast as possible even if it’s not quite ready by setting must-hit deadlines. Let the market tell you if you have a winner or not. If not – move on and fail forward fast! If it’s got potential – then you can make it better.
11. Find partners and team members who are strong where you are weak and appreciate being paid on results.
12. Your reputation always counts. Honor your obligations and agreements.
13. Never, ever get paid based on hours worked.
14. Leverage your marketing activities exponentially by using direct response methods and testing.
15. Measure and track your marketing so you know what’s working and what’s not.
16. Bootstrap. Having too much capital leads to incredible waste and doing things using conventional means.
17. Your partners and employees actions are their true core – not what they tell you.
18. Keep asking the right questions to come up with innovative solutions. “How?”, “What?”, “Where?”, “Who Else?” & “Why?” open up possibilities.
19. You’ll never have a perfect business and you’ll never be totally “done”. Deal with it.
20. Focus most of your time on your core strengths and less time working in areas you suck at.
21. Make it easier for customers to buy by taking away the risk of the transaction by guaranteeing what you do in a meaningful way.
22. Always have something else to sell (via upsell, cross-sell, follow-up offer, etc) whenever a transaction takes place. The hottest buyer in the world is one who just gave you money.
23. Always go back to your existing customers with exceptional offers and reasons they should give you more money. It’s 5x less expensive to sell to happy customers than go find new ones.
24. However the flip side is – fire your most annoying customers. They’ll be replaced with the right ones.
25. The marketplace and competitors are always trying to beat you down to a commodity. Don’t let that happen.
26. Develop and build your business’s personality that stands out. People want to buy from people.
27. Create your own category so you can be first in the consumer’s mind.
28. Go the opposite direction competitors are headed – you’ll stand out.
29. Mastermind and collaborate with other smart entrepreneurs if they have futures that are even bigger than their present.
30. Celebrate your victories. It’s too easy to simply move on to your next goal without acknowledging and appreciating the ‘win’.
31. Make your business AND doing business with you FUN!
32. Do the unexpected before and after anything goes wrong so customers are compelled to ‘share your story’.
33. Get a life! Business and making money are important but your life is the sum total of your experiences. Go out and create experiences & adventures so you can come back renewed and inspired for your next big thing.
34. Give back! Commit to taking a % of your company’s sales and make a difference. It this becomes a habit like brushing your teeth pretty soon the big checks with lots of zeros won’t be scary to write. If you think you can’t donate a percentage of your sales simply raise your price.

Side note on #34: Now after meeting and brainstorming with the team at VirginUnite – I’d strongly recommend them as a candidate because of the way they are creating entrepreneurial solutions to significant problems and a force for good. As entrepreneurs we know we can foster innovative solutions to business problems – this is the same force being tapped for the greater good. I’m really excited about some of their projects and what us, as entrepreneurs, can do together. You’ll be hearing more about this soon.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these.

* Update 11/2/08 *

From the incredible feedback of people asking to translate the list, post to their site, send to their list, etc – I decided to turn the 34 rules into a full blown “real” book, expanding each rule into its own section with examples and more insights. Plus, I had best-selling author, Mike Litman, interview me to go even deeper into the 34 rules.

* * And I want to give you a copy of it and a bunch of other goodies! * *

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since I got back home since I was away for most of January between Vegas, NYC and then Baja, Mexico for my premiere Baja Experience for Maverick Business Adventures™. I feel like I’ve been waiting for the trip forever and it went even better than I could have imagined. Members were blown away by the adventure part, the business and giving back all rolled into one. I’m even more excited about this idea now that we got our first trip under our belt.

Here’s a quick 4-minute highlights video, Perry Lawrence, put together:

Ultimate Baja Experience from Yanik Silver on Vimeo.

A couple fun stories…The Legend of Phil “Cliff” Chapman:

The tale begins with an all-day and evening drive from La Paz to San Juanico (the longest drive ever made by any Wide Open Baja customer group). We arrived at Juan y Juan’s in Scorpion Bay after dark (important fact as you’ll see in a moment). The town (if you want to call it that) is pretty isolated and extremely hard to get to but they are famous for the 2nd longest surf break. The entire town was excited by our arrival and the local taco stand was closed all day to prep for our dinner and party.

After our fill of tacos and margaritas – we went back to our accommodations at Juan Y Juan’s. Jesse James had built a pretty raging fire and about a half dozen of us just hung out to talk and drink a little.

Phil Chapman, the Ad-words expert, was down there and the fire crackled and shot flames towards him. Our hero jumped out of the way and ended up rolling. He missed his footing and ended up falling all the way down. (Remember it was dark out when we drove in and nobody knew there was a steep ledge beyond our beach.) Everyone started laughing because we had no idea how far it was. Good thing Phil was ok and he even managed to save his margarita glass. The first words out of my mouth were, “You signed the waiver!”

