Today's Adventure in the Biz Opp Jungle:
'In which Charlie wonders again about the lack of ice cream men... and offers up 3 inspirational ice-cream biz opp stories to inspire you to go out there and MAKE SOME MONEY.'
Hi,
Let me transport you in my TARDIS to last summer...
(You may remember me ranting about this in an email called 'Is that a blog in your toilet?'. See:
http://www.bizoppjungle.com/letters/e10052006.html )
I was sitting on my own in London Fields on a baking hot Tuesday afternoon.
Suddenly I got very thirsty. But there was nobody in the entire park to sell me cold water, beer, soft drinks, or ice cream.
Strange... a park full of people on a blisteringly hot spring day... and no ice cream van.
I'd have paid DOUBLE for an ice cold drink. But with nobody to help me, I had to leave the park and walk 10 minutes to the Costcutter instead.
What happened to all those gangster Ice Cream men you hear about in the press - the ones who kill each other for their patch?
Why weren't they selling ME ice cream?
Then I thought, 'Charlie, why aren't YOU taking advantage?"
Of course, I didn't take advantage. I got on with my Adventures in the Biz Opp Jungle. But since then, I've wondered whether I should have looked into it further.
Perhaps I'd be a millionaire by now.
Because it seems that ice cream men have some kind of mystical edge when it comes to making very large sums of money... very quickly...
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Even a 12 year old can do it
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Joseph Semprevivo is a 34-year old millionaire from New Mexico in the USA.
He's CEO of "Joseph's Lite Cookies", a company with a range of sugar-free and fat-free food products. His projected sales this year are over $100 million
Want to know how he started?
As a diabetic 12-year-old (yep, that's TWELVE) he got his father to help him create a sugar-free ice cream they could use in his parents' restaurant. This way he could eat it without harming his health.
Within three years, Semprevivo's product was in 197 grocery stores and ice cream shops in New Mexico.
He eventually left behind the ice cream for a general range of sugar-free baked stuff that has now made him massively rich at the age of 34.
Or what about the author of 'The Idiot's Guide to Fixed Odds Betting'...?
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Yes, he also knew his way around a 99
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Matt Shaw was also an ice cream man. For years his wife put up with him while he followed countless moneymaking strategies in his spare time.
He says:
"I tried 'miracle' systems that claim to turn £10 into £289,000 in three days... I tried learning the 'secrets' of property millionaires... I tried spread betting... I listened to gambling experts... I did it ALL."
Something in the raspberry ripple must have kept in plugging on. Because he eventually found a fixed odds system that worked for him.
Soon he'd made enough money to leave his job.
And once he'd proven his mettle, he began writing fixed- odds books and tipping services for Agora Lifestyles.
Finally, to cap it all...
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Even my old Dragon's Den favourite
started out in ice cream
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Last week I ploughed through Duncan Bannatyne's book 'Anyone Can Do It'.
You'll probably know this surly Glaswegian multi- millionaire from TV's Dragon's Den.
Out of any business book I've read so far, this has to be the most inspiring. Not because Bannatyne has any special skills or genius business ideas... not because he has any 'secret system' or 'USP'...
But because he HASN'T.
This is what he says:
"Making £100 million is so easy anyone can do it. Few people believe me when I say that, but with this book I hope to show that it's true. Even people with no family connections, no money and no education can do it: I know because I did.
"I had an incredibly poor childhood, I left school without a single qualification and spent my twenties doing a string of dead-end jobs. It wasn't until I hit thirty that I took my career seriously, and by thirty five I was seriously rich.
"Contrary to the advice in any business book I've ever read, I made my money without sector expertise, contacts or capital. I never had a USP, never had 'first mover advantage' or invented anything."
After a tough working class upbringing, Bannatyne joined the Navy, where he was dishonourably discharged for attempting to throw an officer overboard.
He spent his twenties dosing around in Jersey, and then moved to the North East, where he and his wife scrimped and saved to get a mortgage.
When he had enough spare cash, he bought a cheap ice cream van from a car auction.
He found a source of very cheap ice cream that he could make a hefty profit on... and began selling.
Instead of soft scoop, he went for hard scoop, but used it to his advantage. He designed each ice cream with a different face, made from the sauce.
The kids loved it. Soon he had a popular local brand. So he bought another ice cream van... then another... then another.
Soon his fleet was making a turnover of £300,000 a year, of which £60,000 was his salary... about the equivalent of £120,000 today.
And that's how he started.
"I didn't even do anything unique or that someone else couldn't have done," he writes. "What I did have was a Yellow Pages and some determination - and that's all it takes."
Inspiring stuff.
If you're feeling like you're up against it right now, and can't find the will to keep trying for your dreams, then I thoroughly recommend his book.
It's in hardback only right now, but if you wait 'til the 18th of May you can get it in paperback from Amazon:
http://snipurl.com/Bannatyne_on_Amazon
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Raspberry sauce on that?
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That's just three ice cream tycoons I've come across. I'm sure Ben and Jerry have a story, too.
But my point isn't that you should run out and buy an ice cream van...
It's more that there are some good basic, practical businesses out there that really do work, if you're prepared to get your hands dirty at the beginning.
And ANYONE can do it.
In fact, I've got a pretty good one I want to tell you about, but I need to do a bit of negotiation with someone first... so if you can hang on until next week...
Yes?
Great.
Later alligator
Charlie Wright
The Biz Opp Jungle
PS: I've just thought of a truly terrible joke:
Q. "Why should you never trust an ice cream seller?"
A. "Because he's a cone man."
Erm. Really sorry about that.