I believe an illustration would be helpful here:

We started calling incidents like this “Maverick Moments”…

Now part of the Maverick Business Adventures is learning and being around business icons and celebrities. Our first guest was Jesse James, from Monster Garage and West Coast Choppers. He hung out with us for 2 days and was just super cool guy…plus very sharp. During our confidential business sessions he gave us a lot of candid insight into his $200M business. He also sat in on one of the sessions I ran about “Instant Leverage Points in Your Business” and he told us on tape that he probably learned more than any of the members who attended. Pretty neat.

Here’s a quick pic of me and Jesse getting ready to tear it up in the monster Baja racer belonging to the owner of Wide Open Baja.

Here are a few more Maverick Moments…

If you watch the video closely you’ll see a car stuck in the red mud, spinning wheels, with about 5 of us pushing. That was one of my MasterMind members, Mike Dillard and his girlfriend, Stephanie, managed to get axle-deep in some sort of super deep mud/clay mixture. Another car couldn’t pull them out because they’d get stuck too. We pushed them out and in the process got caked (head to toe) in mud. One of the members, a former college football player, reverted back to the grid iron and rubbed mud under his eyes so he’d be ready to go into battle against the dune buggy!

Also, on the highlights video you saw some cool whale footage. Our final stop before flying back to Cabo was San Ignacio. This is one of the best places for getting up close and personal with the Gray Whales when they come into the shallow lagoons to breed. In the brochure they show a family basically hugging the whale and I wanted to touch the whale. I asked our guide how often people touch whales and he replied, “Not so much.” I was determined. Everyone on my boat was cold and wet (the ride out was about 45 minutes). Mike Filsaime, somehow picked the wrong seat because he was just soaking wet by the time we arrived around the whales.

They were magnificent and they were almost within arm’s reach – but not quite. I was adamant. I told our guide that he would get a $100 tip if I touched a whale. No dice. We stayed out another 25 minutes longer than our 2 other boats but no whale touching. That became the running joke – and if you paused the picture of me sitting with 3-time Super Bowl champ, Darren Woodson, you’d see the flip chart. On the left was an arrow pointing to me “Did not touch the whale” and to the right was “3-time Super Bowl Champ” with an arrow to Darren. I forgot it was there for the entire session we held with Darren.

Here’s another one…

I had 2 reporters who tagged along on the trip to write about it. Brad, the reporter from Outside Go magazine, decided he wanted to ride with me the final day. Our cars travel about 1 mile apart so the dust from the road doesn’t interfere with the driving. And each car is supposed to call to the one behind it any obstacles or turns, etc using the GPS mile marker.

Well I guess car #3 missed one because I was flying down the road about 65 or 70mph when a hard right turn came out of nowhere. I slammed on the brakes and dropped the car into 2nd but it was too late. We jumped an embankment and went into a field with massive boulders. I thought we might possibly flip. I got us back to the road and checked out the damage. I need to get a photo from someone but the rim had been bent in about 8” and completely broke off. I was pretty proud of my handiwork and gave Brad something else to mention in his article. [Side note: Should hopefully be appearing in the April issue of Outside Go.]

I’m extremely excited and encouraged by this first trip because members walked away with tons of memories, business breakthroughs and even helped the next generation of Maverick entrepreneurs with our ‘Young Entrepreneurs’ learning session that took place the final morning. I can’t wait to get some of that video posted because it was a group of college students in Mexico and the very first words out of my mouth were – “Everything I learned in college was Bullshit.” The translator looked at me like I was crazy and told her to please translate…and the kids got a kick out of it.

Then to cap off the trip we had a “Big Game” party hosted by 3-time Super Bowl champion, Darren Woodson. It was pretty cool to watch this huge upset with someone who had been there done that. You might have seen Darren lately on ESPN doing the NFL Live show and he literally flew in straight from Arizona to be with us in Cabo. Here’s quick pic of me doing my worst ever Heisman impression trying to block out Maverick Member, Mike Lally.

I’ll probably post up some more stuff here as I get more pics and video finished.

If you want in on the business building and shenanigans- the 2nd trip is now locked in. May 15-18, 2008 in Las Vegas for a Zero G flight, Aerial combat in a jet fighter , Helicopter inside the Grand Canyon, dinner with Peter Diamandis (founder of the X prize) and much more still shaping up. Get a sneak peak at www.BusinessAdventures.com

One more interesting incident from Baja…As we were sitting around having a few beers at Scorpion Bay (one of the most remote locations in the world) the conversation turned to my friend Mike Hill. The guys sitting around with me were some of the Internet’s top marketers…names you know and many others you don’t know who are bringing in 6-figures/month & more.

In confidence, Mike started talking about a hidden backdoor method for getting your site seen in front of the most eager, excited and motivated prospects you could want. It’s called “CPV” or Cost Per View.

Here’s how it works…

Imagine, being able to walk up to somebody at Wal-Mart who has a t-shirt in his hands and say, “Do you know what? That t-shirt in your hands that you’re about to pay $12.00 for? I’ll sell you one for $9.00.” That’s how powerful CPV Marketing is. You literally can grab the customer at any point in any process and make them your own customer.

Maybe you advertise on Google for an extremely competitive, very high-priced keyword. You’re going to pay anywhere between $5.00 to $10 per click

If you were advertising in a CPV platform, you could pay probably anywhere from $0.03 to $0.05 per click, instead of $5.00 to $10. You can literally specify inside that CPV platform which keywords or which competitor’s site triggers your URL to be pulled up OVER your competitor.

This is huge and only a tiny group of people have capitalized on this so far!

Want to know more?

I got Mike to come out of hiding and get on stage for the first time since 1999 for my upcoming Underground® 4 seminar next month. It’s already nearing a sell-out! If you want to attend – I strongly suggest registering immediately.

With the New Year – I wanted to show you the way I plan my year. This is some very candid insight into my process and it’s probably a little different than what you’ve seen before.

This is a segment from a private webinar I hosted all about the Ulitmate Internet Lifestyle for “Yanik Silver’s Ultimate A-to-Z Information Marketing brain-in-a-box” customers.  (Right now there are a few remaining copies left at $1000.00 off!)

Watch the video of the webinar by clicking the link (not the picture). This is 19+ minutes of solid info to create a major breakthrough this year. Let me know if it helps and what you think by posting  a comment. (Note: it’ll take a few moments before the slides show up.)

Click Here To View Webinar

Update #1: Maverick Business Adventures has been the in the news quite a bit lately. 2 days ago I was on Fox Business channel with Carl Banks (NY Giants 2-time Super Bowl winner) and we had a feature story in the Boston Globe on Monday. You can watch the TV clip – I think I look like a deer in headlights during the first 15 seconds.

Update #2: “Moonlighting on the Internet” was hovering at about #800 without much promo on Amazon and now it’s around #2000. Buy a 1 book (or 18) It’s the best $15 bucks you can spend! Promise.

‘I truly think this time will go down as the ‘golden age’ of entrepreneurship.

It’s never been easier or cheaper to simply go at it part-time. It just takes a semi-decent idea, a few bucks and an Internet connection to try your hand at making money online.

I may be biased but I think that this is the best business in the world. I just don’t know any other business with such incredible profit potential and such low time and money requirements…and most importantly, one which can be done part-time. I stared with my online business with an idea at 3 o’clock in the morning and an $1,800 investment (I overpaid). Today it brings in millions. I don’t really know too many other businesses you could start on a shoestring with such profit potential.

Fact is, it’s way easier today…

Yes, there’s more competition but there’s also more opportunity. People have become way more comfortable buying and interacting online. It’s no big deal to pop-in your MasterCard and order whatever you want now without wondering if your credit card number will get stolen. Plus, you’ve got tons of simple off-the-shelf tools, people willing to help you (if you avoid the B.S. artists) and models to follow.

With 2008 just around the corner – what are you going to get out and get done? It doesn’t have to be something you make millions off – you can start small and simply “Moonlight Online” like I started. Why not make a couple hundred dollars extra each month and let your online venture pay for your mortgage, car payment or even your passion or hobby.

I truly think everyone has at least one moneymaking online idea in their head.

For me, most of my ideas come in the way of selling information and so many people are totally overlooking the expertise they could be profiting from. Here’s a perfect example when I went to one of my best friend’s John’s wedding a few months ago in Chicago. On the flight over I was sitting next to a stewardess and we started talking a little bit. In the course of 15 minutes she rattled off 5 different ventures that could easily be making her more money than her airline job without flying all over the place.

I was attending the wedding solo because Zoe was only 2 weeks old. Of all topics we started talking about breastfeeding. Ok so I’m definitely not an expert in this topic – but I nodded and asked her questions because Missy was having a bit of a hard time with it. This lady told me all her friends called her for nursing advice and that she had some amazing techniques for producing milk, nursing without pain, etc.

In my mind the light bulb goes off that this is a perfect information product. When a prospect is in pain – you can easily sell them your solution. It would take her no time to record a few conversations with friends and write up a tiny report on what she knows. She could have been selling it online in a few weeks but I know that would never happen. She could even throw up a video on YouTube (PG-rated) and get some great SEO placement pretty quickly to drive traffic. I mentioned all these things to her but she just shrugged it off. Whatever. Maybe the notion of selling online seems to hard to people but there’s not that much to it. When you break it all down there are 3 parts.

Part One – Your Site that sells
Part Two – Having a “product” people want (not need)
Part Three – Getting traffic to your site
(And I guess to get a little more advanced – Part Four – follow-up on customers and opt-ins)

You can get lost in trying a gazillion online strategies that may or may not work – but when you think of the barebones basics – this is all you need.

I mentioned my friend John’s wedding – you can actually see a video of him and his new wife, Lillian. If you watch the video it’s pretty damn funny because Lillian is from Chicago and my friend John is a die-hard Redskins fan. (I was in his wedding and you might hear me laughing in the background.) John and I have been friends for 10+ years and he still doesn’t quite know what I do – but he does want to start his own sideline online business. John parlayed his passion for sports (especially football) and created a pretty cool new site called “SportsFananza”. Check it out.

Here’s how John describes it: SportsFananza is an online networking site for the sports fan’s voice. It is time for us sports fans to have an outlet to voice opinions and ideas to the general manager or owner of our favorite team (or the team you hate) or other fans. You can also share your game day experience with everyone.

John’s making some progress and gained some momentum. I told him originally it might be too hard to get only video content so he added a “Tailgate” section where members can text in their thoughts or do it online. He submitted it to Killerstartups.com and got a lot of people voting it up – I think he’s on page #3 for most-votes for the year. (Actually go ahead and vote it up or even better submit a video or become a member of his site if you’re into sports!)

Will John’s site get bought out by Google for $1.65B like YouTube? I don’t think so! But it’s a good niche with rabid fans and if he can get enough traction it could get picked up for a nice ROI. Who knows? I give him a lot of credit for getting out there and doing something instead of just throwing out ideas like my stewardess seat-mate.

That’s the great thing about the Internet today – for less than a nice steak dinner and a night on the town you could throw up your online venture and see what happens. I mean why not? What’s the worst that happens – you lose a few extra hours of watching “American Idol”? Or maybe you miss a few hours of sleep. Who frickin’ cares? You could be building an asset, or “online oil well” as I call them, that pays you forever. Or it might totally suck and you move on and say “NEXT”! But at least you gave it a go!

Now if you need help getting started – this might be for you…

I just got copies of my first “real” book “Moonlighting on the Internet” published by Entrepreneur Press. I’m really excited to get it out there and help even more people start their online adventure. It was supposed to be available in January (and our site for the book isn’t even ready yet – oops!) but it looks like BN.cm and Amazon.com both are showing inventory in stock. I have no idea if that’s a fluke or if it’s correct. [Update: It is available now]

The book is a nice step-by-step guide on 5 realistic ways to make an extra $500 – $5000+ per month online. I cover information marketing and then I’ve got 4 other big-time experts to share their insights with Sydney Johnston on eBay, Darren Rowse on Blogging, Andy Jenkins on Yahoo! Stores (eCommerce) and Rosalind Gardner on Affiliate marketing. And there are tons of real-world stories of regular people making an extra paycheck online each month. Good stuff and you can’t go wrong for $20 bucks.

Update: Here’s a cool little video from Robert Plank – just one of the 40+ real-world success stories in the book:

Remember it’s that time of the year for holiday gifts too! So if you’re looking for a nice heartfelt holiday gift for the freeloading relative you have to support – get them a copy of my book so they can start pulling their own weight finally.

I just got my new business cards for Maverick Business Adventures and I thought you guys would like to see this for some ideas yourself. I’ve had the company that does these cards bookmarked for 4+ years and have been waiting for a project to create an ultra-cool metal business card.

Check this out…

And here’s the backside…

On the back you can see the etching there and the spots that are cut-out a little better in this picture. The “a” (or hand) in “Maverick” and then “business adventures” is cut-out. They are from MetalCards.com and they cost a whole lot more than regular cards but they definitely make a big impact. The cards are really made out of metal (.010 stainless steel). When I re-order I will go for more rounded corners (my card is pretty sharp!) and I might go a tiny bit thicker. I have the American Express Centurion card and that’s a nice thickness…but maybe too thick for a business card.

Those guys did an awesome job and would be worth checking out (I don’t get anything for the recommendation). 

If you have a business that needs to get noticed – I really think it’d be damn hard to toss one of these cards. I normally don’t even have cards since I’m an “online dude” but I figured I’ll test these out and see what happens. (When looking for ideas I saw Steve Wozniak has a metal card too. So I guess I’ll settle for 2nd coolest card)

[Side note: For those of you following Maverick Business Adventures start-up there's an "online trip & membership preview" on Thursday, Oct 25th at 3 PM, ET. Here are details]